Kate Luyben Movies
Joel and Ethan Coen take on the classic battle-of-the-sexes screwball comedy with Intolerable Cruelty. George Clooney plays Miles Massey, a high-powered Los Angeles divorce lawyer nearing a midlife crisis . While representing wealthy client Rex Rexroth (Edward Herrmann), Miles meets his match in Rex's gold-digging wife, Marilyn Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones). He's impressed by her similarly heartless ways of using marriage to fuel an expensive lifestyle, but he still defeats her in court. With Marilyn looking to get her revenge and Miles finding himself attracted to her, the two engage in a ruthless romantic pursuit to out-swindle each other. Billy Bob Thornton shows up in a small role as Texas oil tycoon Howard Doyle. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, (more)
Rodney Dangerfield co-wrote and stars in this comedy about a businessman who learns that when it comes to marriage, strength is in numbers. Monte Peterson (Dangerfield) is a real estate developer whose business acumen exceeds his success in romance; after finalizing his third divorce, Monte heads to Utah, where he discovers a small town called Redwood Springs. There, Monte finds an estate for sale which would be an ideal location for a ski resort. While closing the deal, Monte discovers that there are a few strings attached -- Brother Wallace, the late owner, was a member of a little-known religious sect, and his will specifies the new owner must join the church. Monte isn't too thrilled when he's told buying the land would mean giving up tobacco, liquor, and gambling, but he cheers up considerably when he learns that the sect embraces polygamy, and that Brother Wallace's three lovely young widows -- Stephanie (Judy Tylor), Virginia (Kate Luyben), and Emily (Angelika Baran) -- would be happy to marry him. Soon Monte picks up another piece of land next door, and two more wives to go with it, Sarah (Emmanuelle Vaugier) and Megan (Anita Brown). But Preston Gates (John Byner), a crooked real estate man, has been buying up most of the town on behalf of gangster Tony Morano (Andrew Dice Clay), and soon Preston and Tony are trying to figure out a way to take Monte's new resort away from him (and his spouses) before Tony's boss Don Giovanni (Jerry Stiller) gets angry. My Five Wives also stars Molly Shannon, John Pinette, and Rob Deleeuw. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rodney Dangerfield, Andrew Dice Clay, (more)
- 2000
Dark Angel begins its two-season run with a feature-length episode establishing both characters and premise. Back in the year 2009, young Max Guevara (Geneva Locke) escaped from Manticore, a sinister laboratory creating human prototypes with heavy doses of animal DNA. A lab creation herself, Max managed to get away with several of her "siblings" from Manticore's X-5 program. Now it is 2019: The world is in turmoil in the wake of "The Pulse," a seismic phenomenon which destroyed all computer technology. The 19-year-old Max (Jessica Alba) lives in a crime-ridden ghetto with a group of alienated teens and dopers, working as a bicycle messenger by day and a cat burglar by night. (And why not? Max's cat DNA has endowed her with superhuman strength and agility.) She pulls this "double shift" in order to finance an ongoing search for the secrets of her past, and for her genetically engineered brothers and sisters. Enter scruffy cyberjournalist Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly), a crusader against the corruption that has engulfed the government and its police. Persuading Max to join his cause, Logan gives her her first assignment: to guard a federal witness and her daughter. But Max may not be around to help -- not if she is tracked down and captured by Manticore minion Donald Lydecker (John Savage), the obsessed scientist who "created" her. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Jackie Chan has often played a fish out of water, but he's rarely found himself so far upstream as in this comic adventure, in which he puts his fighting skills to the test in the Old West of the 1850s. Lo Fong (Roger Yuan), onetime captain of the Chinese Imperial Guard, has traded upholding the law for smuggling opium. Needing some operating capital, Lo Fong kidnaps the Emperor's daughter, Princess Pei Pei (Lucy Liu), and takes her to America. When the Emperor sends his best men to find her, Chon Wang (Chan), one of the Emperor's less distinguished guards, insists on joining them; he feels at fault for Lo Fong's capturing the Princess, and he wants to make amends. However, while the rescue party scours the West, Chon Wang gets separated from the group and soon becomes lost. When he crosses paths with Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson), a bright but arrogant train robber, the two become unlikely allies. While Shanghai Noon was billed as Jackie Chan's follow-up to Rush Hour, his first successful American-made feature, it was actually filmed in Canada, as was Chan's breakthrough film in America, the Hong Kong-backed Rumble in the Bronx. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, (more)
- 1997
Teenager Carly Astin (Chandra West) is terrified of the new boyfriend brought home by her single mom Diana (Morgan Fairchild) -- so much so that she runs away from her Salt Lake City home and into the clutches of seductive, smooth-talking Brad Winters (Ricky Paull Goldin). Unfortunately, Winters is a "recruiter" for various houses of prostitution, some of them disguised as strip joints. Thus, Carly ends up taking her clothes off for libidinous strangers in a seedy Seattle nightspot, where she manages to remain more or less unsullied thanks to the maternal ministrations of older stripper Adrian (Venus Terzo) -- who is murdered for her troubles! It falls to Carly's mother Diana to come to her senses, shed her slimy beau, and rescue Carly from what used to be labeled "the fate worse than death." Based on a true story, the made-for-TV Into the Arms of Danger: A Moment of Truth Movie debuted February 3, 1997, on NBC. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Morgan Fairchild, Chandra West, (more)
