Kevin Goetz Movies

A woman tries to make sense of her relationship with her mother -- who also happens to be her boss and landlady -- in this dramatic comedy. Iris (Laura Linney) has never had an especially warm relationship with her mother Min (Gena Rowlands), but after her husband committed suicide, Iris was emotionally shattered and had nowhere to go, so Min allowed her to move into the family home and help her out with her business, Bluebird Bridals. Eight years later, Iris and her son Lonnie (Emile Hirsch) are still "temporarily" with Min, and they're all still trying to make the best of an often combustible situation. Min finds herself fending off the advances of Mando (Miguel Sandoval), an elderly wedding photographer with romance on his mind, while Iris has to convince Erroll Podubney (Fred Ward) to pay for the wedding being staged for his daughter, whose nuptials have been given a special urgency by her pregnancy. And with no male role models around the house, Lonnie looks for advice from Lud (Lee Tergesen), a gas jockey at a local filling station. Wild Iris was produced for the Showtime premium cable network, where it premiered on August 5, 2001. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Produced for Canadian television in 2000, Touched by a Killer is based on The Rage of the Blue Moon, a play by Richard Vetere. Isabella Hoffman stars as successful but emotionally needy investigative reporter Nikki Barrington, who has come to believe that death row inmate Tyler Nash (James Wilder) has been wrongly accused of murdering a young woman at a bar. Falling in love with the charming Nash, Nikki does everything in her power to free him from prison before it is too late. She manages to succeed in this pursuit, whereupon the grateful Nash pledges eternal devotion. Before long, however, the ex-prisoner's behavior takes an ominous turn for the worse; and by film's end, a terrified Nikki must disprove what she spent the first part of the film "proving." In America, Touched by a Killer was purchased by the Lifetime cable channel, where it was first shown in 2001. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A Canadian-U.S. co-production filmed in 1998, Someone is Watching stars Stefanie Powers as Michelle Dupree, who, with her adopted son, Cory (Mickey Toft), is painfully attempting to pick up the pieces after the pair has been terrorized by an intruder in their home. Hoping to start life anew in a different town, Michelle learns to her chagrin that she cannot entirely escape the traumas of her past, especially when she begins receiving threatening phone calls. Meanwhile, Cory has "adjusted" to the situation by inventing an imaginary friend, a monster residing in his closet. Before long, people start dying horribly -- including Bobby Culley (Martin Neufeld), the disturbed youth whom Michelle has suspected of making those crank calls. Can the killer actually be Cory's mythical "friend" -- or is something even more sinister occurring. Intended for theatrical play, Someone is Watching ended up on Canadian cable television before making its US debut over the Lifetime cable channel on January 10, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide