Larissa Laskin Movies
Auburn-haired actress Larissa Laskin specialized in polished types with more than a passing veneer of class and sophistication and frequent professional aspirations. She made her first appearances during the early '90s, on such syndicated series programs as My Secret Identity and Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, and by the tail end of that decade she was a mainstay in telemovies including Mario Puzo's The Last Don II (1998) and Ricky Nelson: Original Teen Idol. Laskin took one of her earliest big-screen bows as a physician in the A-list feature John Q. (2002), starring Denzel Washington and James Woods; at about the same time, she also frequently appeared in popular TV series including Body and Soul (as a cast regular) and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (as a guest star). Laskin also participated in the critically derided and stillborn sketch comedy revue The Onion Movie (2005), and signed for a small supporting role opposite Stephen Dillane and Rosamund Pike in the psychological drama Fugitive Pieces. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide- 2002
The battle between "real" and holistic medicine was dramatized on a weekly, 60-minute basis in this PAX Network series. Peter Strauss headed the cast as Dr. Isaac Braun, eminent head surgeon at a prestigious Ohio hospital. Braun's rigid, rules-are-rules approach to medicine is spectacularly challenged by a new member of the staff: Dr. Rachel Griffin (Larissa Laskin), who in addition to being a stalwart advocate of "alternative" healing processes was once Braun's most brilliant protégée. Scheduled to run for 13 weeks (with the option for more episodes if the producers were able to stretch their premise past the first season), Body and Soul premiered September 16, 2002. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Strauss, Larissa Laskin, (more)
- 2002
An octogenarian woman, living in squalor surrounded by cats, is found stabbed to death in her decaying house. Grissom (Gil Gerard) and Catherine (Marg Helgenberger) have quite an aromatic time investigating this particular homicide. Meanwhile, two other CSI members, Nick (George Eads) and Sara (Jorja Fox), examine the evidence in a car bombing that may have been pulled off to cover up an earlier killing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 2001
This six-part Canadian TV anthology (actually telecast in three parts) was founded on the theme of human frailty. The stories, largely based on famous literary works, were linked together by the activities of documentary filmmaker George (Ken Finkelman, who also wrote and directed the series). Individual episode included "The Body", a saga of public embarrassment based on a story by Italo Calvino; "Disasters", based on an Orhan Pamuk story about the public's fascination with spectacular tragedies; "Evil", inspired by Maggie O'Kane's article on the war in Kosovo; "Celebrity", a fable wherein Jesus returned in the 21st century; and "Chaos and Order", in which a modern-day film crew found itself in the middle of an ancient Japanese legend. The series concluded with "The Award", a self-revelatory piece about hero George's own neuroses. Foreign Objects was originally seen from September 24 to 26, 2001. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ken Finkleman, Colm Feore, (more)
Author Anne Michaels's poetic novel comes to the screen courtesy of director Jeremy Podeswa in this period drama concerning a Holocaust survivor who remains eternally haunted by the uncertain fate of his beloved sister. Athos (Rade Sherbedgia) is an archeologist conducting a dig in Nazi-occupied Poland. When Athos discovers a seven-year-old boy named Jakob (Robbie Kay) hiding near the work site, he smuggles the frightened boy back to Greece and promises to shelter him when the Nazis come knocking there as well. Having previously witnessed the brutal massacre of his family at the hands of Hitler's henchmen, Jakob longs to find out what fate befell his sister, Bella (Nina Dobrev) -- who wasn't executed with the majority of his other relatives but subsequently disappeared without a trace. After the war, Athos and Jakob emigrate to Toronto in hopes of starting a new life. But even after all these years, Jakob (Stephen Dillane) can't seem to shake the grief of losing his family and not knowing what ever became of Bella. Later, when Jakob marries the radiant Alex (Rosamund Pike), the bright-eyed beauty does her best to illuminate the dark corners within her husband's soul. To maintain one's connection to ghosts requires a certain shunning of the living, however, and only when Jakob discovers the strength to let go of his painful past will he finally be able to move forward into the future. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stephen Dillane, Rade Sherbedgia, (more)
A national health care crisis in the United States yields this tense drama from screenwriter James Kearns and director Nick Cassavetes, who experienced a real-life dilemma with his daughter's congenital heart disease that mirrors the one in this film. Denzel Washington stars as John Q. Archibald, a factory worker facing financial hardship as a result of reduced hours in his workplace. When his young son, Michael (Daniel E. Smith), is stricken during a baseball game, John and his wife, Denise (Kimberly Elise), discover that their child is in need of an emergency heart transplant. Although the Archibalds have health insurance, they are informed by hospital administrator Rebecca Payne (Anne Heche) that their policy doesn't cover such an expensive procedure. Unable to raise the money himself, John persuades the hospital's compassionate cardiac surgeon, Dr. Raymond Turner (James Woods), to waive his lofty fee, but is still left with too much of a financial burden to bear. With no recourse but to take his son home to die, John snaps and holds the staff and patients of the hospital's emergency room hostage at gunpoint. John is soon a media hero, the focus of intense news coverage, even as police chief Gus Monroe (Ray Liotta) and hostage negotiator Frank Grimes (Robert Duvall) try to resolve the situation before it leads to bloodshed. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Denzel Washington, Robert Duvall, (more)
- 2005
In this sequel to the 2003 made-for-cable Sex & the Single Mom, divorced lawyer Jess Gradwell (Gail O'Grady) is confronted with the consequences of her brief fling with heart surgeon Alex Lofton (Grant Show) three years earlier when she finds that she is the mother of a toddler named Jake (Charlie Sperandeo). It isn't long before Alex himself comes back into Jess' life, initially unaware that he's a father but willing to pick up where he left off when he finds out. Trouble is, Jess is currently engaged to another lawyer (the obligatory "Ralph Bellamy" character in these romantic comedies). Meanwhile, Jess' 18-year-old daughter Sara (Chelsea Hobbs), who'd managed to escaped unsullied from her romance with a neighbor kid in the earlier film, has developed a yen for a scruffy photographer. Best line: "Virginity is not all it's cracked up to be." More Sex & the Single Mom first aired February 7, 2005 on Lifetime. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1999
The life and career of Ricky Nelson--from awkward kiddie TV star to teenaged singing idol to "young hasbeen"--is adequately encapsulated in this made-for-cable movie, one of several celebrity biopics produced for VH-1. Told in flashback as Ricky Nelson (Gregory Calpakis) recounts his experiences to a worshiping fan in the last hours before the 1985 air crash that would take his life, the story begins around 1952, as the adolescent Ricky is recruited by his bandleader-producer father Ozzie Nelson (Jamey Sheridan) to play "himself" on the movie and TV version of the popular radio series The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Anxious to crawl out from under the shadow of his dictatorial father Ozzie, his vocalist mom Harriet (Sara Botsford) and his marginally more talented older brother David (Anthony Lemke), the 16-year-old Ricky begs for a chance to sing on the family's series. The wildly enthusiastic audience response to Ricky's warblings prompt Ozzie to aggressive promote Ricky's musical career, but ultimately Ricky breaks loose from the family's influence to strike out on his own. Alas, after several years at the top, Ricky's career and fan following plummets, before he has reached his 30th birthday he is grasping at straws by performing at county fairs and trade shows. Making matters worse is his unhappy marriage to Kris Harmon (depicted as something of a conniving opportunist by Anne Openshaw) and his ever-increasing dependence upon drugs. Astonishingly, the film never allows us to hear Ricky perform "Garden Party", the song that enabled him to make a spectacular comeback. Ricky Nelson: Original Teen Idol first aired on August 22, 1999. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
This four-hour miniseries is a sequel to 1997's top-rated miniseries, The Last Don,based on the novel by Mario Puzo of The Godfather fame, but several critics noted that The Last Don II is unintentionally funny. After Don Clericuzio (Danny Aiello, the pivotal figure in the first series) dies from old age, Clericuzio's enemies come out of the woodwork with bullets and bombs. Clericuzio's nephew Cross De Lena (Jason Gedrick) is peacefully enjoying life in Paris with his attractive wife and his autistic stepdaughter; when the wife has a mail bomb go off in her face, it marks the unleashing of a new wave of violence. Rose Marie Clericuzio (Kirstie Alley), who still bemoans the killing of her son (during the first series), encounters romantic problems with Father Luca Tonarini (Jason Isaacs). With teacher and nanny Josie Cirolia (Patsy Kensit) caring for Cross' autistic stepdaughter, it's not long before the widower and the nanny take an interest in each other. But when will he figure out that she's an FBI agent? Cross's sister is Hollywood studio exec Claudia (Michelle Rene Thomas); she's married to muscular, Austrian-accented actor Dirk (Andrew Jackson), star of an action movie titled The Fumigator. Premiered May 3, 1998 on CBS. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jason Gedrick, Patsy Kensit, (more)
- 2000
Made for television, The Loretta Claiborne Story was the fact-based saga of a mentally and physically handicapped young woman who fulfilled her dream to excel at track and field. Despite the unstinting support of her overworked and underpaid mother, Rita (Tina Lifford), Loretta (Kimberly Elise) is besieged by innumerable obstacles en route to her goal, roadblocks mostly created by callous, indifferent, and downright hostile "normal" people. But with the additional urging of compassionate, no-nonsense social worker Janet McFarland (Camryn Manheim), Loretta not only triumphed at the Special Olympics, but also at the Boston Marathon. Her achievements are ultimately given their highest accolade when Loretta wins the 1996 Arthur Ashe Award for courage. The Loretta Claiborne Story debuted January 16, 2000, as an episode of ABC's Wonderful World of Disney anthology. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
America's most popular satirical newspaper makes the leap from the printed page to the silver screen in this political comedy that explores what happens when journalistic integrity is compromised by corporate sensibility. Onion News anchorman Norm Archer (Len Cariou) is s principled journalist, so when he's asked to bend to the will of his corporate overlords he decides to strike back with a fury unheard of in the world of network news. Nothing is sacred as the creative force behind The Onion unleash an unrelenting barrage of satire on such subjects as pop stars, prisoners, peace talks, and blockbuster action films. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Len Cariou
This series for the Showtime premium cable network was based on the hit 1990 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone. In the year 2070, David Hume (played by Michael Easton) is a futuristic law enforcement officer who discovers that the death of his partner was not accident -- that it was the work of powerful men with a hidden agenda. Hume and his android partner, Ian Farve (Karl Pruner) are determined to find the truth, no matter the risk. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Easton, Karl Pruner, (more)
A wicked satire on mass media, this made-for-TV movie depicts the war initiated between two media moguls intent on buying the same football team. They are able to dig enough skeletons from each other's closets and are determined to continue despite the huge number of victims on both sides. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gabriel Byrne, Ben Kingsley, (more)
