Lee Anne Harris Movies

A professional poker player whose astounding luck at the table fails to translate into his lonesome love life attempts to win the World Series of Poker while simultaneously earning the affections of a beautiful Las Vegas singer in a high-stakes emotional drama from L.A. Confidential director Curtis Hanson and Munich screenwriter Eric Roth. When his personal problems threaten to distract him from what could be his biggest win ever, seasoned poker pro Huck Cheever (Eric Bana) finds comfort in the company of singer Billie Offer (Drew Barrymore). Upon preparing for the biggest card game in the country, however, Huck soon realizes that his problems have only just begun when he finds that his opponent at the table will be none other than his estranged father, L.C. (Robert Duvall), a poker legend whose mythical reputation makes him a more than worthy opponent for his troubled son. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A former nun moves into the suburban home of her deceased aunt only to make a shocking discovery concerning a gruesome crime committed thirty years ago in director Kevin Conner's twisting tale of murder, matricide, and injustice. Together, prodigious savants James and Edward Talley's remarkable brilliance was nearly incalculable, but a sudden act of cold-blooded murder would find them forever confined to separate mental health institutions by strict court order. Ordered to spend the rest of his days at the Greenwillow care center for developmentally disabled adults, James Talley is housed in the same facility as ex-nun Christine Bennett (Megan Ward)'s cousin Gene (Matt Lutz). Upon moving into her aunt's former home in a bid to be closer to Gene, Christine becomes transfixed on the details of the Talley case and soon learns that, despite their current status as a danger to society, neither James nor Edward had ever been officially charged with the crime they were committed for. With the future of the Greenwillow care facility on the line, Christine vows to find out what really happened on that tragic night three decades ago, and ensure that her brother Gene and the other innocent souls housed at Greenwillow will always have a place to call home. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Writer/director John Sayles' dramatization of the most infamous episode in professional sports -- the fix of the 1919 World Series -- is considered by many to be among his best films and arguably the best baseball movie ever made. This adaptation of Eliot Asinof's definitive study of the scandal shows how athletes of another era were a different breed from the well-paid stars of later years. The Chicago White Sox owner, Charlie Comiskey (Clifton James), is portrayed as a skinflint with little inclination to reward his team for their spectacular season. When a gambling syndicate led by Arnold Rothstein (Michael Lerner) gets wind of the players' discontent, it offers a select group of stars -- including pitcher Eddie Cicotte (Sayles regular David Strathairn), infielder Buck Weaver (John Cusack), and outfielder "Shoeless" Joe Jackson (D.B. Sweeney) -- more money to play badly than they would have earned to try to win the Series against the Cincinnati Reds. Sayles cast the story with actors who look and perform like real jocks, and added a colorful supporting cast that includes Studs Terkel as reporter Hugh Fullerton and Sayles himself as Ring Lardner. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi

Larry Cohen wrote the screenplay to this updating of Mickey Spillane's notorious 1947 novel. Cohen was originally engaged to direct the film as well but was pulled from the director's chair after a week's worth of shooting because he had already run up the budget by $100,000; he was replaced by television director Richard T. Heffron. In this 1982 I, the Jury, Mike Hammer (Armand Assante) is a Vietnam veteran who wears hip duds and drives around in a bronze Trans Am in much the same way as Robert Mitchum's Philip Marlowe was refurbished for Michael Winner's re-make of The Big Sleep. After a cheesy rip-off of a James Bond-style credit sequence, the story kicks in. One-armed detective Jack Williams (Frederick Downs) is murdered. Jack was Hammer's best friend, and Hammer decides that he will become a one-man vigilante squad and seek vengeance on the person responsible for his death. He enlists the aid of his vivacious secretary Velda (Laurene Landon) and is also helped and hindered by police-chief Pat Chambers (Paul Sorvino). Hammer latches on to the killer's trail, then the film veers in a radically different direction from the book, introducing government conspiracies and mind-control techniques by the CIA and the Mafia. Also introduced is Hammer's love interest Charlotte Bennett (Barbara Carrera), an administrator of a kinky sex clinic (depicted as a psychiatrist in the original novel). ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi