Garette Ratliff Henson Movies
- 1997
A woman fleeing the man in her life discovers a city of women in this revisionist western. Chrysty (Amy Brenneman) is passing through the Nevada desert when she happens upon the small town of Silver, currently populated entirely by women and children, while the men in the community are gone -- working on a dam building project. When Chrysty discovers June (Bridgette Wilson) alone and in labor, she helps her as she gives birth; Chrysty opts to stay around, and she takes a job delivering milk. Silver is ruled by McGill (Kirstie Alley), the village's self-appointed sheriff who doesn't trust Chrysty; McGill discovers that Chrysty is actually an Idaho housewife running away from her husband, West (Angus MacFadyen). However, June's husband Rip (James Wilder), back in town after the birth of a child that may not be his and troubled by his wife's chronic infidelity, has fallen in love with Chrysty, and when West arrives to Silver to retrieve his spouse, Rip opts to fight for her hand. Nevada also features Saffron Burrows as June's sister-in-law, and Dee Wallace Stone and Kathy Najimy as a rough-and-tumble lesbian couple. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Everybody's favorite underdog youth hockey team hits the ice for a third adventure in D3: The Mighty Ducks. This time out, the Ducks' improbable success under lawyer-turned-hockey player Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez) has earned the group of misfits a certain degree of fame, and the entire team is given scholarships to attend Eden Hall Academy, an upscale private school with a rich and snobbish student body. The Ducks are dismayed to discover that they have a new coach, Ted Orion (Jeffrey Nordling), and they soon learn that, as freshmen, they get precious little respect from the Varsity team, and the team's melting-pot lineup makes them stick out like a sore thumb in the white, upper-class surroundings of Eden Hall. However, by the film's final reel, the Ducks will have taught their fellow classmates a lesson about teamwork and overcoming adversity. This proved to be the last film in the Mighty Ducks series, but it was followed by an animated television series that improbably turned the team into hockey stars from another dimension. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emilio Estevez, Jeffrey Nordling, (more)
In this offbeat comedy set in the 1950s, Patrick Swayze plays Jack McCloud, a drifter and beatnik who enters the conservative suburban life of the Holman family after Jeanne Holman (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) accidentally hits him with her car. Jeanne takes Jack into her home while he recovers from his injuries. McCloud offends the neighbors and friends of the Holmans with his unorthodox behavior, including nude sunbathing and Buddhism. He tells the children, Tom (Joseph Mazzello) and Gunny (Seth Mumy), stories of a genie who has taken the form of a dog. Jeanne and her kids come under his sway as Jack's mystical powers help the kids' Little League team win a big game. Martha Coolidge directed the film from a script by Elizabeth Anderson, based on a short story by Ellen Green. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrick Swayze, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, (more)
Based on the popular cartoon character, this family-oriented "ghost story" is about a not-so-scary spirit who bonds with a little girl (Christina Ricci). The eternally irritable Ms. Carrigan (Cathy Moriarty) discovers that the only thing she's been left in her recently departed father's will is a rickety old house in New England. Naturally, the woman is furious about this, until her "close personal friend" and assistant, Dibbs (Eric Idle of Monty Python fame), discovers a secret message that a treasure may be concealed somewhere in the house. The two take off for Maine, only to learn that the house is haunted by Casper "the friendly ghost" and his three ghostly uncles Stinky, Stretch, and Fatso. After futilely recruiting an exorcist (Don Novello, more or less reviving his Father Guido Sarducci character from Saturday Night Live) and a "professional ghost exterminator" (Dan Aykroyd), she brings in a "ghost psychiatrist" (Bill Pullman) and his daughter Kat (Ricci). Innocently attracted to the young girl, Casper befriends Kat as they try to save the ghosts' home from the evil Carrigan. Eye-popping special effects highlight this magical story that touches (albeit lightly) on the theme of what lies at the heart of human desires. Clint Eastwood, Rodney Dangerfield, Mel Gibson and The Crypt Keeper (of Tales from the Crypt) all make cameos as apparitions in the mirror Bill Pullman looks into in the house. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christina Ricci, Bill Pullman, (more)
In this sequel to the kid-friendly sports comedy The Mighty Ducks, Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez) takes one more shot at a career as a professional hockey player, but a severe knee injury sidelines him for good. However, his success coaching a rag-tag pee-wee hockey team in Minneapolis (as chronicled in the first film) has attracted the attention of a major sportswear firm, which hires him to coach the United States team for the Junior Goodwill Games. Gordon reassembles most of the Mighty Ducks along with several new players, including a huge bully who is great on defense (if low on social skills), a figure skater who knows how to move on the ice, and a hotshot goalie who happens to be a girl. However, the excitement of a trip to Los Angeles and a large dose of overconfidence puts the team at a severe disadvantage when they're pitted against the top-ranked Icelandic team. D2: The Mighty Ducks features cameo appearances from hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, champion figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, whose athletic career has never involved ice skating. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emilio Estevez, Kathryn Erbe, (more)
- 1994
- Add Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All to QueueAdd Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All to top of Queue
Originally a television mini-series, this drama chronicles the painful and lively reminiscences of a 100 year old woman. Much of the story centers on her tumultuous marriage to a Civil War vet. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Diane Lane, Donald Sutherland, (more)
Corporate women launch a bitter courtroom battle when their avaricious employer tells them that they will lose their jobs if they do not get sterilized. The fight takes the women through a disillusioning jungle of government red tape. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
This eighth adaptation of the timeless Mark Twain novel casts Elijah Wood as Huckleberry Finn, the half-literate son of a drunk who runs away from home and follows the Mississippi River with an escaped slave named Jim (Courtney S. Vance). Along the way, the duo encounter adventures with colorful characters like The King (Jason Robards) and the Duke (Robbie Coltrane), two con men who impersonate British visitors in order to swindle two sisters out of their fortune, and Susan Wilks (Laura Bundy), the spunky 12-year-old girl who gives Huck his first kiss. Jim also re-educates Huck away from the racist views that he has grown up with. Not the most in-depth version of Twain's tale, The Adventures Of Huck Finn is a solid retelling of the classic story. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elijah Wood, Courtney Vance, (more)
- 1992
- PG13
After a scientist creates superhuman warrior Red Skull for the Nazis during WW II, she defects and does the same for the U.S.-- injecting a polio victim to transform him into the titular heroic beefcake. Forty years after a confrontation which left Captain America frozen in Alaska, he is found and thawed and must take on Red Skull once again. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matt Salinger, Melinda Dillon, (more)
Two brothers are the victims of their widowed mother's violent drunkard husband who spares no rod with the youngest brother. Reverting to a world of make-believe, they imagine that their Radio Flyer wagon can fly and that in it they can escape their tormenting stepfather. This film deals in an almost make-believe manner with the serious issue of child abuse. It is narrated by Tom Hanks. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elijah Wood, Joseph Mazzello, (more)
This fill-in-the-blanks children's comedy from Disney was such a success that it spawned a number of fill-in-the-blanks sequels -- along with a real-life professional hockey team. The basic story -- outcast coach handles a team of outcast kids and turns them from losers into winners -- has been told in a number of films, including Wildcats, The Bad News Bears, Hoosiers, and Youngblood. Here the sport is hockey. Emilio Estevez is Gordon Bombay, a high-powered lawyer haunted by an incident from his past: while playing pee-wee league hockey as a child, young Gordon missed a crucial shot in the state finals game, invoking the wrath of his coach, Mr. Reilly (Lane Smith). When Gordon is arrested for drunk driving, the judge orders him to take a leave of absence and coach a hockey team of misfit kids. At first, Gordon treats the coaching job with contempt. But when his team loses to a team led by his old coach Reilly, the fire under Gordon is lit. Inspired, he leads his team on a mission to succeed. The team begins to win games and soon they are ready to face Reilly's team for the big championship game. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emilio Estevez, Joss Ackland, (more)
This sequel to the surprise box office hit The Blue Lagoon (1980) mimics its predecessor's romantic adventure formula of a lush tropical locale inhabited by scantily clad, nubile teens discovering their sexuality. Spotted adrift in a boat with his deceased parents Richard and Emmeline, a baby boy is rescued by a passing ship. Adopted by the widow Hargrove (Lisa Pelikan), infant Richard is soon at sea again after he, his new mother and her baby daughter Lilli abandon ship in the face of a cholera epidemic. Washing ashore on the same island populated by the first film's heroes, Hargrove protects and raises her young charges until a disease also claims her life. Years pass and both Richard (Brian Krause) and Lilli (Milla Jovovich) become young adults. While Richard discovers his manhood by racing a lagoon shark and spying on the island's dangerous natives, Lilli becomes a woman with her first period. Eventually their raging hormones lead the two into each other's arms. Marriage and a pregnancy follow, but Richard and Lilli's union is threatened by the arrival of a ship carrying a lovely captain's daughter (Nana Coburn) with eyes for the loincloth-clad Richard. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Milla Jovovich, Brian Krause, (more)
Referring to the fear of spiders, Arachnophobia features a particularly deadly species of spider that manages to make its way from the Venezuelan rain forest to a small California town, thanks to the many oversights of entomologist Julian Sands. Yuppie doctor Jeff Daniels, fed up with the dangers inherent in big-city living, has resettled in this town on the assumption that nothing untoward could ever happen here to himself and his family. Before long, however, Daniels is trying to make sense of a series of sudden deaths-and to figure out why each of the corpses has been drained of blood. The audience, of course, knows that the culprits are those pesky South American spiders, which grow larger with each kill. To make matters worse, Jeff Daniels suffers from a profound case of arachnophobia. John Goodman supports the cast as a slovenly exterminator, and Frank Marshall, longtime producer of Steven Spielberg's films, makes his directorial debut in Arachnophobia. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeff Daniels, Harley Jane Kozak, (more)
Kate Capshaw plays a schoolteacher and suburban housewife who happens to be an ex-spy. Nobody knows of Capshaw's previous espionage activities, least of all her somewhat obtuse husband Cliff De Young. When Capshaw's ex-lover Jeroen Krabbe, an intimate of Castro, lands in a Cuban prison, she is swept back into the spy business, leaving her nonplussed hubby in the dust. Made for television, Her Secret Life did prove there was more to Kate Capshaw's repertoire than the wimpy heroine of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It also proved that a workable premise is not enough when the script is skimpy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1986
- R
This comedy is set 15 years after the final nuclear holocaust and centers upon two fellows who have been stuck in their fathers' elaborate bomb shelter since the bombs began to fall. They had plenty of food, clothing (from the 1940s), and necessities, but their only entertainment was a huge set of pulp mystery novels by such writers as Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler. By the time the two young men, Phillip and Marlowe finally emerge from the shelter in 2010, they have become "hard-boiled" detectives. They manage to find an old car and head off down the ruined roads looking for action. Along the way, they see beautiful, but hard-as-nails blonde Miles Archer and pick her up. She ends up robbing them and abandoning them. In her haste, she drops a set of keys--the keys to the last nuclear warhead. Whoever holds them, holds the world in their hands and suddenly the young men find themselves pursued by assorted weirdos, including man-eating hippies, looking for the ultimate power. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Stockwell, Michael Dudikoff, (more)
- 1984
- R
Are the principal antagonists in Copperhead small and slimy? You guessed it. Thanks to an ancient Incan curse, the copperhead snakes of the title are compelled to answer the siren call of a precious gold necklace. When the artifact is stolen, the snakes slither after it. The necklace eventually finds its way into the home of a morally bankrupt family. Fangs away! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
