Grant Heslov Movies

The "boys next door" are Roy Alston (Maxwell Caulfield) and Bo Richards (Charlie Sheen), typical California teens freshly graduated from high school. Daunted by the prospect of the real world, the boys decide to go on one last fling in L.A. But it's not all clean, wholesome fun; in fact, Caulfield and Sheen launch their weekend bash by beating up a gas-station attendant, throwing a glass bottle at an old woman, and murdering gay-bar patron Chris (Paul C. Dancer). Somewhere along the line, Bo becomes repelled by their violence spree, but Roy seems to be sexually aroused by all the misery he's causing. And so it goes, without real rhyme or reason, until the bloody denouement. Director Penelope Spheeris later helmed Wayne's World, The Little Rascals, and The Beverly Hillbillies. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ivan Reitman directed this film, starring Robert Redford, Debra Winger, and Daryl Hannah, that is an amalgam of a thriller, courtroom drama, mystery and Tracy-Hepburn romantic comedy, with a little Mark Rothko-type scandal thrown in. The film revolves around troubled Chelsea Deardon (Daryl Hannah) who as an eight-year-old girl witnessed her father, a famous artist, perishing in a blaze along with his valuable art works. Twenty years later, Chelsea is arrested for stealing one of her father's paintings from an unscrupulous New York art dealer. She claims many more of her father's paintings survived the fire long ago. Defending Chelsea is lawyer Laura Kelly (Debra Winger). Pitted against her is suave district attorney Tom Logan (Robert Redford). Laura thinks if Tom knew the facts behind the case, he would reconsider and exonerate Chelsea. He doesn't, but one night when Chelsea appears at his doorstep, he does permit her to seduce him. The next morning, one of the art dealers involved in the case is found dead, and Chelsea is found in Tom's apartment. Chelsea becomes the prime suspect in the murder and Tom's career is ruined. Inexplicably, Laura hires Tom to help her defend Chelsea. The two lawyers, in researching their defense, not only uncover a scandal involving art dealership, but also fall in love. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Les (Corey Haim) is embarrassed when he fails his driving test in this routine teen comedy. His buddies are depending on him to provide the wheels for the weekend, but Les is more interested in his Saturday date with Mercedes (Heather Graham). Les secretly steals his grandfather's immaculate 1972 Cadillac for the adventure. The dream date soon turns into a nightmare when Dean (Corey Feldman) bothers Les with camera flashes and cigar smoke, and his sloppy-drunk date dances on the hood of the car with high heels. The car is towed when he parks illegally, and later the teens are chased by revved-up motorheads who challenge him to a race. Carol Kane and Richard Masur play Les' parents. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

The emphasis in this episode is not on Jessica (Angela Lansbury) but on her old friend, indefatigable LA homicide detective Jake Ballinger (Barry Newman). Refusing to give up his own personal investigation of a "closed" murder case, Jake is forcibly relocated to a small college town, there to teach a course in criminology. Of course, Ballinger intends to continue pursuing his investigation, this time with help of his students--all two of them (he'd scared the rest of the class away on the first day of the semester!) ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Marisa Silver helmed this tightly directed hospital drama reminiscent of David Swift's 1962 The Interns. Jimmy Smits plays Dr. David Redding, who guides seven student doctors through their third year of residency at Los Angeles Central's medical school. The cast includes Laura San Giacomo as Lauren Rose, a hard-working waitress putting her uncaring husband Kenny (Jack Gwaltney) through medical school; Kenny eventually breaks down the resistance of cool fellow student Gena Wyler (Diane Lane). Kenny is also competing with doctor's son Michael Chatham (Adrian Pasdar), who wants to become the best surgeon at L.A. Central; Michael, however, has to reconsider his goals when he realizes that he also needs Gena's love. Bobby Hayes (Tim Ransom) and Suzanne Maloney (Jane Adams) are also struggling with medical school, but they are a support team who study, work, and even sleep together. Through all the competitions and love affairs it eventually takes the wisdom of a dying cancer patient (Norma Aleandro) to make the medical students realize the important things in life. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Carl Lumbly stars as an unlikely super-hero in this made-for-television sci-fi movie. Lumbly stars as Dr. Miles Hawkins, a wheel-chair bound scientist who concocts a device that not only liberates him from his chair, but turns him into a crime-fighting super hero. The idea was later developed into a popular TV-series of the same name, also starring Lumbly. ~ Bernadette McCallion, Rovi

Good gorillas meet bad gorillas while human beings search for treasure in this jungle advnture saga. R.B. Travis (Joe Don Baker) is the ruthless head of Travi-Com, a telecommunications firm on the cusp of a major breakthrough in laser communications technology. However, Travis needs diamonds to finish the project, so he sends a group of men to Zaire, where he's told that a large supply of the gems can be easily found. When the men go missing, Travis sends his trusted assistant Karen Ross (Laura Linney), a one-time CIA associate, into the jungle to find both his staff and the jewels. Hoping to keep her mission a secret, Karen travels to Zaire in the company of Peter (Dylan Walsh), a researcher on primate development who is hoping to return Amy, a gorilla who has been taught sign language and can "speak" English with the help of a glove-controlled computer device. Also travelling with them is Herkermer (Tim Curry), a Romanian with a secret agenda: he's convinced that Amy can guide him to the Lost City of Zinj, where he believes that King Solomon's Mines are located. Upon arrival, the group is met by Monroe Kelly (Ernie Hudson), a self-described "great white hunter who happens to be black," and they discover that the jungle holds a menace that they weren't counting on: a tribe of bloodthirsty gray gorillas. Congo was based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Director Mike Nichols teams up with his former partner/screenwriter Elaine May for the first time in many years and for the first time together in films to create this sophisticated, remake of the phenomenally popular French musical farce La Cage aux Folles that stars Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman and Diane Wiest as two dramatically disparate couples who manage to reconcile their vast differences for the sake of their children who are getting married. Williams plays Armand Goldman, the owner of a popular South Beach drag club known for putting on elaborate showcases starring his long-time lover/wife Albert (Lane) who appears as "Starina." Lately poor flamboyant, flighty Albert has been in crisis over the inexorable onset of middle age. He has been moody, paranoid and unbearably. When he gets too inconsolably distraught, handsome but clumsy houseboy Agador quietly slips Albert "Pirin" tablets (which he explains to Armand are simply Aspirin tablets with the "as" scraped off). Still though Albert can be a royal pain, Armand dearly loves him and the two live happily in their splendiferous apartment above the club. One day Armand's son Val (the result of Armand's single foray into straight sex) comes visiting with joyous news: he has found his dreamgirl and is getting married. The only trouble is, Barbara Keeley's father is the blustery ultra-religious right-wing Senator Keeley (Hackman), the founder of the Coalition for Moral Order. Senator Keeley and his colleagues are not as upright as they seem and when his closest associate is found dead beside a black, underage prostitute, Keeley finds his house surrounded by ravenous newshounds, hungry for dirt. Knowing that they are poised to ruin him, Keeley and his proper but slightly addled-wife (Wiest) decide that a big, elaborate, church wedding will be just the ticket to save his reputation. Barbara has neglected to tell them that Val's parents are gay, preferring to claim that they are members of the South Beach social elite. In a panic, she panics and calls Val who breaks the bad news to Armand and begs him to make the apartment less flamboyant and worst of all to hide Albert (who functioned as Val's mother while the youth grew up) during the visit. Armand is angry, but loving his son, finally, reluctantly agrees, knowing that he will deeply wound his companion. Unfortunately, Albert finds out and as a compromise tries to learn how to be macho so he can pretend to be Val's uncle, he is too much the Great Dame to ever pass as one of the guys and so is banned from the party. Armand then locates Catherine and asks her to masquerade as his wife. She agrees to show up later that evening. Meanwhile their friends busily redecorate the apartment until it looks as if it were done in "Early Inquisition." During the fateful dinner party, Catherine is late and Albert gets uproarious revenge. Achingly comic chaos ensues as Armand tries to hold the increasingly tenuous evening together while outside the newshounds bay and threaten to make even more trouble for Senator Keely. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Handsome, smooth-talking Al Donnelly (Tim Matheson) has everything going for him. A politician, he is engaged in a heated gubernatorial race with the feisty Governor Tracy (Christine Ebersole), a tough old bird who doesn't hesitate to play hardball with opponents. Unfortunately for her, things are looking good for Donnelly. Fortunately she finds his Achilles' heel with his young brother Mike Donnelly (Saturday Night Live alumnus Chris Farley), a fat slob gym teacher and hopeless imbecile who only wants to win his more successful sibling's respect. Unfortunately all he does is embarrass poor Al to death. In desperation, Al assigns the sardonic and prissy Steve Dodds (David Spade) to keep Mike under constant surveillance. The real trouble begins when Tracy's aids try to frame hapless Mike for arson. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

John Larkin (Timothy Hutton would seem to have the ideal life: A great job, a beautiful home, a happy marriage. Nonetheless, John has always been nagged by the feeling that "something is missing." The truth of this suspicion is violently driven home when John is inexplicably kidnapped from his home in the middle of the night by two sinister strangers. Managing to escape, John makes his way back to his wife (Suzy Amis--only to find out that she's not his wife at all, but instead a doctor for a top-secret government agency. Laboriously putting the pieces together, John realizes that he has never truly existed as a human being since he was nearly killed in a car crash: Instead, he is a semi-android, his brain implanted with false and misleading memories--all part of a master scheme to transform him into a "perfect" government assassin! Not dissimilar to such theatrical technothrillers as Total Recall, the made-for-TV Dead By Midnight (you'll have to see the film to understand the title's grim significance) was first aired by ABC on November 23, 1997. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A college fraternity pledging ends in tragedy when a rejected student apparently commits suicide. Nick (George Eads) and Sara (Jorja Fox) discover that the case is not as open-and-shut as it seems. And while looking into the discovery of a woman's body -- with one leg missing -- Grissom (William L. Petersen) and Catherine (Marg Helgenberger) conclude that either the victim's husband or her boyfriend might have had a hand in her death. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Rock has his first starring role in this prequel to The Mummy films, which was developed while The Mummy Returns was still in production. The film takes place in ancient times, when a mighty swordsman, Memnon (Steven Brand, making his film debut) ruled over nearly all the known world. Memnon, a brutal tyrant, defeats his enemies in battle with the help of a beautiful sorceress, Cassandra (Kelly Hu), who can predict the future. The last of the "free tribes" form a fragile alliance to fight Memnon, and hire a trio of Akkadian assassins, led by Mathayus (pro wrestler The Rock, who made his big-screen debut as this character in The Mummy Returns), to kill the sorceress and thus remove Memnon's advantage. Balthazar (Michael Clarke Duncan of The Green Mile), the powerful leader of the Nubians, objects to hiring mercenaries, but the plan goes forward. The assassins are betrayed by Takmet (Peter Facinelli), the son of one of the tribal leaders, and Mathayus finds himself unable to kill Cassandra. Thanks to the unlikely machinations of Cassandra, and the aid of a horse thief, Arpid (Grant Heslov of True Lies), Mathayus escapes to the desert. He eventually abducts Cassandra, who explains that Memnon was holding her against her will. Mathayus thwarts Memnon's efforts to re-capture Cassandra, then uses his newfound sense of justice to convince the surviving tribal leaders to join forces again to defeat Memnon. The Scorpion King was directed by Chuck Russell. Jonathan Hales (Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones) was credited with the story, and WWF owner Vince McMahon has an executive producer credit. The film, which was shot in the U.S. (very unusual for a big action film), reportedly underwent extensive re-shoots when the first cut came in with a running time of 70 minutes. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

Co-created by actor George Clooney and director Steve Soderbergh, the ten-part HBO series K Street was a docudrama about a political consulting firm in Washington. Each episode was based on a late-breaking political story, and each was edited just before telecast for the sake of topicality. It was often difficult to discern the line between fiction and reality, notably in an early episode wherein presidential candidate Howard Dean was provided with a witty retort by real-life political advisors James Carville and Paul Begala just before an important debate -- and indeed, this was the joke that turned out to be the highlight of the actual debate. Carville, his wife, Mary Matalin, and Michael Deaver, genuine professional D.C. consultants all, were among the executive producers of the series, appearing as "themselves" along with the fictional consulting crew, played by John Slattery, Mary McCormack, and Roger G. Smith. Filmed on location in the nation's capital (a fact that caused some controversy when the producers -- and their cameras -- were summarily booted out of the Senate building), K Street debuted September 14, 2003. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi