Amy Hill Movies
When Michael Crichton wrote his best-selling thriller Rising Sun, he wrote the character of hero John Connor with Sean Connery in mind. For Philip Kaufman's film version of the novel, Sean Connery, needless to say, fits seamlessly into the role of a legendary police detective who is an expert in Japanese culture. The story takes place in the towering office building of the Japanese Nakamoto Corporation in Los Angeles, who are negotiating a deal with Microcon, an American electronics firm. During a gala held one night in the Nakamoto offices, the body of a woman, Cheryl Lynn Austin (Tatjana Patitz) is found murdered in the main conference room. Arriving quickly on the scene is high-amped police lieutenant Tom Graham (Harvey Keitel), who oozes hatred for anything Japanese from every pore. When he has trouble getting cooperation from the Nakatomo executives, Graham calls in Web Smith (Wesley Snipes), a Special Services liaison, and John Connor (Connery), a man well-versed in Japanese culture and traditions. Together they form a team as they investigate the crime. Connor questions computer video expert Jingo (Tia Carrere), who works on a security system computer disc that captures the killer's identity. The only problem is that the image of the killer on the disc has been altered to conceal the murderer's face. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sean Connery, Wesley Snipes, (more)
Set amidst the burgeoning Seattle alternative music scene of the early '90s, Singles follows a group of twentysomethings as they try to find love and try to come to terms with their passage into adulthood. Arranged as an episodic comedy, the film follows a group of friends who live in the same apartment building and hang out at the same coffee shop. The central couple is Steve Dunne (Campbell Scott) and Linda Powell (Kyra Sedgwick), a pair who meet at an Alice In Chains concert and eventually fall in love. Singles follows the tumultuous relationship between Steve and Linda and their friendship with Janet Livermore (Bridget Fonda), who is trying to win the affection of grunge-rocker Cliff Poncier (Matt Dillon). The film also has a number of cameos, including actors Eric Stoltz, Tom Skerritt, Peter Horton, director Tim Burton and the film's author/director, Cameron Crowe. From the musical side of the fence, Singles features appearances by Sub Pop executive Bruce Pavitt, musicians Chris Cornell (Soundgarden), Pat DiNizio (Smithereens), Tad (Tad), and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament, and Stone Gossard, who play Dillon's backing band, Citizen Dick. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bridget Fonda, Campbell Scott, (more)
Bill Cosby mugs so uncontrollably that it looks as if he may be the victim of a muscular disorder in the inane and unfunny Ghost Dad. Cosby plays Elliot, a workaholic widower with three children -- Danny (Salim Grant), Amanda (Brooke Fontainbe), and the teenage Diane (Kimberly Russell). Elliot is hoping to close a big deal that will mean a promotion, more money, and lots of perks, but a cab ride with a freaked-out cab driver causes his untimely demise. Elliot discovers that he is now a ghost and has to learn to spend more time with his kids rather than worry about money and career. Otherwise, after three days, he'll be whisked away into the great beyond. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Cosby, Kimberly Russell, (more)
- 1990
- R
Set in a grim post-WW III America, this sci-fi fantasy tells the story of a woman attempting to sell black-market computer chips that allow patrons to experience the nearly forgotten pleasures of sex and drugs. She is hanging out with the gang she works for in a local nightclub when the police raid the joint. She manages to escape and decides to double cross her gang and sell the chips for herself. But first she must escape both the police and the gangsters and make it to the New York underground. She is helped out when she runs into Plughead, an android covered with electrical outlets. He uses these to tap in to the fantasies of other people. The soundtrack by Deborah Holland provides a highlight. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jim Metzler, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, (more)
- 1988
In the conclusion of Night Court's two-part Season Six opener (originally telecast as a single hour-long "special"), prosecutor Dan Fielding (John Larroquette) is still marooned in a remote Eskimo village after surviving a plane crash. Successfully--if nervously--performing an emergency appendectomy, Dan then manages to alert the authorities to his whereabouts. Returning to New York City in a barely recognizable condition (shaggy beard and all), Dan arrives just in time to attend his own funeral! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1988
Night Court launches its sixth season with the second episode of a two-part story, introduced as the cliffhanger ending of Season Five (the denouement was originally telecast on October 26, 1988 as a one-hour special, later to be re-edited for syndication as two separate episodes). Judge Harry T. Stone (Harry Anderson) and the Night Court staff are mourning the demise of smarmy prosecutor Dan Fielding (John Larroquette), who was reported killed in an Alaskan plane crash. In truth, however, Dan is still alive, having been rescued by an Eskimo family after his plane did "a half-gainer" in a glacier. Now stuck in the remote village of Kiska, Dan sets off a flare to alert the authoritities of his whereabouts--and accidentally incapacitates the only doctor in the area who is able to perform an emergency appendectomy on an Eskimo girl! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
A darkly comic and surreal contemporization of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, this effects-heavy Bill Murray holiday vehicle from 1988 sees the former SNL funnyman assuming the role of television executive Frank Cross, the meanest and most depraved man on earth. Cross will stoop to unheard of levels to increase his network's ratings -- even if it means mounting outrageous programs to retain an audience, such as "Robert Goulet's Cajun Christmas" and Lee Majors in "The Night the Reindeer Died," with an AK-47-toting Santa. Cross plots his foulest move, however, for the Christmas holiday, when he will force his office staff to mount a live production of A Christmas Carol on national television -- and thus work through Christmas Eve. Cross's life is turned upside down with visits from three ghosts: a craggy-faced cabbie known as The Ghost of Christmas Past (David Johansen); the sugar-plum fairy Ghost of Christmas Present (Carol Kane) (who gets her jollies by bonking Frank across the face with a toaster oven); and, eventually, the caped, headless Ghost of Christmas Future, who will send Frank sliding into a crematory oven -- just before he gives the sleazoid one last chance to redeem himself. Along the way, the spirits carry Frank to scenes from his past, present, and future (per Scrooge) and impart a glimpse of how he became so thoroughly rotten. The radiant Karen Allen co-stars as Frank's girlfriend, Claire Phillips, and the film packs in cameos from countless celebrities -- among them, Mary Lou Retton, John Houseman, Jamie Farr, and, in a truly grisly and tasteless bit, John Forsythe. Richard Donner directs, from a script credited to the late Michael O'Donoghue and Mitch Glazer. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Murray, Karen Allen, (more)
- 1988
The wife of a policeman hires a private detective to spy on her unfaithful husband in this mystery film noir send-up. The detective finds no proof of infidelity but uncovers a drug-running operation that involves the crooked cop. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Brisbin, Taunie Vrenon, (more)
The murderous Evelyn (Anna Chappell) runs her own version of the Bates Motel, a series of run-down units set on a mountainside. After the batty Evelyn finds her daughter performing a Satanic ritual in the basement, she stabs her to death and then invents a story for the suspicious sheriff. A number of people arrive for the daughter's funeral and they are put up at the motel. Evelyn, meanwhile, tries terrifying her guests with hordes of rats and nasty bugs. When this isn't enough, she decides to up the terror factor by using her sickle, exterminating the guests instead of the bugs and rats. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Thurman, Anna Chappell, (more)
- 1985
- PG
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Wayne Wang's follow-up to his low-budget success Chan Is Missing is a gentle, slice-of-life comedy about the shifting relationship between a widowed mother and her thirty-year-old unmarried daughter in San Francisco's Chinatown. Mrs. Tam (Kim Chew) lives with her youngest daughter Geraldine (Laureen Chew) -- her older children having already left home. Geraldine is a graduate student who wants to live on her own but tells herself that she should stay at home with her mother and her Uncle Tam (Victor Wong), a happy-go-lucky bartender who would like to marry Mrs. Tam if only Geraldine would just go away and get married. Mrs. Tam, convinced that she will die before she hits 62, wants to see her daughter married. But under the surface, Mrs. Tam likes Geraldine's presence in her house, Uncle Tam may not be serious about his marriage intentions, and Geraldine herself could possibly be using her mother as an excuse not to get married and have to assume responsibility. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laureen Chew, Kim Chew, (more)
Director Steven Okazaki has made less than a handful of documentaries but has received awards or nominations for all of them. This look at the internment of Americans of Japanese descent in detention camps during World War II is a compelling story of that gross injustice (and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1985). Okazaki combines newsreel footage of that time, interviews with the three men who went to court to fight the internment, and clips from their press conferences. To round out the narration, he adds some sequences from Point of Order, a play about one of the court cases. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
