Elizabeth Rice Movies

A deadly assault leaves a postman dead and a woman named Kitty Lansing (Christina Haag) near death. The detectives manage to follow the trail of clues to a serial killer, who willingly confesses. But several surprises await the D.A.'s office in their prosecution -- and there is a heated confrontation in store for A.D.A.'s McCoy (Sam Waterston) and Carmichael (Angie Harmon). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Peggy offers superb suggestions during a focus-group session, and her ideas are so well received that her future at the agency looks much brighter; Don asks Rachel's advice about an ad campaign for Israeli tourism. ~ Ray Stackhouse, All Movie Guide

The popular memoir by Pulitzer prize-winning author Willie Morris became this family comedy-drama about a boy and his dog. Young Willie Morris (Frankie Muniz) is a shy eight-year-old in 1942 Yazoo, MS, who is more comfortable reading than playing sports. A target for local bullies, Willie's only real pal is his older next-door neighbor Dink Jenkins (Luke Wilson), once the town's living sports legend and a big brother figure to Willie, an only child. When Dink is shipped overseas for service in World War II, Willie's mother Ellen (Diane Lane) finally forces his gruff father Jack (Kevin Bacon) to allow into the family a pet dog, a Jack Russell terrier named Skip. The smart and playful Skip gets his owner into a series of adventures on the baseball field and with a band of moonshiners, quickly turning Willie into a popular, accepted kid who even wins the affections of the school's prettiest girl, Rivers Applewhite (Caitlin Wachs). In the meantime, Dink returns from war branded a coward for an incident that occurred in combat but finds an unexpected ally in the normally taciturn Jack, a fellow veteran. Harry Connick Jr. narrated as the adult Willie; the role of Skip was played in later scenes by Moose, the pooch star of television's Frasier. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

This three-hour TV biopic of actress Natalie Wood emulates Citizen Kane by beginning at the end -- the tragically ironic drowning death of the water-phobic actress in 1981 -- then recounts her life story in flashback. Justine Waddell plays the adult Natalie, with younger performers Elizabeth Rice, Candice Moore, and Nadia Scappa portraying the actress in various stages of childhood, adolescence, and puberty. Although little Natasha Gurdin's Russian-born mother and father (here played by Colin Friels and Alice Krige) had drive and ambition, it was the girl herself who energetically and enthusiastically promoted her career as a child star named "Natalie Wood," and it was Natalie herself who demanded that producer stop casting her in cute-kid and ingenue roles and take her seriously as an adult -- even before she technically was one. Naturally, the film recounts Natalie's marriage to actor Robert Wagner (Michael Weatherley), the breakup of the union as she pursued affairs with the likes of Warren Beatty (Matthew Settle), and Wood and Wagner's ultimate reconciliation and remarriage. One might assume that the "mystery" of the film's title is Natalie's death by drowning -- to this day, no one quite knows how she managed to end up in the water -- but it also manifested in the enigma of Natalie herself, a woman who despite her aggressive and unending pursuit of fame and stardom might well have willingly given it all up just to be a wife and mother. In fine old Hollywood-biography tradition, the movie boasts an endless parade of celebrity lookalikes impersonating such friends and colleagues of Natalie Wood as James Dean, Edmund Gwenn, Marilyn Monroe, and directors Irving Pichel, Elia Kazan, and Nicholas Ray, as well as several real-life celebs offering their reflections on the film's protagonist, notably Margaret O'Brien, Robert Vaughn, and Henry Jaglom. Directed by no less than Peter Bogdanovich, The Mystery of Natalie Wood first aired over ABC on March 1, 2004. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide