Deejay Jackson Movies

A handful of heroes become superheroes under unlikely circumstances in this action drama adapted from the long-running Marvel comic book series. Four astronauts are on a mission aboard a new experimental spacecraft when they are unexpectedly exposed to a massive dose of gamma rays. The accident causes strange and unexpected transformations in all four. Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd), top scientist and leader of the mission, can now stretch his body like elastic and is dubbed Mr. Fantastic. His partner and sweetheart, Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), develops the ability to become invisible at will, and becomes known as The Invisible Girl. Her younger brother, Johnny Storm (Chris Evans), is renamed The Human Torch for his new talent of being able to summon up fire from his body when he chooses. And Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis), pilot for the journey, mutates into a monstrous creature with super-human strength and muscles like stone, known as The Thing. Together, the travelers become known as the Fantastic Four, and they set out to use their unusual skills to fight crime, quickly gaining a nemesis in another altered hero who uses his talents for evil, Doctor Doom (Julian McMahon). A long-gestating project that had been talked about by a number of filmmakers since the early '90s, Fantastic Four was previously the basis for a pair of animated television serials, and was made into a feature film in 1994 by producer Roger Corman, though that film was never officially released. (Fantastic Four creator Stan Lee has said the 1994 film was made only so that the producers could hold on to the rights to the characters, and that it was never intended to be distributed to the public.) ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A man trying to save his relationship with the woman he loves finds himself sinking into a quicksand of small lies and half-truths in this comedy. Paul (Jason Lee) is a regular guy who is engaged to marry Karen (Selma Blair); while Paul loves Karen, he's more than a bit nervous around her family, even though her father (James Brolin) has already given him a job in the family business. Shortly before the wedding, Paul's friends throw him a bachelor party, complete with a boatload of liquor and a squadron of grass-skirt-clad tiki dancers. Paul strikes up a conversation with one of the dancers, the cheerful if inept Becky (Julia Stiles), and the next morning, he wakes up bleary-eyed with a massive hangover -- and Becky in bed next to him. Paul soon receives a phone call from Karen saying she's stopping by for a visit, and Paul scrambles to get Becky out of his apartment. Paul attempts to explain some incriminating evidence with a few white lies, but a messy situation gets messier when Paul runs into Becky at a pre-wedding family get-together...and discovers she's Karen's cousin. A Guy Thing also features Shawn Hatosy, Lochlyn Munro, and Julie Hagerty. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

MTV's first made-for-TV movie, 2Gether: The Original Movie, is a hilarious and sometimes touching send-up of the "boy band" phenomenon of the '90s. When rock manager Bob Buss (Alan Blumenfeld) is fired by the studio-created boy group Whoa!, he decides to get even by creating another band from the ground up. After discovering young Jerry O'Keefe (Evan Farmer) singing in the streets, Buss builds his new group around O'Keefe's natural talents. Adhering to the standard music-industry clichés, Buss' pre-fab creation, 2gether, consists of "The Lead Singer" (O'Keefe), "The Bad Boy" Mickey Parke, "The Cute One" Q.T. McKnight, "The Shy One" Chad Linus, and "The Older Brother," who happens to be Chad's older brother Doug Linus. Whipping them into shape in but a few days, Buss prepares 2gether for their big-time debut in Jacksonville -- as the opening act for Whoa! Several MTV personalities, notably the ubiquitous Carson Daly, appear as themselves. In true "life imitates art" fashion, 2gether briefly became an honest-to-goodness pop sensation, turning out several popular tunes, a well-circulated music video, and a weekly TV series. Filmed in Vancouver, 2gether: The Original Movie first aired on February 1, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The funny side of sports fandom provides the common element for two stories in this made-for-cable anthology feature. In the first segment, based on a short story by Don Marquis, a golfer (Bob Newhart) looks like he's about to break 100 for the first time, but his partner (Kelsey Grammer) keeps insisting upon following every rule in the book, much to his friend's annoyance. The second story is based on 1968's real-life "Heidi Bowl" incident, in which NBC-TV's broadcast of a hard-fought game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders, which seemed likely to determine the AFL championship, was cut off --with 65 seconds left to play and the score at 32-29 -- in order to begin a scheduled showing of a made-for-TV movie based on the classic children's story Heidi. Eugene Levy plays a network control room supervisor, Ellie Harvie appears as a NBC switchboard operator trying to handle the sudden influx of angry calls, Gary Basaraba plays her husband, who is watching the game at home with friends, and John Kapelos is a bookie with a lot of money riding on the game. Fox-TV sports commentator James Brown hosts the two-part film, which was produced for the Showtime premium cable network. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Dark Angel begins its two-season run with a feature-length episode establishing both characters and premise. Back in the year 2009, young Max Guevara (Geneva Locke) escaped from Manticore, a sinister laboratory creating human prototypes with heavy doses of animal DNA. A lab creation herself, Max managed to get away with several of her "siblings" from Manticore's X-5 program. Now it is 2019: The world is in turmoil in the wake of "The Pulse," a seismic phenomenon which destroyed all computer technology. The 19-year-old Max (Jessica Alba) lives in a crime-ridden ghetto with a group of alienated teens and dopers, working as a bicycle messenger by day and a cat burglar by night. (And why not? Max's cat DNA has endowed her with superhuman strength and agility.) She pulls this "double shift" in order to finance an ongoing search for the secrets of her past, and for her genetically engineered brothers and sisters. Enter scruffy cyberjournalist Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly), a crusader against the corruption that has engulfed the government and its police. Persuading Max to join his cause, Logan gives her her first assignment: to guard a federal witness and her daughter. But Max may not be around to help -- not if she is tracked down and captured by Manticore minion Donald Lydecker (John Savage), the obsessed scientist who "created" her. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While at home recovering from an accident, Olympic downhill skier Marti Gerrard (Tori Spelling) receives an unexpected phone call. It turns out to be a wrong number dialed by wealthy computer tycoon Connor Hill (Jason Brooks)--but Marti doesn't mind a bit, and for the next several minutes she and Connor enjoy a delightful conversation. Later on, Hill's wife is murdered, whereupon he approaches Marti with the realization that, thanks to the aforementioned phone call, she is the only person who can provide him with an alibi. This she does, gladly and willingly...but the story is far from over! Made for television, Alibi was first broadcast by ABC on March 16, 1997. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gregg Champion, the son of dance stars Marge and Gower Champion, made his feature film directorial debut with this sitcom-influenced cop comedy. Dabney Coleman stars as Burt Simpson, a police detective one week short of retirement, who is told he has a rare blood disease called Wechsler's Curtain and that he will be dead within two weeks. Before receiving the dire news, Burt was the kind of guy who made it a point to be cautious when in pursuit of criminals. He also was unable to tell his wife (Teri Garr) that he loved her. But now that he has only two weeks to live, Burt undergoes a complete personality reversal -- much to the shock of his partner Ernie Dills (Matt Frewer). Burt throws his well-known caution to the wind and volunteers for double-duty in the city's most dangerous neighborhood to take on the notorious psychotic Carl Stark (Xander Berkeley). The reason for this sudden turnaround? Burt figures that if he is killed in the line of duty, his son can go to Harvard on the $320,000 worth of department insurance, rather than die after retirement and collect a paltry $22,000 on his regular insurance policy. Paradoxically, Burt finds that comedy is easy but dying is hard. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide