Jodi Long Movies

An all-grown-up Alicia Silverstone starred on this lightweight NBC comedy drama series as attorney Kate Fox. A divorce lawyer by day, Kate moonlighted as a matchmaker, finding suitable mates for her recently broken-up clients. Sometimes, Kate's good intentions were nullified by the disastrous results of her Cupidity, but generally things turned out okay. Also in the cast was Ryan O'Neal as Kate's boss -- and father -- ruthless attorney Jerry Fox, and David Conrad as Michael Mendelsohn, who could have been Kate's own Mister Right had she been savvy enough to realize it. Miss Match first aired on September 26, 2003. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A maverick Pittsburgh policeman loses his job after he shares his suspicion that one of his colleagues is a serial killer. This thriller centers on his hunt to prove his point, a search that becomes more desperate when the killer begins killing the cop's female associates. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Paul Mazursky directed this comedy, which blends a broad satire of the film industry with a thoughtful tale of a middle-aged man looking back on his life's failures. Harry Stone (Danny Aiello) is a film director who desperately needs a hit -- so desperately that he gets talked into directing an inane sci-fi film about a group of farm kids (led by Ally Sheedy) who grow an enormous pickle that they turn into a spaceship, allowing them to visit the planet Cleveland (ruled by Little Richard and his right hand man, Griffin Dunne) where everyone eats nothing but meat. Convinced that the film will flop, Harry is in a state of panic as he returns to New York with his Parisian girlfriend Francoise (Clotilde Courau), a mere 20 years his junior, and visits his ex-wife Ellen (Dyan Cannon); his mother Yetta (Shelley Winters); and his son Gregory (Chris Penn). Meanwhile Harry flashes back on his childhood and the film he could have made of it, and pitches his dream film (a historical epic about the life of Montezuma) to studio executives, who instead want him to make a movie kids can relate to. The Pickle was filmed in 1991, but only received a token theatrical release two years later. Actually, the sci-fi story with Little Richard as the undisputed ruler of Cleveland looks like it might have been an ideal vehicle for Edward D. Wood Jr.. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Woody Allen's character study of a well-kept, upscale Manhattan woman (Mia Farrow) takes the title character on a journey through a Wonderland of her own making, in which she learns some truths about herself, her relationships, and the universe in general. Alice leads a comfortable life, except for some nagging aches and pains, but when she visits the mysterious Dr. Yang (Keye Luke), he discovers that what really ails Alice is her own lack of true human experience. Alice has been married for sixteen years to Doug (William Hurt), an emotionally detached stockbroker, and she lives a perfectly maintained life in a perfectly maintained apartment, with a pair of children and the requisite support staff. All that changes when a chance meeting with a neighbor (Joe Mantegna) leads Alice to consider an affair. Dr. Yang, seizing the opportunity, gives Alice herbal potions that make her both invisible and seductive, allowing her to free herself from her inhibitions. Plunging into her new fantasy world, Alice ultimately comes to terms with her family, her husband, and her life. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Assigned to do a class video project on "the day in the life of a parent", Rudy (Keshia Knight Pulliam) and Kenny (Deon Richmond) conclude that Clair's (Phylicia Rashad) legal work is too dull, so they beg Cliff (Bill Cosby) to let them follow him on his daily hospital rounds. Cliff agrees only on condition that the youngster confine themselves to his office and the waiting room. Chafing at these restrictions, the kids sneak all around the hospital and tape several things that they shouldn't--and to top off their indiscretions, they lend their camera to a prospective father (Francisco Rivela) who wants to film Cliff in the act of delivering his wife's baby! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second of three films by co-writer/director Oliver Stone to explore the effects of the Vietnam War (Platoon and Heaven and Earth are the others), Born On The Fourth Of July tells the true story of Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise), a patriotic, All-American small town athlete who shocks his family by enlisting with the Marines to fight in the Vietnam War. Once he is overseas, however, Kovic's gung-ho enthusiasm turns to horror and confusion when he accidentally kills one of his own men in a firefight. His downfall is furthered by a bullet wound that leaves him paralyzed from the chest down. He returns home, spends an appalling, nightmarish stint in a veterans' hospital, and follows an increasingly disillusioned and fragmented path that ultimately leaves him drunk and dissolute in Mexico. However, Kovic somehow turns himself around and pulls his life together, becoming an outspoken anti-war activist in the process. The film is long but emotionally powerful; many consider it Stone's best work and Cruise's best performance. Both were nominated for Oscars, as was the film itself, but only Stone, who co-wrote the film with Kovic from the latter's book, won for Best Director. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

A newspaper heiress is kidnapped, brainwashed, and forced to join a group of terrorist bank robbers in this docudrama, based on the saga of Patricia Hearst. In 1974, Hearst (Natasha Richardson), the granddaughter of publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst, was a student at the University of California. On February 4, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a radical political group, broke into the Berkeley home she shared with her boyfriend and kidnapped her. Hearst then allegedly spent 57 days locked in a closet as she was indoctrinated into the group's revolutionary beliefs by their charismatic leader, Cinque (Ving Rhames). Eventually, Hearst joined (or at least pretended to join) the SLA, adopted the name Tania and participated in a number of high-profile bank robberies. After several SLA members died in a police fire storm, Hearst and fellow members Bill and Emily Harris (William Forsythe and Frances Fisher) went on the lam and were later arrested. Although she claimed her participation in the group was a ruse carried out to protect herself from further rape, torture, and mind control, Hearst eventually served several years in prison after her 1976 conviction for bank robbery. Based on the novel Every Secret Thing, Hearst's own account of the events, Paul Schrader's film tells the story from the heiress' own viewpoint, with little in the way of conflicting evidence. After President Carter ordered her release from prison in 1979, Hearst went on to act in several films, including Cecil B. Demented, a John Waters spoof whose plot bears some resemblance to her own life story. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

In director/writer Curtis Hanson's 1987 chiller The Bedroom Window, architect Terry Lambert (Steve Guttenberg) experiences a most disorienting turn of events when his French lover, Sylvia (Isabelle Huppert) - the wife of his boss - walks over to the titular window in-between lovemaking sessions and witnesses a mysterious man strangling a helpless victim (Elizabeth McGovern). By the time Guttenberg comes to the window, he can see only a crowd of spectators. Because Sylvia wants to avoid a messy involvement in the case (which would soil her reputation, ruin her marriage and cost Lambert his job), Guttenberg agrees to pretend that he witnessed the attack. The ruse, of course, leads to a myriad of complications. And meanwhile, with the psycho still on the loose, Lambert sets out to find him. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Alan J. Pakula directs the political thriller Rollover, produced by leading lady Jane Fonda's production company, IPC Films. Featuring a racist plot and negative stereotypes about the Arab world, this film reflected the American fear of the Middle East prevalent in the early '80s. Fonda stars as former film star Lee Winters, who inherits a multimillion-dollar company when her corporate bigwig husband is murdered. She teams up with banker Hubbell Smith (Kris Kristofferson) in order to find her husband's killer and survive in the world of high-stakes international finance. They become lovers and travel together to Saudi Arabia to secure a loan and to guarantee Lee's spot as the company's board chairman. However, they end up discovering an Arab company's plan to withdraw money from the world's banks in order to destabilize the Western economy. Rollover also stars Hume Cronyn and Josef Sommer. This story also foreshadowed Jane Fonda's marriage to corporate bigwig Ted Turner in 1991. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide