Sylvia Kauders Movies

A shocking and tragic event causes the members of a quietly dysfunctional family to reexamine themselves and their lives in this drama. Ben and Sandy Travis (Jeff Daniels and Sigourney Weaver) are a couple whose troubled family begins to crumble when their eldest son, star college athlete Matt (Kip Pardue) commits suicide. Sandy's naturally cynical nature becomes all the more prickly, and while she tries to bond with her surviving teenaged son, Tim (Emile Hirsch), they seem closest when they discover a shared fondness for marijuana. Ben also tries to reach out to Tim, but the young man is never able to shake the feeling that he's never quite been the son his father wanted. Tim has a girlfriend, Steph (Suzanne Santo), but their relationship has been going through a rocky patch, and Tim finds himself questioning his feelings about women and men when his friendship with next-door neighbor Kyle (Ryan Donowho) evolves into something more intimate. Imaginary Heroes was written and directed by Dan Harris, best known for his work as a screenwriter on the blockbuster comic-book adaptation X-Men and projected remakes of Superman and Logan's Run. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

No sooner has serial rapist Lewis Darnell (Burt Young) been released on parole than a young woman is assaulted and murdered. Assistant D.A. McCoy (Sam Waterston) is determined to connect Darnell with this most recent outrage and to put him behind bars permanently. Unfortunately, McCoy's zeal leads to accusations of undue "strongarm" methods on the part of detectives Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Curtis (Benjamin Bratt). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In My Life, Michael Keaton stars as Bob Jones, who has just been informed that his wife Gail (Nicole Kidman) is pregnant with their first child. However, he has also been told he has kidney cancer that has spread to his lungs; the longest Bob is expected to live is four months, which will deny him the joy of witnessing the birth of his child. Raging within, he visits a Chinese healer, Mr. Ho (Haing S. Ngor), who encourages him to let go of all the anger and fear he has kept trapped inside himself. Bob proceeds to videotape himself, on the advice of Mr. Ho, where Bob will talk to his unborn child and discuss what he has learned in life. In the process of the videotape sessions, Bob discovers that his anger resides in his past with his family, and Bob reveals secrets that he has kept hidden from himself and his wife through the years. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Based on the book by Meg Wolitzer, This Is My Life is the directorial debut for Nora Ephron, who adapted the script with sister, Delia Ephron. Dottie Engels (Julie Kavner) is a single mother with aspirations of becoming a standup comedian. When her Aunt Harriet dies, Dottie gets an apartment in Manhattan with her daughters, teenaged Erica (Samantha Mathis) and ten-year-old Opal (Gaby Hoffmann). Soon, Dottie's career is taking off and her agent, Claudia Curtis (Carrie Fisher), gets her on a comedy tour. Everything seems to work out well for Dottie, except that her daughters are left without a mother. Erica, who has just started dating Jordan (Danny Zorn) gets especially mad when she hears Dottie talking about her personal information on a talk show. The two girls are further upset with their mother's choice for a boyfriend, Arnold Moss (Dan Aykroyd). Eventually, Erica and Opal try to track down their real father, Norm (Louis di Banco), in upstate New York. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Woody Allen spent most of the 1980s and '90s veering between comedy and drama, and he rarely combined the two with greater success than in Crimes and Misdemeanors, in which he weaved together two stories, one deadly serious, one often funny, both ending in sadness. Martin Landau plays Dr. Judah Rosenthal, a prominent ophthalmologist with a successful practice, a loving family, and a reputation for generous charity work. But Rosenthal also has a secret: his mistress, Dolores (Anjelica Huston). What began as a casual fling has become uncomfortably intimate, and as he tries to break off the relationship, Dolores threatens to expose his infidelity to his wife and some unorthodox financial arrangements to his colleagues. Fearful that Dolores will make good on her threats, Judah confesses his secret to his brother Jack (Jerry Orbach), who has ties to organized crime and offers to "make the problem go away." Meanwhile, Cliff Stern (Woody Allen) is a filmmaker working on his pet project, a documentary about philosopher Prof. Louis Levy (Martin Bergmann). However, films about philosophers don't pay the rent, so Cliff's wife Wendy (Joanna Gleason) arranges for him to make a documentary for public television about her brother Lester (Alan Alda), a famous TV comedian whose vapidity is exceeded only by his arrogance. While Cliff tries to bite the bullet and finish the film, he finds himself falling in love with PBS producer Halley Reed (Mia Farrow). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In Armed and Dangerous, John Candy plays a cop who has been kicked off the force on a trumped up charge. Eugene Levy costars as a disbarred lawyer. The two outcasts take low-paying jobs as security officers at a company controlled by mob boss Robert Loggia. In their own stumblebum fashion, Candy and Levy uncover a smuggling operation masterminded by Loggia. Meg Ryan also shows up in an early leading role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide