Lisa Banes Movies

Malcolm McDowell reprises his stage performance as Jimmy Porter, the quintessential British "angry young man," in this video adaptation of John Osborne's ground-breaking play. The play begins one dreary Sunday morning, as Jimmy rants and raves against the entire world, including his family, British society, politicians, and women, especially his own wife, Alison. About the only person he does get along with is Alison's close friend and near-constant companion Cliff Lewis, a member of the working-class that Jimmy so strongly identifies himself with, despite his education and comfortable upbringing. Given his continually abrasive, hate-filled manner, it is no wonder that Alison is afraid to share an important secret with him: that she has become pregnant. She invites an old friend, Helena Charles, to visit, seeking advice; this only provokes Jimmy further, as he considers Helena a mortal enemy. Tensions soon grow stronger amongst the members of this makeshift household, and after a sudden tragedy, allegiances shift in a rather unexpected fashion. Director Lindsay Anderson, who had previously collaborated with McDowell on if... and Oh Lucky Man!, translated Ted Craig's Roundabout Theatre production to the screen, taping the end result in merely three days. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story, this drama stars Sissy Spacek as Marie Ragghianti, a Tennessee housewife stuck in a bad marriage with an abusive husband and caring for a child with long-term health problems. Determined to turn her life around, Marie leaves her husband and goes back to school. Against long odds, she completes her college degree and is able to land a job with the Tennessee State Government. Thanks to hard work and being in the right place at the right time, Marie moves up the ladder to become the head of the Tennessee Parole Board. However, the more authority Marie gains, the more corruption she sees, reaching to the highest offices in the state -- Eddie Sisk (Jeff Daniels), special assistant to the governor, has worked out a system by which he can collect bribes on behalf of the governor in exchange for political favors, without the governor himself being directly implicated. An angry Marie decides that it's time she did something about the graft and dirty dealing in the parole department, but she soon discovers that the governor has many powerful friends who can easily discredit her in the press. The supporting cast includes Morgan Freeman and Trey Wilson. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this Western based loosely on actual events and people, Emilio Estevez stars as William H. Bonney (aka Billy the Kid). Sought for a petty crime in Lincoln County, Billy is taken in by John Tunstall (Terrence Stamp), a British ranch owner seeking to make it in the cattle business. Tunstall employs a group of "regulators," comprised of wayward youths he's gathered over the years, to watch over his ranch; in turn, he teaches them how to read and reforms them into better men. Tunstall's business interests come into conflict with those of corrupt and murderous businessman Lawrence Murphy (Jack Palance), whose widespread connections make him a power to be reckoned with. When Tunstall won't budge from his right to pursue a living, Murphy's henchmen stage an ambush and kill him. This triggers a vow of vengeance from the quick-tempered Billy and his five fellow regulators, who are deputized to serve arrest warrants in the murder. However, when Billy decides to gun down the suspects instead of detaining them, his loyal pals become accessories in a vigilante spree to wipe the territory clean of Murphy and his web of conspirators. Soon, the supposed lawmen are on the run from bounty hunters, henchmen, and government soldiers, from all directions of the compass. This box-office hit also stars Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Dermot Mulroney, and Casey Siemaszko. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide

Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning American author Ernest Hemingway (Stacy Keach) begins his family and career in Europe, survives combat and marriages, struggles with a ragingly out of control lifestyle, and returns to Idaho where, at age 61 and with his best writing behind him, takes his life. He leaves behind a legacy of great literature and a great legend. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide

Made for television, Danger Island has also been released as The Presence. Things get going when a private plane crashes on tropical island. We soon learn we aren't in for Gilligan's Island Redux as an unseen presence wreaks havoc. Some of the castaways disappear, while others develop bizarre deformities. It's all due to a biological experiment which went horribly wrong nearly two decades earlier. Model Kathy Ireland costars with June Lockhart and Richard Beymer: where else but on American network television? Danger Island debuted September 20, 1992, its print ads emphasizing a bikini-clad Ireland rather than horrific elements. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, the mother of an autistic boy and his teacher are frequently at odds. But when they learn that the boy has been molested, the two must unite to discover the abuser's identity. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Jessica (Angela Lansbury) journeys to Rome to provide rewrites for a film based on one of her novels. As can be expected, all is not going well on the movie set, especially after a stuntman dies in a highly suspicious "accident." Among the principal players in this mystery is guest star Michael Connors, repeating his role of Boyce Brown previously introduced in the eleventh-season episode "Film Flam". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The life of teenager Eric Sutter (Nick Stahl) is forever changed for the worse when he is arrested for attacking a neighbor woman with a knife--the case being "sealed" when the victim positively I.D.s the hapless Eric, who has harbored a crush on the woman for months. Anxious for a conviction, the police use only the evidence that will bolster their case in prosecuting Eric, while the media has a field day stirring up public resentment against the boy. Too, Eric's surly, rebellious attitude seems calculated to tighten the noose around his neck. Only Eric's mother Margaret (Marilu Henner)and her loyal boyfriend David (Matt McCoy) believe in the boy's innocence, and together they tirelessly fight for justice against all odds. Originally broadcast by ABC, the fact-based My Son is Innocent first aired May 6, 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this suspenseful made-for-television drama a young girl unwittingly puts herself in grave danger when she falls in love with a handsome charmer who happened to kill his last girlfriend. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this supernatural thriller, Kevin Costner plays Joe Darrow, a physician mourning the death of his wife Emily (Susannah Thompson) in a bus accident in South America, where she was providing medical outreach. Wracked by grief, Joe works extra shifts at the hospital to take his mind off the tragedy, but the intense workload triggers his short temper and some careless mistakes. His officious boss (Joe Morton) forces Joe to take time off, but Joe feels obligated to check in on his wife's pediatric patients, fulfilling a promise he made before she left. Visiting the ward, Joe starts to believe that Emily is using the near-death experiences of her terminal patients to communicate with him, through images the children report seeing in their dreams, and symbols they are inexplicably compelled to draw. While the children see Joe as a kindred spirit, the hospital staff worries about how these interactions are agitating them. At home, Joe begins finding other ethereal evidence of his wife's attempt to contact him from beyond the grave, some of it featuring the image of a dragonfly, which was the shape of the birthmark on her shoulder. His friends and a caring neighbor (Kathy Bates) worry that Joe is losing his marbles, especially as his quest becomes more frantic, putting his job in jeopardy. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide

Assigned the thankless task of teaching freshman English at a gang-infested Long Beach, CA high school, a 23-year-old teacher resorts to unconventional means of breaking through to her hardened students in director Richard LaGravenese's adaptation of Erin Gruwell's best-seller The Freedom Writer's Diaries: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. Her students had been written off, and her chances of succeeding scoffed at, but Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank) wasn't about to go down without a fight. Long Beach is a place where a new war is waged with each passing day, and when the hardened students who walk those dangerous hallways sense an outsider attempting to understand their plight, their cynical resentment threatens to keep a deadly cycle in motion. Despite the initially hostile reaction she receives in the classroom, Gruwell uses the writings of Anne Frank and Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo to teach her students not only the basis of the English language, but compassion and tolerance as well. Later, when the time comes to tell their own tales in a project specially designed to explore the daily violence that the majority of students have grown numb to, the barriers that had once stood so strong gradually begin to crumble. When the only chance for survival is to befriend the person who was once your mortal enemy, the world is opened to a whole new realm of possibilities. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide