Tammy Blanchard Movies
Actress Tammy Blanchard turned more than a few heads by evoking the young Judy Garland in the critically praised made-for-television drama Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001). The effort (which Blanchard graduated to after three seasons on the soap opera Guiding Light) netted several award nominations for the rising star, and in fact won her an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie. Blanchard followed it up with two very different assignments -- a turn as a young Ivy League coed-to-be in the Tom Green-headlined frat-boy comedy Stealing Harvard (2002), and a much more difficult evocation of a young deaf girl who nearly snares the heart of CIA agent Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) in Robert De Niro's Cold War epic The Good Shepherd (2006). Also in 2006, Blanchard signed for a more conventional romantic lead opposite Eduardo Verástegui in the drama Bella; the actress portrays a pregnant waitress, heartbroken when she loses her job -- only to feel her hopes soar as she encounters the love of her life. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
Bennett Miller's adaptation of Michael Lewis' non-fiction best seller Moneyball stars Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, a one-time phenom who flamed out in the big leagues and now works as the GM for the Oakland Athletics, a franchise that's about to lose their three best players to free agency. Because the team isn't in a financial position to spend as much as perennial favorites like the Yankees and the Red Sox, Beane realizes he needs to radically change how he evaluates what players can bring to the squad. After he meets Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), an Ivy League economics major working as an executive assistant for scouting on another team, Beane realizes he's found the man who understands how to subvert the system of assessing players that's been in place for nearly a century. However, as the duo begin to acquire players that seem too old, injured, or inept to play major-league baseball, they face stiff resistance from both the A's longtime scouts and the team's manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who outright refuses to allow Beane's more-nontraditional acquisitions to play. Moneyball screened at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi
- Starring:
- Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, (more)
Union Square, Nancy Savoca's first film in nearly a decade, stars Mira Sorvino as Lucy, a hard-drinking party girl from the Bronx who takes a trip into Manhattan to meet with her married lover, and ends up visiting her sister Jenny (Tammy Blanchard), who has cleaned up her life and is engaged to a man running a health-food business. Jenny has hid the truth about her past from her fiancé; he thinks she's from Maine, and Jenny wants nothing more than to get her out-of-control sister away from their apartment. Lucy, however, doesn't know how to take a hint, ends up spending the night, and soon the two are fighting about old resentments and Jenny finds she can't keep the facade going with her fiancé. Union Square played at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi
- Starring:
- Mira Sorvino, Tammy Blanchard, (more)
A grieving Amish mother struggles to forgive the woman whose husband killed her daughter and four other innocent schoolchildren in this drama inspired by the tragic true-life events that unfolded in a Nickel Mines schoolhouse on October 2, 2006. It was a senseless crime that no one could have foreseen. In the wake of the shooting, the media descended upon Nickel Mines, and the parents of the murdered schoolchildren remained steadfast in their promise to practice forgiveness -- except for Ida Graber (Kimberly Williams-Paisley). Devastated by the loss of her beloved daughter, Ida found herself unable to forgive the gunman and his wife, Amy Roberts (Tammy Blanchard). With each passing day Ida's sorrow continues to fester, testing her faith in ways that she, and many others in her community, never dreamt of. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tammy Blanchard, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, (more)
Adapted for the screen by David Lindsay-Abaire from his own Pulitzer Prize-winning play, director John Cameron Mitchell's Rabbit Hole stars Oscar winner Nicole Kidman and Golden Globe-nominated Aaron Eckhart as a married couple who find their relationship on life support following the devastating loss of their young child. The further their relationship deteriorates, the harder the grieving parents fight to keep it alive. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, (more)
An overly critical father gets a unique opportunity to reconnect with his estranged son, if he can only embrace the music that once divided them in this uplifting family drama inspired by Dr. Oliver Sacks' case study "The Last Hippie." Forbidden by his conservative engineer father, Henry (J.K. Simmons), from attending a Grateful Dead concert back in 1967, Gabriel Sawyer (Lou Taylor Pucci) packs his bags and runs away from home. Twenty years later, Henry and his wife, Helen (Cara Seymour), receive word that Gabriel has been diagnosed with a benign brain tumor that requires delicate surgery to remove. Though the operation is successful, Henry and Helen soon learn that the part of their son's brain responsible for creating memories has been damaged by the long-neglected tumor, and that as a result, Gabriel will find it difficult to distinguish the past from the present. As communication grows increasingly difficult, frustrated father Henry becomes staunchly determined to make up for lost time by forming a solid father-son bond with Gabriel, and begins researching treatment for brain injuries. It isn't long before Henry's inquiries lead him to music therapist Dr. Dianne Daly (Julia Ormond), whose innovative methods have yielded impressive results in the past. When Dr. Daily exposes Gabriel to the rock & roll music that he loved as a youth, something incredible begins to happen: Gabriel finally finds the words to express himself, and he regains the ability to have meaningful conversations. As his own health begins to take a turn for the worse, Henry determines to let go of his loathing for the music that has awakened his son's consciousness, and embrace the joy of loving the child he once drove away. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- J.K. Simmons, Lou Taylor Pucci, (more)
An unstable writer races to solve the mystery of an old Victorian house while working around the clock to finish a screenplay in time to meet her looming deadline. Alice (Brittany Murphy) has just suffered a total mental collapse, and her career will be on the line if she fails to complete her screenplay soon. Feeling unsafe in the city, Alice retreats to an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere. Before long, she's hearing strange sounds and seeing fleeting apparitions out of the corner of her vision. Curious, Alice begins exploring the sprawling home and discovers a collection of videotapes hidden away in the attic. The content on the tapes is disturbing to say the least, but the more Alice watches, the more intrigued she becomes. What ever happened to the couple (Marc Blucas and Thora Birch) that made them, and what is the malevolent force that seems to be tracing her every move? Her deadline closing in fast, Alice watches helplessly as reality begins to distort and fragile psyche starts to crumble all over again. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Brittany Murphy, Thora Birch, (more)
Abandoned by her boyfriend after following him to Tokyo, an American slacker adrift in a foreign culture witnesses the healing power of food and determines to become a ramen chef. When Abby (Brittany Murphy) arrived in Tokyo, she assumed she was starting a new life with her boyfriend. But that future fades when Abby's boyfriend disappears, leaving her to fend for herself in a city she doesn't understand. In desperate need of a little consolation, the floundering American begins frequenting her neighborhood ramen shop. She feels comfortable there, and recognizes how happy food can make people by the radiant smiles on the customer's faces. Convinced that her true calling is to become a ramen chef, Abby eventually persuades the restaurant's temperamental, tyrannical Japanese chef to become her mentor in the art of making ramen. Though at first their relationship is almost unbearably contentious, the master and his student eventually find a common ground when Abby realizes that the secret ingredient to true ramen is a universe of feeling. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Brittany Murphy, Toshiyuki Nishida, (more)
- 2007
Emmy Award-winning actress Tammy Blanchard (Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows) essays the role of a young girl whose fragile mind was tragically fractured due to years of abuse by her unstable mother (JoBeth Williams). The setting is the late 1950s: multiple personality disorder has yet to be recognized as a serious condition by the mainstream medical community, and Dr. Cornelia Wilbur (Jessica Lange) is struggling against the sexist attitudes of her chauvinistic male colleagues. Chief among her arrogant detractors is Dr. Atcheson (Ron White), a highly respected medico who seems to view Dr. Wilbur with little but thinly-veiled contempt. When Dr. Wilbur hypnotizes withdrawn abuse victim Sybil (Blanchard) in an attempt to bring the sixteen distinct personalities possessed by the girl into harmony, the shocking truth about her tormented childhood gradually comes into focus while forming the foundation of the case file that will finally see multiple personality disorder recognized as a legitimate medical condition. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jessica Lange, Tammy Blanchard, (more)
- 2006
- PG13
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A man whose life is about to be changed forever discovers that sometimes it takes losing it all to finally appreciate the things that truly matter in director Alejandro Monteverde's emotional tale of self-discovery. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Eduardo Verástegui, Tammy Blanchard, (more)
One man bears witness to the secret history of America during the Cold War in this drama directed by celebrated actor Robert De Niro. In 1939, Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) is a young man with a bright future ahead of him -- he's a top student at Yale and the protégé of one of the school's leading English professors, Dr. Fredericks (Michael Gambon). But Wilson's life changes dramatically when he's invited to join Yale's powerful secret society, Skull and Bones. Through his Skull and Bones connections, Wilson meets Sam Murach (Alec Baldwin), an mysterious FBI agent who asks Wilson to investigate charges that Fredericks is a Nazi sympathizer working with the German government. Later, at a Skull and Bones party, Wilson is introduced to Clover Russell (Angelina Jolie), the sister of one of his classmates and the daughter of a powerful politician; their one-night stand leaves Clover pregnant, and Wilson must leave the woman he loves, Laura (Tammy Blanchard), to wed Clover and give their child a name. Shortly after their wedding, thanks to his work with Murach, Wilson is invited to join the Office of Strategic Services, a military intelligence organization organized by Bill Sullivan (Robert De Niro), and Wilson accepts. Through World War II, Wilson serves with the OSS, and learns he can trust no one in the game of international espionage, which helps make him little more than a stranger to his wife, his son, and his few friends. As the OSS evolves into the Central Intelligence Agency after the war, Wilson becomes party to America's darkest and most dangerous secrets, and in the wake of the futile Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, Wilson is forced to make a terrible choice between the security of his nation and the safety of his family. Inspired by the true-life story of CIA founder James J. Angleton, The Good Shepherd boasts an impressive supporting cast, including William Hurt, John Turturro, Billy Crudup, Joe Pesci, and Timothy Hutton.
~ Mark Deming, Rovi
~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, (more)
- 2004
First telecast by CBS on November 28, 2004, When Angels Comes to Town is the third in a series of whimsical TV-movies featuring Peter Falk as an eccentric, all-purpose guardian angel named Max. Sent to a small town in Maine just before the Christmas holidays, Max immediately gets to work on what he thinks is his current assignment: To help Sally Reid (Tammy Blanchard) earn enough money so that she can adopt her orphaned brother Jimmy (Alexander Conti). Unfortunately, it turns out that Max has goofed: Instead of Sally, he was supposed to come to the aid of Karl Hoffman (Seann Gallagher), a misguided young man who is poised to lay off the artisans working at the glass factory run by his Uncle Gregory (Mark Anthony Krupa), an East German refugee. Thus it is that Max's heavenly superior, an attractive angel named Jo (Katey Sagal), descends to earth to untangle the mess. Subsequently, however, both Max and Jo come to realize that the ultimates fates of Sally and Karl are inextricably intertwined. As was the case in the earlier A Town Without Christmas and Finding John Christmas, the cagey Max adopts several disguises in the course of his assignment, at one point showing up in drag! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Two buddies find themselves doing some very wrong things for perfectly right reasons in this broad comedy. John (Jason Lee) is a nice guy who is responsible and hardworking; his best friend Duff (Tom Green), however, is his polar opposite, a layabout who is constantly getting in some sort of trouble. John is very much in love with his longtime girlfriend Elaine (Leslie Mann), and wants to marry her, but true to form, he has pledged not to make the walk down the aisle until he has saved up to 30,000 dollars so they'll be able to afford a down payment on the house they've always wanted. After years of saving, John has finally put 30 grand in the bank, and has set the date with Elaine. However, as John's big day approaches, he gets word from his sister Patty (Megan Mullally) that her daughter Noreen (Tammy Blanchard) has been accepted into Harvard University -- and years ago, John promised her if she got into the prestigious college, he'd pay the tuition. Making good on John's pledge to his niece would leave him with a mere 121 dollars in the bank, but he doesn't have the heart to say no to Noreen, or tell Elaine of his dilemma. John does tell Duff about his problem, who comes up with a typically hare-brained solution -- turning to a life of crime for the next two weeks in order to steal another 30,000 dollars. Stealing Harvard costars Dennis Farina and Chris Penn; Bruce McCulloch, a member of the comedy series The Kids in the Hall, served as director. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Can it truly be said that a family is torn apart when they were never truly "together" to begin with? This is one of the disturbing questions posed by the wrenching made-for-cable drama We Were the Mulvaneys. Adapted from the novel by Joyce Carol Oates, the film stars Beau Bridges and Blythe Danner as Michael and Corinne Mulvaney, the parents of four "ideal" children. Outwardly the picture of domestic perfection, the Mulvaneys reveal the truth about themselves when their daughter Marianne (Tammy Blanchard) is raped. Desperately trying to avoid a public scandal, Michael and Corinne force Marianne to keep quiet about her violation, then ship her off to an undisclosed location where she can "recover." In the ensuing three years, Corinne tries to expunge her outrage and guilt over her daughter's plight by overzealously embracing religion, while the once-ambitious Michael degenerates into an abusive drunkard. The story is told from the viewpoint of youngest Mulvaney son, Judd (Thomas Guiry), whose life is likewise adversely altered forever. Heavily promoted by the Lifetime cable network publicity team, We Were the Mulvaneys made its initial TV appearance on April 8, 2002. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 2001
- Add Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows to Queue Add Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows to top of Queue
From her gradual ascent to stardom in the 1930s to her death from a drug overdose at age 47 in 1969, former vaudeville baby Frances Ethel Gumm, aka Judy Garland, endured a string of personal and career ups and downs that continues to color her reputation as an icon whose tragedies outweighed her triumphs. This TV biopic, based on the first half of daughter Lorna Luft's book Me and My Shadows: A Family Memoir, attempts to humanize Garland's legend by presenting the singer/actress' story from an insider's point of view. Tammy Blanchard plays the young Garland, an MGM contract player with an overbearing mom (played by Marsha Mason) who helped push her daughter to stardom -- and, along with studio boss Louis B. Mayer (Al Waxman), into a lifelong addiction to booze and barbiturates. From her early performances alongside Mickey Rooney to her breakthrough role in The Wizard of Oz, Life With Judy Garland paints the performer as a sweet kid who just wanted to please her mother, especially after the death of her gentle, beloved father (Aidan Devine). Australian actress Judy Davis takes over as the grown-up Garland as the film traces her five marriages, exile from MGM, countless film and stage comebacks, and crippling addictions. The film's final section concentrates on the home life of Luft, her brother Joey, and their half sister Liza Minnelli, as the kids and their broke mom moved from one hotel to another and Luft nursed Garland through depressions and binges. Life With Judy Garland premiered in February of 2001 on ABC, earning Emmy awards for both Davis and Blanchard. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi
- Starring:
- Judy Davis, Victor Garber, (more)
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