Tom Lacy

Tod Williams made his feature directorial debut with this teen comedy-drama set in 1983. High school senior and writer wannabe Sebastian Cole (Adrian Grenier) survives a car accident in a remote Southwestern area near the trailer home of a Spanish-speaking woman. As she dresses his wounds, Sebastian looks back over the past year and his dysfunctional family life. After a divorce, Sebastian's near-alcoholic mother Joan (Margaret Colin) remarried. His architect father Hartley (John Shea) was more devoted to career than family. His sister Jessica (Marni Lustig) is off to the West Coast with her dullard boyfriend. Sebastian's stepfather Hank (Clark Gregg) plans a sex change. Since being married to a woman doesn't appeal to Joan, she returns to her native England with Sebastian. Months later, Sebastian moves back to his upstate New York hometown, rejoining Hank. However, Hank is now Henrietta, wearing makeup and women's clothing and serving as both a mother and father figure for Sebastian. Shown at the 1998 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

A big city doctor is stranded in a small rural town, where he finds love, professional challenges, and a pet pig, in this comedy. Fresh out of residence at a Washington D.C. hospital, hot-shot plastic surgeon Ben Stone (Michael J. Fox) hops in his Porsche and is headed for California, where a lucrative practice in Beverly Hills awaits. However, Ben accidentally plows into a fence in Grady, South Carolina; the wreck puts Ben's car out of commission, and the town's mayor, Nick Nicholson (David Ogden Stiers), sees to it that Ben is sentenced to perform community service while he's waiting to get his car back on the road. For a week, Ben will serve as the community's general practitioner, filling in for the aging Dr. Hogue (Barnard Hughes). Many of the locals go out of their way to make Ben feel welcome, since they need a new full-time doctor and hope he'd be interested in staying on a permanent basis. Ben isn't especially interested until he meets Lou (Julie Warner), a beautiful, intelligent, and feisty local woman he first meets as she's enjoying a morning skinny-dip. Ben now finds himself wondering what the odds are of winning her away from her less-than-brilliant boyfriend Hank (Woody Harrelson). Bridget Fonda has a memorable supporting role as Nancy Lee, who doesn't make much of a secret of her attraction to Ben. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

It's hardly likely that anyone will confuse 1977's First Love with the 1939 Deanna Durbin musical of the same name. In the earlier film, Durbin received her first screen kiss from Robert Stack. In the 1977 film, no one stops at kissing. College boy Elgin (William Katt) falls for coed Caroline (Susan Dey, light-years removed from The Partridge Family), despite Caroline's deep involvement with an older man. 1950s leading lady Virginia Leith makes a comeback appearance in a minor role. Critics applauded the sensitive direction by Joan Darling, even while carping that the title First Love seemed to be a misnomer: neither Katt nor Dey appear to be inexperienced in sexual matters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A latter-day attempt to update the swordplay success of Errol Flynn movies, this film is part burlesque, part homage to old-fashioned pirate films. James Earl Jones and Robert Shaw play Nick Debrett and Ned Lynch, two pirates who save a noblewoman, Jane Barnet (Geneviève Bujold), and take her to Jamaica. They find that their friends have been taken captive by a ruthless dictator -- Peter Boyle plays the foppish villain Lord Durant with an over-the-top swagger. Debrett and Lynch set out to rescue their friends and overthrow the perverted tyrant. Beau Bridges plays Major Folly, a fancy-dressing Scarlet Pimpernel sort. A young Anjelica Huston has a minor part as a nameless woman. There is plenty of swordplay, blood, slapstick, and cleavage, all directed by James Goldstone in a frenzied fashion. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

While tutoring fellow student Tom Povich (Richard Masur), who is attending Boatwright on a football scholarship, John-Boy (Richard Thomas) catches Tom cheating on a history exam. Though he'd sooner keep quiet, John-Boy is bound by the students' "honor code", which dictates that he himself will be given a failing grade unless he informs on Tom. This leads to an emotional denoument during a student council meeting, in which John-Boy tries to rationalize Tom's actions and prevent the boy from being expelled. And in a similar development, Jason (Jon Walmsley) wonders if he should "rat out" his brother Ben (Eric Scott), whom he has caught smoking a cigarette! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The well-known short-story writer Ring Lardner, Jr. wrote the screenplay for La Mortadella, an Italian/French production with mostly English dialogue. The story concerns the difficulties and reactions of Madelena (Sophia Loren), an Italian visitor to New York City. She has come to the country carrying a huge mortadella sausage which she intends as a gift for her fiancé. U.S. Customs has other ideas, however, and she is detained until she hits upon the idea of sharing the offending foodstuff with the customs officers. Finally allowed entry into the U.S., she grows disenchanted with her fiancé and other men she meets and is only with difficulty able to make her escape to a more agreeable location. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A drug addict seduces his lover into sharing his chemical joys and together they begin a wrenching downward spiral into destruction in this unflinching, well-wrought drama. Before getting hooked on speed, the woman had a successful career. But, despite the efforts of those who would help her, the couple cannot seem to kick their habit. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide