Michael David Lally Movies

Steven Hill, the sole remaining cast member from Law & Order's first season, appeared as D.A. Adam Schiff for the final time in this episode. In a case reminiscent of the theatrical feature Missing, a father obsessively seeks out the persons responsible for the torture and death of his son in Chile in 1973. When the father himself dies, A.D.A. McCoy (Sam Waterston) goes after hospitalized Chilean colonel Emilio Pantoya (Tomas Milian), intending to prosecute the ailing officer for murder. "Vaya Con Dios" originally aired in tandem with another episode, "Stiff," on May 24, 2000, bringing the tenth season of Law & Order to a close. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A young Puerto Rican graffiti artist signs his own death warrant when he tags a building in Little Italy. Medavoy (Gordon Clapp) and Donna (Gail O'Grady) come to a roadblock in their relationship when he meets her former boyfriend, who has shown up at the precinct to report a crime. And after being mugged, a traumatized Sylvia (Sharon Lawrence) reveals a disturbing secret to her fiancé Sipowicz (Dennis Franz). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This cold, stylish erotic-thriller grossed over $100 million at the box-office despite vigorous protests at its depiction of gays and women. The shocking opening sequence features a graphic sexual encounter involving a rock-star bound with a white Hermes scarf by an unidentified blond woman. Despite the fact that the scene ends with a bloody icepick murder (horrifyingly realized by makeup artist Rob Bottin), Hermes scarves quickly sold out at stores nationwide. This seeming paradox is at the heart of the film's appeal, as it mixes perverse sexuality and erotic bloodshed in a manner common to European thrillers (director Paul Verhoeven had done it himself in 1979's marvelous De Vierde Man) but mostly taboo in America. The plot concerns Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone), a successful bisexual mystery writer who may also be a ruthless murderer. Everyone close to Catherine dies, and troubled policeman Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) must find out why. In the process, Nick becomes sexually involved with both Catherine and police psychiatrist Beth Gardner (Jeanne Tripplehorn), while the bodies begin piling up and Catherine turns the cat-and-mouse game around on Nick. Verhoeven and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas -- who was paid $3 million for the script -- keep the tension ratcheted up throughout, even during the frequent sex scenes, which carry a violent edge reminiscent of the Italian thrillers of Dario Argento. The film's most notorious scene, a police interrogation in which Catherine makes drooling idiots out of her captors by revealing that she is not wearing underwear, became a cultural touchstone and was widely imitated and parodied. Sharon Stone, meanwhile, was embarrassed to the point that she claimed Verhoeven had aimed lights on strategic locations without her knowledge. George Dzundza and Dorothy Malone co-star. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

Henry (Cain Devore) is a well-heeled young man who is probably visiting Tijuana for business reasons, like the good yuppie he is. He takes up with Ramona (Heidi von Palleske), an attractive local girl who works in a factory, and they have an enjoyable time together. He only discovers just how enjoyable it was when he gets back to his Los Angeles home and finds her hiding in the trunk of his car. They are on their way with a friend to Las Vegas, possibly to get married, when immigration authorities catch up with them and she is deported. Appealing performances, reviewers reported, help flesh out the rather thin storyline of this independently produced film. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

An audacious film about faith, The Rapture is a contemporary fantasy that keeps its feet unnervingly planted in reality even as reality starts to collapse. Mimi Rogers, in a strikingly accomplished performance, stars as Sharon, a telephone operator who spends her off-hours engaging in casual group sex to blot out her boredom. By chance, she becomes aware of a small Christian sect whose members believe that they have found a child with the gift of prophecy who has seen the upcoming end times. Slowly but steadily, Sharon finds herself drawn to this group, and one night she abruptly turns a corner, renounces her old life, and embraces fundamentalism with passion. She marries one of her former lovers, Randy (David Duchovny), who takes up Sharon's evangelical fervor to atone for his past as a hired killer, and they have a daughter. All seems peaceful until Randy is unexpectedly murdered, and Sharon takes her child to the desert to await the rapture that will bring the chosen to heaven. The film neither supports nor scoffs at Sharon's views, and the superb performances add immeasurably to a film that presents the unbelievable (and unthinkable) at face value, making it seem oddly plausible in the process. Michael Tolkin has also written and/or directed such films as The Player (1992), directed by Robert Altman, and The New Age (1994), both of which also skewer contemporary American society as shallow, materialistic, and desperate for something authentic to believe in. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

An agoraphobic author decides she needs a more suitable environment in which to pen her best-selling Gothic novels and so moves to a decaying Victorian mansion. She isn't there long before she discovers that it is being haunted by a pack of ghostly prostitutes, all of whom died there when it was a house of ill repute. The spirits take over the woman and use her as their instrument of revenge. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide