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Rick Lieberman Movies

1991  
R  
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Paralyzed in a 1984 accident, writer/director Neal Jimenez (of River's Edge fame) channelled his own experiences and emotions into his 1991 film Waterdance. Eric Stoltz stars as a young writer left incapacitated by a hiking accident. He is placed in a paraplegic ward, peopled by patients of all races and emotional states. Together with his new-found friends, Stoltz rebels against the hospital system and his own debilitation. Helen Hunt and Wesley Snipes are among the costars in this effective update (though not a remake) of 1950's The Men. Waterdance was given a brief theatrical release in 1992 before being telecast on PBS' American Playhouse in early 1993. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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Starring:
Eric StoltzHelen Hunt, (more)
 
1990  
 
This lively made-for-cable adventure chronicles the ordeal endured by five urban executives who head to the wilderness to relax and end up fighting for their lives after they stumble across a cocaine-smuggling operation. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

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1988  
 
Season Five of Hunter begins as police detectives Rick Hunter (Fred Dryer) and Dee Dee McCall (Stepfanie Kramer) try to break through the wall of silence surrounding a traumatized teenager. Danny Sanderson (Chad Allen) has not spoken a single word since witnessing the murder of his father and the wounding of his mother, presumably at the hands of a crooked sports agent with whom the father was doing business. Only after the main suspect is arrested and Danny's mother has recovered do the detectives realize that the case is far from closed. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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1987  
R  
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A cop discovers that there's something unusual about his new partner in this unusual sci-fi thriller. A seemingly well-mannered stock broker one day snaps, robbing a bank, stealing a Ferrari, and driving straight into a police barricade without any thought for his own safety, and he's mowed down by a hail of bullets. The detective assigned to the case, Tom Beck (Michael Nouri), thinks that he notices a strange look in the eye of the thief, but when FBI agent Lloyd Gallagher (Kyle MacLachlan) informs Tom that he's also been assigned to the case, he thinks that he sees the same curious look in Lloyd's eyes as well. Lloyd also has an odd way of carrying himself, as if he's not entirely in control of his own body, and in time, Tom discovers what the two men have in common -- both are actually aliens from another planet. They are creatures from another world capable of entering a human (or animal) body at will and using it as a vessel as long as they need. When the stockbroker died, the rogue alien simply crept into another body to begin his crime spree all over again. Lloyd has been sent to Earth to bring the thief's reign of terror to a halt and has taken over the body of an FBI agent with that in mind. A major cult favorite, The Hidden also features Clu Gulager, Ed O'Ross, and Claudia Christian. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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Starring:
Michael NouriKyle MacLachlan, (more)
 
1987  
R  
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Paul Verhoeven's American breakthrough film, Robocop, is an exceedingly violent blend of black comedy, science fiction, and crime thriller. Set in Detroit sometime in the near future, the film is about a policeman (Peter Weller) killed in the line of duty whom the department decides to resurrect as a half-human, half-robot supercop. The RoboCop is indestructible, and within a matter of weeks he has removed crime from the streets of Detroit. However, his human side is tortured by his past, and he wants revenge on the thugs who killed him. The film was later followed by two feature-length sequels and a live-action television series, neither of which were as successful as the original film. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

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Starring:
Peter WellerNancy Allen, (more)
 
1986  
R  
In this sex comedy, the hope of landing a profitable contract sets two rival valet services, the Fraternity Parkers and the Valet Girls, into competition with each other. In an attempt to outsell their competition, both services offer special bonuses and incentives to their lucky customers. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

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Starring:
Meri D. MarshallApril Stewart, (more)
 
1986  
 
Based on a true story, the made-for-television Samaritan: The Mitch Snyder Story is the tale of a Washington, DC-based Vietnam veteran (Martin Sheen) who fights for America's homeless by staging hunger strikes and battling with various government agencies, eventually winning the attention of several city officials. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

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1986  
 
Mark Harmon stars as baby-faced serial killer Ted Bundy in this sobering 2-part TV movie. Ostensibly the archetypal All-American boy, Bundy was, from 1974 onward, responsible for the rapes and murders of several young women in the Pacific Northwest. The clues begin to mount when one of Bundy's victims manages to escape; she can only say that her assailant was a fellow named Ted who drives a yellow Volkswagen. Finally arrested after he moves from Seattle to Utah, Bundy is so certain of his superiority over the general run of human beings that he conducts his own defense at his trial; then, when extradited to Colorado, he escapes, triggering a desperate nationwide manhunt. At the time Deliberate Stranger was first telecast on May 5 and 6, 1986, Theodore Bundy was on Death Row, still contesting his sentence and seeking a legal way out. When time came for his execution, Bundy attempted several bizarre last-minute "stays," which would make intriguing subject matter should someone want to make a follow-up film. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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1984  
 
The thin storyline for this film is that three young women hope to gain a foothold in the acting profession, so they perform nude in front of the window of the disk jockey (Mad Man Jack played by Al Music) who is running a contest that would launch their careers. Along with many songs by a wide variety of groups -- from The Police to Blondie -- are crowds of young women cheerleading, doing aerobics, hang gliding, wind-surfing, and performing any number of physical feats. Other than music and nubile women in sporting events, the film has little to say and was never released theatrically. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

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Starring:
Al MusicLantz Douglas, (more)
 
1982  
R  
When a young, single, neurotic New Yorker finds the perfect woman, he tries desperately to get her to fall for him. Young director Jonathan Kaufer has been compared to Woody Allen with this, his first feature. ~ Kristie Hassen, Rovi

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Starring:
Saul RubinekMarcia Strassman, (more)
 
1981  
R  
Trying to recreate the screwball comedy success of his collaborations with Peter Bogdanovitch, actor Ryan O'Neal headlined this sporadically funny mixture of light farce and social satire. O'Neal stars as Bobby, an intellectual English professor who leaves his job when his father Jack (Jack Warden) appeals to him for help. A garment manufacturer, Jack is in serious debt to humongous loan shark Eddie (Richard Kiel), and he desperately needs his business to provide the capital to pay Eddie back. Completely by accident, Bobby invents the solution to his dad's problem: see-through denim blue jeans with strategically placed holes in the rear that expose one's backside. The fickle public goes mad over the "sexy" new style, and the money starts flowing in, but Bobby exacerbates his father's problems greatly when he falls for and begins dating the amorous Lira (Mariangela Melato), whose husband is none other than Eddie. So Fine was the feature directorial debut of popular Blazing Saddles (1974) writer Andrew Bergman, who would wait eight years before getting behind the camera again with the much more successful The Freshman (1990). ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

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Starring:
Ryan O'NealJack Warden, (more)