Roma Maffia Movies
New York native Roma Maffia began her acting career on-stage, appearing in all sorts of Broadway and off-Broadway plays, from musicals to Shakespeare. She only made occasional appearances in movies until a director asked her to audition for Ron Howard's upcoming comedy drama The Paper. When she won the role of Carmen in the film, she began investing real time and energy in her onscreen acting career. She continued to make appearances in several films a year until she was cast as Grace Alvarez, forensic pathologist for the NBC series Profiler; she stayed with the show from 1996-2000. Following that, it wasn't long before she picked up another role in a series; this time she signed on to play the part of Dr. Liz Cruz on the controversial series Nip/Tuck. She had a major role in the showbiz comedy The Blue Tooth Virgin. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi- 1988
Internal Affairs is the second TV-movie based on the works of detective novelist William Bayer. Richard Crenna, who first played NYPD detective Richard Janek in 1985's Doubletake, is back, now as a functionary of Internal Affairs. He has been assigned to solve the murder of a woman who may have been the victim of a kinky serial killer who'd flourished in Saigon 12 years earlier. Meanwhile, Janek's ex-boss (Lee Richardson), now a jailbird, gives the Janek the tip that several cops may be illegally selling guns. Internal Affairs was originally telecast in two parts in November of 1988. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Michelle Pfeiffer is Married to the Mob in this comedy. The wife of Mafia hitman Alec Baldwin, Pfeiffer regularly chastizes her husband for his underhanded line of work. Baldwin refuses to entertain any thoughts of quitting the mob-and besides, he's got a good thing going with Nancy Travis, the promiscuous girl friend of gang boss Dean Stockwell. When Stockwell catches on to Travis' peccadilloes, he murders both his mistress and the unlucky Baldwin. At Baldwin's funeral, Stockwell is overwhelmed by Pfeiffer's beauty, and immediately begins plying her with expensive gifts. But Pfeiffer is through with this sort of thing, and with her young son in tow, she leaves town, hoping to start life anew. Upon making the acquaintance of bumbling, seemingly sincere Matthew Modine, Pfeiffer is convinced that Modine is just another mob flunkey. But it's even worse: Modine is an FBI agent, ordered to get to Stockwell by using Pfeiffer as bait. Reluctantly (he's grown quite fond of her himself), Modine blackmails Pfeiffer into setting up a rendezvous with Stockwell. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Modine, (more)
- 1989
American Blue Note concentrates on a Manhattan jazz quintet. Peter MacNichol, Carl Capotorto, Tim Guinee, Bill Christopher-Myers and Jonathan Walker play the five musicians, each with individual crosses to bear. Allotting themselves one year to get booked into a major jazz club or else they'll split, the quintet performs a lot of nickel-and-dime gigs in the meantime. But only one of the five makes it to the band's "Valhalla." Louis Guss, Zohra Lampert and Trini Alvarado appear in peripheral roles. Filmed in 1989, the independently produced American Blue Note didn't get a distributor until 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Peter MacNicol, Carl Caportoto, (more)
Michael Douglas runs afoul of a treacherous supervisor in this film version of Michael Crichton's novel. Douglas plays Tom Sanders, an executive at DigiCom, a leading computer software firm. DigiCom is about to launch a new virtual reality-based data storage system that is expected to revolutionize the industry, and Bob Garvin (Donald Sutherland), the owner of the company, is in the midst of negotiating a merger that could bring $100 million into the firm. However, while Tom is expecting a promotion, he discovers the position has been given instead to a new hire, Meredith Johnson (Demi Moore), with whom Tom had an affair years ago, before he was married. After her first day of work, Meredith invites Tom up to her office and makes a concerted attempt to seduce him; while Tom doesn't fight off her advances with very much gusto at first, eventually he decides things have gone too far and leaves in a huff. The next morning, Meredith accuses Tom of sexual harassment, and he realizes this was merely a power ploy to get him out of DigiCom for good; Tom, determined to fight, files a counter-suit, which makes him no friends at the company, since rocking the boat too hard could very well scotch the merger. Dennis Miller also appears as one of Tom's wise-cracking co-workers. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Michael Douglas, Demi Moore, (more)
Director Ron Howard's drama follows a beleaguered reporter during a hectic 24 hours at a New York City tabloid. Michael Keaton stars as Henry Hackett, a metro editor for the struggling New York Sun. Hackett is being wooed by the Sentinel, a more upscale paper, but he's addicted to the adrenaline-stimulating, breakneck pace of the Sun's newsroom, much to the consternation of his pregnant wife Martha (Marisa Tomei. Hackett is currently pursuing a story of two minority youths who have been arrested for the murders of two men. He learns that the police think that the killings may be a mob hit. In the court of public opinion, however, the innocent suspects are being judged as guilty, and the police may bow to the pressure. As Hackett and his staff desperately work all the story's angles to find the truth, several other dramas unfold. Top editor Bernie (Robert Duvall) learns that he has prostate cancer, and tough publisher Alicia (Glenn Close) wonders if her lack of popularity is due to her cost-cutting, her personality, or the fact that she's a woman. In their only collaboration, screenwriter David Koepp co-wrote the script with his brother Stephen Koepp, a senior editor at Time magazine. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
- Starring:
- Michael Keaton, Robert Duvall, (more)
A stranger pulled into a deadly scheme races against time to save his daughter in this thriller. Gene Watson (Johnny Depp) is an accountant who comes to L.A. with his ten-year-old daughter Lynn (Courtney Chase) to attend a funeral. On the street, Gene and Lynn are pulled aside by Mr. Smith (Christopher Walken) and Ms. Jones (Roma Maffia), who flash what look like police badges and usher them into a van. Gene soon discovers that he's been kidnapped, and his captors have an unusual demand -- if Gene does not murder Gov. Eleanor Grant (Marsha Mason) within 75 minutes, his daughter will be killed. Gene now has just an hour and a quarter to tip off the authorities, spare Gov. Grant, and find out what Smith and Jones are trying to do, along with saving his daughter's life. He finds a much-needed ally in one-legged shoe-shine man Huey (Charles S. Dutton). Most of the action in Nick of Time occurs in "real time," meaning that the passage of time on screen matches that of real life, as the frequent shots of clocks and watches will attest. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Johnny Depp, Christopher Walken, (more)
Top-notch action sequences and exciting stunt work highlight this fast-moving thriller. John Kruger (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a top agent in the U.S. Marshalls' Witness Protection Program; it's his job to "erase" the pasts of Federal witnesses under his watch and deal with anyone who tries to hurt them. Kruger's latest assignment is to protect Lee Cullen (Vanessa Williams), who while working for a major weapons manufacturing firm discovered evidence that the company was selling new, high-tech weapons to intentional terrorists groups with the cooperation of a faction of enemy agents within the United States government. However, when Kruger discovers that the Witness Protection Program has a rat in the house -- and that rat is his boss, U.S. Marshall Robert Deguerin (James Caan) -- Kruger has to guard his own life while trying to protect Lee's. The supporting cast is highlighted by James Coburn, Robert Pastorelli, and James Cromwell. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Caan, (more)
- 1996
It's Fatal Attraction with a bit of gender and age fine-tuning in this made-for-TV melodrama. Bonnie Bedelia stars as Dr. Diane Weston, a professor in Shakespearean studies who has a brief fling with graduate student Jeff (Brian Austin Green). Once she has gotten over her attraction to Jeff, Diane tries to break off the romance, only to find out that he is obsessed with her. To win back Diane's "love", Jeff contrives to seduce the prof's daughter Tess (Gina Philips). And of course, when all else fails, things really get nasty (though no rabbits are boiled during the making of this picture)! Her Costly Affair made its NBC network debut on October 28, 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Season One of the intense crime drama Profiler begins as Bailey Malone (Robert Davi), head of the Atlanta-based Violent Criminal Task Force (VCTF), persuades his former colleague, forensic psychologist Samantha "Sam" Waters (Ally Walker) to come out of retirement and help his organization track down some of America's most heinous (and cleverest) serial killers. Sam possesses the strange ability to "see" through the eyes of both victim and killer at the crime scene, and had once been quite active as an FBI consultant. All this changed when a particularly elusive multiple murderer who called himself Jack of All Trades trumped Ally by murdering her father. Since that time, she has lived in seclusion with her daughter Cloe (played this season by Caitlin Wachs) and her best friend Angel (Erica Gimpel). Even so, Sam agrees to join Bailey's team, which consists of Detectives John Grant (Julian McMahon) and Nathan Brubaker (Michael Whaley), forensic pathologist Grace Alvarez (Romer Maffia), and computer hacker George Fraley (Peter Frechette). As it turns out, Sam's first case with the VCTF agains brings her in contact with Jack of All Trades, who continues to cut a homicidal swath through the country, leaving behind evidence that his ultimate "goal" is Ally herself. In fact, he begins targeting her colleagues, forcing Bailey to set up a trap for Jack using Sam and Grant as bait--a trap that backfires in a near-tragic fashion. Outside of the ubiquitous Jack, Sam tracks down such miscreants as an arsonist called Tony the Wick, a homicidal disciple of I Ching, a pro-eco serial bomber, a latter-day Charlie Manson type, a deranged artist who "arranges" the corpses of victims in the manner of famous paintings, and a vigilante who kills criminals who've evaded capture and then sends tapes of his handiwork to local TV stations. At one point, Sam is kidnapped by an anti-nuclear zealot who intends to kill a lot of people so they'll stop killing a lot of other people! Episodes highlights include "Unsolved Sovreignty", in which Sam is teamed for the first time with her future lover, ATF explosives expert Nick "Coop" Cooper (A Martinez); and "Blue Highways", wherein Bailey's dangerously rebellious 17-year-old daughter Frances (Heather McComb) makes the first of several fractious appearances. The season ends with the two-part cliffhanger "Venom", in which the life of a key member of the VCTF team hangs in the balance, while another team member quits in disgust. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ally Walker, Robert Davi, (more)
- 1996
Wings begins its eighth and final season with a virtual replay of the season seven opener, in which Brian (Steven Weber) and Casey (Amy Yasbeck) accidentally burned down the house of newlyweds Joe (Tim Daly) and Helen (Crystal Bernard). This time, however, it is Joe and Helen who have unintentionally burned Brian and Casey's domicile to the ground. Expecting a big insurance check, Brian instead finds himself suspected of fraud and arson by no-nonsense insurance investigator Claire Barnett (Roma Maffia). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
This thriller is adapted from the 1995 novel by James Patterson about a serial killer prowling a Southern university. Washington, D.C., forensic psychologist Dr. Alex Cross (Morgan Freeman) is also a best-selling author. After his niece Naomi (Gina Ravera) is reported missing, he heads his Porsche for Durham, North Carolina, where eight young women have been reported missing. Bodies are found by local policemen (Cary Elwes and Alex McArthur), along with the killer's signature, "Casanova." Casanova is a "collector" of strong-willed women who are forced to submit to his demands. Soon, local doctor Kate McTiernan (Ashley Judd) is abducted from her home and taken to a dungeon -- where other women are imprisoned in underground chambers. After McTiernan succeeds in escaping, she joins Cross and other detectives in the search for Casanova -- a trail that leads to Los Angeles, where similar crimes are being committed by someone known as "The Gentleman Caller." Are these two criminals in competition with each other or are they working together? ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi
- Starring:
- Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd, (more)
Season Two of the quasi-paranormal crime drama Profiler begins with the resolution of the Season One cliffhanger, as psychic forensic specialist Sam Waters (Ally Walker) takes charge of the Violent Criminal Task Force while supervisor Bailey Malone (Robert Davi) hovers between life and death in a hospital bed. Having quit the VCTF at the end of the previous season, John Grant (Julian McMahon) comes back to provide Sam with moral support; at the same time, another team member, Brubaker (played during Season One by Michael Whaley) has departed without explanation. Also, Bailey's rebellious daughter Frances (Heather McComb), who is essentially responsible for her father's plight, is now a fugitive from justice. Later on, Frances will return, intending to hurt her father by driving a wedge between himself and Grant. New to the cast is Sheik Mahoumad-Bay as Detective Marcus Peyton, a skeptic who doubts Sam's ability to "see" through the eyes of serial killers and their victims, making his first appearance in the episode "Jack Be Nimble, Jack Be Quick." Marcus will remain on the series only until the end of the season. That title is one of many references to Sam's bete noire, the psychotically brilliant and frustratingly elusive multiple murder Jack of All Trades, who killed Sam's husband and apparently will not rest until he adds Sam and everyone else whom she holds dear to his list of victims. The "Jack" throughline permeates virtually every episode this season, especially those spotlighting the killer's protégé, paroled felon Sharon Lescher (Traci Lords), whom he has brainwashed, renamed "Jill of All Trades", and voyeuristically made over in the image of Sam Waters! "Jill" not only goes on her own murder spree copying Jack's modus operandi, but she also succeeds in wiping out Sam's first-season sweetheart, ATF explosives expert "Coop" Cooper (A Martinez). In an effort to help Sam get over this tragedy, her best friend Angel (Erica Gimpel) arranges a reunion of several of Sam's old friends--but even this is marred by a murder, which also launches a disturbing new story arc. Eventually, Sam is able to arrest Jill, wounding Jack in the process. While Jack remains out of sight, Sam has other problems relating to her daughter Cloe (Caitlin Wachs), custody of whom may be taken away from Sam and placed in the hands of her resentful in-laws. In the season's two part finale "Root of All Evil", Sam struggles to come to grips with her personal travails as she sets up trap for Jack using "Jill" as bait--but the results are far from successful! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ally Walker, Robert Davi, (more)
Two lawmen find the call of corruption too loud to ignore in the drama Route 9. Booth Parker (Kyle MacLachlan) and Earl Whitney (Wade Williams) are two deputies in a small town who discover a crime scene along a deserted highway. There appears to have been a shoot-out with no living witnesses, and left in the dust by the side of the road are a van filled with illegal drugs and $1 million in cash. Booth and Earl are too weak to resist the urge to take the money, but when a federal agent (Roma Maffia) arrives to look into the case, they soon discover there's more to the crime than they originally expected. The knots become even more tangled when another sheriff (Peter Coyote), whose wife has been sleeping with Booth, starts sticking his nose into the case. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kyle MacLachlan, Peter Coyote, (more)
As Season Three of the paranormal crime drama Profiler gets under way, a trap set by psychic forensic specialist Sam Waters (Ally Walker) to capture elusive serial killer Jack of All Trades has failed dismally, leaving Jack's demented disciple "Jill" (Traci Lords) dead and Sam empty-handed. As Sam's colleagues in the Violent Criminal Task Force try to figure out a new strategy to bring in Jack, they come to the disturbing conclusion that the killer has been stalking Sam since both were children, and that he may have something even worse than murder in mind when he finally gets his hands on her. This story arc ends abruptly when the team captures Donald Lucas, who confesses to being Jack. Lulled into a sense of security, Sam purchases a new home for herself and her daughter Cloe (now played by Evan Rachel Wood, replacing Caitlin Wachs), re-enters the dating scene, and even attempts to mend fences with her estranged family. Alas, just when we thik that Jack is out of the picture, along comes the episode "Otis, California", in which we see Jack's face for the first time--and it isn't behind bars. The full truth comes out during the trial of Donald Lucas, who is merely another disciple of the demonic Jack--who has shown up in a different guise to testify in the trial, and to finally gain access to Sam without fear of being stopped! Outside of this explosive season finale, the most interesting of the third-season Profiler episode is "Grand Master", a crossover story with another NBC series The Pretender, featuring Michael T. Weiss in his familiar TV role of Jarod Russell. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ally Walker, Robert Davi, (more)
In this thriller, Ashley Judd plays Elizabeth Parsons, who is convicted of murdering her husband and sentenced to a long stretch in prison. After Elizabeth has spent six years behind bars, it turns out that her husband is still alive: he faked his own death as part of an insurance scam, and Elizabeth is soon released. However, Elizabeth's feelings for her husband can hardly be described as warm, and she wants custody of her son. Elizabeth's parole officer (Tommy Lee Jones) wonders if she might try to make his murder a real thing after all, especially since the law states a person cannot be convicted of the same crime twice. Double Jeopardy was directed by Bruce Beresford, from a screenplay by Douglas S. Cook and David Weisberg. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tommy Lee Jones, Ashley Judd, (more)
The fourth and final season of Profiler begins with the three-episode conclusion of the cliffhanger established in Season Three, when the elusive serial killer Jack of All Trades (Dennis Christopher) manages to kidnap psychic forensic special Sam Waters (Ally Walker) and seriously wound Sam's boss Bailey Malone (Robert Davi). Spiriting Sam away to his hideout, Jack (whose real name and raison d'etre is finally revealed) embarks on a series of fiendishly clever mind games, designed to transform Sam into one of his disciples. Jack also indulges in some long-distance brainwashing with Sam's daughter Cloe (Evan Rachel Wood), intending to turn the girl violently against her mother. Meanwhile, the convalescing Bailey appoints another FBI "profiler", Rachel Burke (Jamie Luner), to take charge of the Violent Criminal Task Force and hopefully rescue Sam before it's too late. At this point, longtime series regulars Ally Walker, Dennis Christopher, Evan Rachel Wood and Erica Gimpel (cast as Sam's best friend Angel) leave the series, and Jamie Luner is promoted to star billing. It doesn't take long for Rachel Burke to foment ill will amongst the VCTF team members with her brusque know-it-all attitude, though it cannot be denied that she is every bit as talented in tracking down multiple murderers as her predecessor. Rachel also makes powerful enemies within the FBI, most notably rogue agent Mark (Gregory Itzin), who as the season wears on develops into Rachel's own "Jack of All Trades"-style tormentor. Rachel's more sensitive side is revealed in the episode "Clean Sweep", a crossover with the NBC series The Pretender in which the leading character of that series, Jarod Russell (Michael T. Weiss), falls in love with the mercurial Ms. Burke. The series ends on an uncertain note, as Rachel is plunged into despair over her inability to prevent the death of a loved one, her colleagues Grace (Roma Maffia) and George (Peter Frechette) respectively struggle with a crumbling marriage and an increasing dependency upon prescription pain killers, and Congress prepares to yank all funding from the VCTF. An additional episode, "Tsuris", originally scheduled to air at an earlier date, brings Profiler to an end with everyone's fate still dangling precipitously. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jamie Luner, Robert Davi, (more)
- 2000
- PG13
- Add Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her to Queue Add Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her to top of Queue
Although Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her does bear some similarities to Short Cuts and Magnolia in its setting (Southern California) and mood (modern malaise), and its multiple story format, its focus is exclusively on female characters, and it's possible to view each story on its own. The film begins with a prologue: Police detectives are investigating the apparent suicide of a Hispanic woman (Elpidia Carillo). "This Is Dr. Keener" deals with Dr. Elaine Keener (Glenn Close), a single professional woman attempting to care for her aging and infirm mother and deal with her own loneliness. She invites Christine (Calista Flockhart), a tarot card reader, into her home to make some sense of her life. "Fantasies About Rebecca" profiles a successful bank manager (Holly Hunter) involved with a married man (Gregory Hines). When she learns that she is pregnant, he coldly advises her to take care of the "problem." Before she visits Dr. Keener to have an abortion, she impulsively has a fling with a colleague (Matt Craven). She is also confronted by a female street person in the bank's parking lot. "Someone for Rose" is about a single mother (Kathy Baker), a writer of children's books. She is attracted to a new neighbor, a dwarf (Danny Woodburn), and he catches her spying on him in his house. She's also amazed to find that her son is more sexually active than she knew -- and more than she is herself. "Good Night Lilly, Good Night Christine" details the relationship between the tarot card reader Christine and her lover, Lilly (Valeria Golino), who is critically ill with an unnamed disease. The final story, "Love Waits for Kathy," concerns two sisters, Carol (Cameron Diaz), a lovely blind woman with an active social life, and her police detective sibling, Kathy (Amy Brenneman), one of the detectives who appeared in the prologue. Kathy is attracted to the medical examiner in the suicide case, and her story ends with him taking her out on a date. In an epilogue, Dr. Keener drops in to a bar, where she meets a male character from one of the earlier stories. Debuting director Rodrigo Garcia, a noted cinematographer, is the son of writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Things You Can Tell made its debut on cable television, although it was originally intended to be a theatrical release. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi
- Starring:
- Glenn Close, Cameron Diaz, (more)
- 2001
An unusually heavy rainstorm brings a inordinate amount of "traffic" into the ER. Outside the doors of the hospital, Weaver (Laura Innes) and a nervous, inexperienced Gallant (Sharif Atkins) risk electrocution from downed power lines to save a pregnant woman and her unborn baby. Inside, Greene (Anthony Edwards) treats a young boy whose brother was swept into a river. Carter's (Noah Wyle) grandmother, brought into the ER after sustaining injuries in a hit-and-run, begins hallucinating. Nicole (Julie Delpy), the troubled young girl befriended by Kovac (Goran Visnjic), may be stealing personal items from the staff. And Benton (Eriq La Salle) gets some disturbing news about his son, Reese (Matthew Watkins). Lisa Vidal makes her first series appearance as feisty firefighter Sandy Lopez. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 2001
Unable to get away from his workload, Benton (Eriq La Salle) may lose Reese (Matthew Watkins) in a court custody battle with Roger (Vondie Curtis-Hall). Carter (Noah Wyle) makes a play for Lewis (Sherry Stringfield), who is not resistant to his charms. While treating a married couple who may literally be allergic to sex, Weaver (Laura Innes) begins a relationship with feisty female firefighter Sandy Lopez (Lisa Vidal). Kovac (Goran Visnjic) learns more about Nicole's (Julie Delpy) "pregnancy." And while preparing to leave County General, Cleo Finch (Michael Michele) is reluctant to say goodbye to anyone. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 2001
This episode marks the final regular ER appearances of Eriq La Salle and Michael Michele. After resorting to desperate measures to retain custody of his son, Reese (Matthew Watkins), Peter Benton (La Salle) realizes that he must make a choice between the boy and his overloaded ER schedule. He opts to take a less demanding job at a clinic in the Chicago suburbs, where his current love, Cleo Finch (Michele), is already working. In other developments, a boy accidentally shot by his mom on Christmas Eve is a cause of great concern amongst the ER staffers; Abby (Maura Tierney) sees Nicole (Julie Delpy) where she didn't expect to see her; the relationship between Weaver (Laura Innes) and Lopez (Lisa Vidal) enters a new phase; and Carter (Noah Wyle) receives startling but not unexpected news about his parents. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
The women of a suburban town are suddenly forced to live without men in a feminist comedy that parodies the mood and look of '50s sci-fi thrillers. Lisa LaStrada (Mary Woronov) is a seemingly happy housewife in the quiet desert community of Lacuna. But looks can be deceiving, and not all is well in the LaStrada household; Lisa's husband, Jay (Michael White), the local sheriff, is having an affair with her friend Virginia (Roma Maffia). Lisa's sister, Janet (Jaime Tolbert), has problems of her own, running her grocery delivery business and propping up her marriage to Steve (Matt North). One day, a bizarre lightning storm hits Lacuna, and the next morning, while the women wake up, all the men in the community appear to be in a comatose state. Soon it appears that every man in America has fallen into a deep sleep, and no one can wake them, and the women of Lacuna discover they have wildly different reactions to this crisis -- some are lost without their husbands, some are perfectly happy getting to know one another better, while a few ponder the future of the human race without men, who may never wake up again. The New Women also stars Sandra Kinder, Jane Ray, Amy Hill, Jenny Shimizu, and Cheryl Dunye. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Mary Woronov, Jaime Tolbert, (more)
- 2002
Did middleweight boxing champ Laroi Steele die accidentally from the beating administered in the ring by his hated rival Javier Molina (Greg Serano)? Or was this accident actually premeditated murder? Grissom (William L. Petersen) leans decidedly toward the latter option. Meanwhile, Catherine (Marg Helgenberger) investigates the shooting of an L.A. gang member, while Nick (George Eads) looks into a violent jewelry-store heist. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
A boy being punished for a crime he didn't commit learns there's more going on at a juvenile correctional facility than meets the eye in this comedy drama. Stanley Yelnats IV (Shia LaBeouf) is a teenager who has been told all his life that the men in the Yelnats family are cursed, thanks to a false promise his great, great grandfather made to a fortune teller. Given his frequent bad luck, and that which follows his father (Henry Winkler), Stanley has no trouble believing this. Stanley's bad luck hits a new low when a pair of sneakers literally falls out of the sky on him -- and turn out to be stolen. A judge sentences Stanley to a stay at Camp Green Lake, a juvenile correctional facility stuck in the middle of the desert, where he finds himself sharing a tent with a gang of misfits, including ringleader X-Ray (Brenden Jefferson), pushy Squid (Jake M. Smith), small but wiry Zero (Khleo Thomas), tough and stinky Armpit (Byron Cotton), paranoid ZigZag (Max Kasch), and thief-in-training Magnet (Miguel Castro). The Warden of Camp Green Lake (Sigourney Weaver) has her own ideas about rehabilitation, which consist of having the boys spend their days digging holes five feet deep under the desert sun. While well-mannered counselor Pendanski (Tim Blake Nelson) tries to help the boys however he can, Mr. Sir (Jon Voight), The Warden's right hand man, is a heartless creep who enjoys making Stanley and his friends suffer. Before long, Stanley wonders if there's a good reason why the Warden seems so curious about what (if anything) the boys find during their digging, and in time he suspects there's something they haven't been told which might be connected to the Yelnats family curse. Holes was based on the award-winning book for young people by Louis Sachar, who also wrote the film's screenplay. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, (more)
The first season of F/X's Nip/Tuck finds doctors Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) enjoying success at McNamara-Troy, the plastic surgery practice they built after having gone through medical school and much of their young adult lives together. While Christian is perfectly happy making tremendous amounts of money and using his status to bed all the beautiful women Florida has to offer, Sean is desperate to take on pro bono cases. Though this eventually comes to fruition, the limitations in his personal life continue -- his relationship with his son, Matt (John Hensley), is strained, while his marriage to Julia (Joely Richardson) is mediocre at best; both he and Julia have seriously contemplated extramarital affairs. This season also marks the entrance of a ruthless Columbian drug lord, who at one point was blackmailing Sean and Christian into helping him transplant drugs into the U.S. via heroin-filled breast implants. Though he eventually is brought to justice, it makes life even more difficult for the surgeons. Luckily, the constant stream of patients into McNamara-Troy all have something to offer -- their outside flaws, whether real or merely a result of societal pressure, help Sean and Christian examine their own internal imperfections. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dylan Walsh, Julian McMahon, (more)
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