Jefferson Mappin Movies

Christian independent film company Cloud Ten Productions presents this science fiction-tinged thriller in the same vein of their other offerings, such as Left Behind. Directed by Andre vanHeerden, Deceived stars Judd Nelson as Jack Jones, a scientist brought in to help discern the purpose and source of a strange, extraterrestrial signal that seems to have a mysterious effect on the psychic abilities of those exposed to it. The film also stars Michelle Nolden, Stuart Beck, and Academy Award-winner Louis Gossett Jr. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi

Organizing a neighborhood watch group, Fraser (Paul Gross) and Ray (David Marciano) teach a self-defense course to a group of senior citizens. One of their elderly pupils, a mugging victim named Herb Colling (Carl Gordon), uses what he has learned to become a dangerous one-man vigilante force, complete with baseball bat. Meanwhile, Fraser's pet wolf Diefenbaker has troubles of his own when he is "adopted" by a sweet old lady with a knitting fetish. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

If Ms. Famke Janssen is a Model By Day in this TV movie, what does she do by night? If this were a USA cable movie, perhaps she'd be walking the streets. But since it's network movie, Famke spends her evenings as a masked crimefighter. She runs into trouble with the law when a murderer appropriates her alter ego and costume for a mayhem spree. Sean Young costars in this busted pilot film. Model by Day was first telecast March 21, 1994. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Dedicated to his mentors Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, Clint Eastwood's 1992 Oscar-winner examines the mythic violence of the Western, taking on the ghosts of his own star past. Disgusted by Sheriff "Little Bill" Daggett's decree that several ponies make up for a cowhand's slashing a whore's face, Big Whiskey prostitutes, led by fierce Strawberry Alice (Frances Fisher), take justice into their own hands and put a $1000 bounty on the lives of the perpetrators. Notorious outlaw-turned-hog farmer William Munny (Eastwood) is sought out by neophyte gunslinger the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) to go with him to Big Whiskey and collect the bounty. While Munny insists, "I ain't like that no more," he needs the bounty money for his children, and the two men convince Munny's clean-living comrade Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) to join them in righting a wrong done to a woman. Little Bill (Oscar-winner Gene Hackman), however, has no intention of letting any bounty hunters impinge on his iron-clad authority. When pompous gunman English Bob (Richard Harris) arrives in Big Whiskey with pulp biographer W.W. Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek) in tow, Little Bill beats Bob senseless and promises to tell Beauchamp the real story about violent frontier life and justice. But when Munny, the true unwritten legend, comes to town, everyone soon learns a harsh lesson about the price of vindictive bloodshed and the malleability of ideas like "justice." "I don't deserve this," pleads Little Bill. "Deserve's got nothin' to do with it," growls Munny, simultaneously summing up the insanity of western violence and the legacy of Eastwood's Man With No Name. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

When police officer Sean Craig (Martin Kove) is shot while on the job, he is pronounced dead, but remarkably comes back to life. When he is haunted by the strange dream he experienced while he was clinically dead, he sets out to find the mysterious woman who appears in the visions. With the help of a curious doctor (Martha Henry), Craig makes another attempt to attain a near-death state and piece together the rest of the puzzling vision. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

In this farcical comedy, Matthew Broderick plays Clark Kellogg, an aspiring director who arrives in New York City to attend film school. However, moments after he arrives in the city, he's robbed by Victor Ray (Bruno Kirby), leaving him no money for the $700 in books required by his instructor, Arthur Fleeber (Paul Benedict). A few days later, Clark runs into Victor and demands his money back, but Victor has already lost it (on a horse race in which he wasn't entirely sure the animal he bet on was a horse). Instead, he offers to fix Clark up with a job with his boss, an "importer and exporter" named Carmone Sabatini (Marlon Brando), who bears a stunning resemblance to Don Corleone in The Godfather. Clark's adventures with Sabatini are just beginning when he's instructed to pick up a package from the airport. Clark is expecting it to be contraband, and he's right, but not in the way he figured -- it turns out he's accepting delivery of a komodo dragon, which is to be served at a "gourmet club" specializing in dishes prepared from endangered species. Marlon Brando's hilarious comic variation on one of his best-known roles is the highlight of this film, but Bruno Kirby and Paul Benedict also deliver fine comic turns, and Matthew Broderick copes nobly with his role as the film's lone normal person. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Set in the years before World War I, this film is about Robert, a young man growing up in a wealthy family in Toronto who is burdened by a distant, cool mother and a father dedicated to duty, both highly conservative people. When Robert loses his beloved invalid sister in a car accident he is further tormented by the family's decision to kill her pet rabbits - and quarrels with them so intensely that he enlists in the army and goes off to war. Once "over there," he discovers brothels and romance, and in a climactic scene, decides to free a barn full of horses from certain death - in spite of contrary orders from his superiors. The juxtaposition of Robert's internal conflict and the external horrors of combat may have been intended to illustrate the nature of "war," although that is difficult to surmise since the evidence in the film is not that strong. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Margot Kidder and Annie Potts star in this distaff buddy picture concerning two friends undergoing a series of misadventures in their love lives. Potts plays Bonnie Howard, the wife of Stanley (Robert Carradine), an immature child/man who irresponsibly spends most of his time racing cars and getting drunk. Bonnie also happens to be pregnant, but the father of her unborn child does not happen to be Stanley. Rather than hit Stanley in the face with that fact, she decides to leave him. As she heads for town to obtain an abortion, she runs into the foul-mouthed man-hunter Rita Harris (Margot Kidder in a blonde wig and tight pants). The two characters get involved in a number of vignettes, with the humor arising from the contrast between the streetwise Rita and the relatively innocent Bonnie. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

This is a fast-paced, standard crime story with Sgt. Boyd (Richard Crenna) as a lone cop out to clean up the neighborhood. Kurtz (Paul Williams) is a wild gangster who manages a ring of prostitutes, and right now he has problems. Someone is shooting his hookers. A few of the undercover cops get killed as they try to infiltrate the hooker trade, so Sgt. Boyd is more or less alone in bringing in the sniper and giving Kurtz his due. While he is focusing on those tasks, prostitute Monica (Linda Sorenson) is focusing on him. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi