William McNamara Movies

Bette Midler stars as Stella Claire, a working-class, fun-loving barmaid in northern New York State. A brief affair with handsome Stephen Dallas (Stephen Collins) produces a daughter, Jenny (Trini Alvarado), whom Stella insists upon raising alone, despite Dallas' marriage offer. As the years pass, Stella and Jenny are a happy pair. Stella gives up bartending to sell cosmetics, supported by her friend Ed (John Goodman), a bartender developing a crush on her and a problem with alcohol. Dallas has stayed involved with his beloved daughter from afar and is now a urologist in New York City, engaged to a book editor (Marsha Mason). As Jenny reaches adulthood, Stella becomes aware that life with her father would provide her daughter with opportunities that she'd never have otherwise, so she devises a painful, self-sacrificing scheme to drive Jenny from the nest. Although functional as a tearjerker, many of the themes in Stella simply don't make as much sense in a modern age of healthy, fractured families, muting the drama of the tale's earlier versions, specifically Stella Dallas (1937). ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

The Richard Connell short story, The Most Dangerous Game, has been adapted for the screen many times. In this updated version, the rapper-actor Ice-T plays Mason, a homeless man whose best friend and his dog both die on the same day. Cole (Charles S. Dutton, a relief worker, tells Mason that there's a job available that entails leading a hunting expedition in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. The desperate Mason signs on. The hunting party is led by two CIA agents, Burns (Rutger Hauer) and Hawkins (Gary Busey), and it includes a business executive, Wolfe, Sr. (F. Murray Abraham), his son (William McNamara), and a strange Texan, Griffin (John C. McGinley). Mason flies on ahead to prepare the hunting lodge, and there he discovers that he is to be the prey for the hunt, though the hunters at least give him a head start before pursuing. The violent action pits the high-tech hunters, armed with numerous fancy weapons and vehicles, against Mason -- who must rely on his street smarts to escape and turn the tables on the hunting party. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi

Robert Conrad, William McNamara, and Sharon Farrell star in this crime drama about a police detective assigned to investigate the brutal murders of three children. With few leads but an iron will to put the killer behind bars, the detective is willing to do almost anything, including listening to a woman who claims to have psychic powers and has been visited with visions of the crime. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This drama is based on a play by Mones and is set within a grim New York neighborhood where a new kid comes to the neighborhood. Unlike the street-wise and life-toughened gang members around him, the youth is a sensitive poet who teaches the kids about the meaning and beauty of life. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this comedy, a hard-luck gambler learns a new commandment: Honor Thy Mother's Lottery Winnings. Johnny Amico (Mike Starr) runs a delicatessen in New York City; regarded as a nice guy by his friends and regular customers, he has a weakness for gambling and is usually in debt. Johnny is constantly nagged by his well-meaning but domineering mother (Judith Malina), who gives him ten dollars to play the same number every week in the lottery. One week, her number turns up a winner, but this is bad news for Johnny: convinced that the number would never win, he's been using the money to place bets of his own. Now Mom expects Johnny to come up with the prize money for a winning ticket he never bought; Johnny hatches a scheme to raise the money, but, given his usual success as a gambler, no one is very optimistic that he can pull it off. The Deli features an impressive list of supporting names, including actors Michael Imperioli, Frank Vincent, and Debi Mazar; rappers Heavy D and Ice T; singer David Johansen; and model Iman. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A spy discovers information that could put the entire nation in danger, and must struggle to remember the facts while he still can in this suspense thriller. Clayton Pierce (William McNamara) is an American intelligence agent who has infiltrated a cadre of Russian and Saudi gangsters in order to bust them in the midst of what he believes will be a major heroin deal. However, Pierce discovers the briefcase being passed in the deal is actually a portable thermonuclear device with the power to level an entire city; Pierce blows his cover while intercepting the bomb and is shot during the melee that follows. He manages to escape and is treated for his wounds in the agency's private clinic. However, Pierce soon finds that there are large and troubling gaps in his memory -- so much so that he doesn't even remember that he was divorced by his ex-wife Kate (Dina Meyer) six years earlier. With Kate's help, Pierce discovers the startling truth about the bomb he's discovered, and an even more disturbing secret about the agency -- that La Nova (Roy Scheider), his commander, has dosed him with an experimental drug called Oblivion that erodes the memory of anyone who used it. Time Lapse also features musician and author Henry Rollins as one of Pierce's fellow agents.
~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Set in the rural South of the '30s, the made-for-cable film Wildflower is about a pair of teenaged siblings who become friends with an epileptic girl named Alice (Patricia Arquette), who has been forced to live in the barn behind her father's house because he believed her seizures were the work of the devil. With the help of the two teenagers, the girl is able to become part of everyday society. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi