Willie Minor Movies

To escape from the boredom of her small-town life, Sunday School teacher Candy Morrison (Barbara Hershey) engages in an affair with a fellow churchgoer. When his wife Peggy learns about the relationship, she attacks Candy with an axe; after a struggle, Candy kills Peggy, hitting her 41 times with the axe. In the resulting trial, her plea of self-defense is examined. This TV-movie is based on a true story. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

Made for television, Finding the Way Home was based on Mittelman's Hardware, a novel by George Raphael Small. George C. Scott stars as irascible 60-year-old businessman Max Mittelman, whose life and career are in tatters. Involved in a traffic accident, Mittelman suffers a concussion, loses his memory, and wanders into a community of migrant Latino farm workers. Enthusiastically and selflessly laboring shoulder to shoulder with his new friends, Mittelman gains a whole new perspective on life. Things begin to change, and not for the better, when his memory slowly returns. Hector Elizondo co-stars as the workers' spiritual leader. Filmed on location in Texas, Finding the Way Home was first telecast August 26, 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The November 22, 1963, assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy shocked the nation and the world. The brisk investigation of that murder conducted under the guidance of Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren distressed many observers, even though subsequent careful investigations have been unable to find much fault with the conclusions his commission drew, the central one of which was that the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, acted alone. Instead of satisfying the public, one result of the Warren Commission Report was that an unimaginable number of plausible conspiracy theories were bruited about, and these have supported a sizeable publishing mini-industry ever since. In making this movie, director Oliver Stone had his pick of supposed or real investigative flaws to draw from and has constructed what some reviewers felt was one of the most compelling (and controversial) political detective thrillers ever to emerge from American cinema. Long before filming was completed, Stone was fending off heated accusations of artistic and historical irresponsibility, and these only intensified after the film was released. In the story, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) is convinced that there are some big flaws in the investigation of Oswald (Gary Oldman), and he sets out to recreate the events leading up to the assassination. Along the way, he stumbles across evidence that a great many people had reason to want to see the president killed, and he is convinced that some of them worked in concert to frame Oswald as the killer. Among the suspects are Lyndon Baines Johnson (the next president), the CIA, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Mafia. Over the course of gathering what he believes to be evidence of a conspiracy, Garrison unveils some of the grittier aspects of New Orleans society, focusing on the shady activities of local businessman Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones). Garrison's investigations culminate in his conducting a show trial that he knows he will lose and which he is sure will ruin his career in order to get his evidence into the public record where it can't be buried again. This movie won two of the many Academy Awards for which it was nominated: one for Best Photography (Robert Richardson) and the other for Editing (Joe Hutshing). ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Based on a true story, The Tuskegee Airmen chronicles the experiences of the first African-American fighter pilots in the U.S. Army Air Corps. Using Hannibal Lee (Laurence Fishburne) as a focal point, the movie follows the airmen from their initial training at Tuskegee, Alabama, through their combat assignments during World War II. Featuring fascinating vintage military planes and exciting air-combat footage, the film also depicts the racism encountered by the pilots. In one example, the airmen are forced to give their seats on a crowded train to German prisoners of war. Even after the airmen complete their training, the military brass is reluctant to trust them in battle. But First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt publicizes their plight by going to Tuskegee and having one of the African-American pilots take her for a plane ride, and shortly thereafter the airmen are assigned a combat role. Eventually they join with other African-American pilots in the 332nd Fighter Group where their skill in protecting bombers from enemy fighters finally earns them the respect they deserve. The screen story was co-authored by Robert Williams, one of the pilots trained at Tuskegee. ~ Rovi