Faith Minton Movies

Pittsburgh Penguins owner Howard Baldwin was the producer of Sudden Death, and the action is set in his hockey arena, in which the Penguins are playing the Chicago Blackhawks. Pittsburgh fire inspector Darren McCord (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is attending the game with his two children. He's quit fighting fires because of a tragedy a few years earlier involving a child he couldn't save. Also at the game is the vice-president of the United States (Raymond Barry), who is the target of a terrorist plot. The terrorist leader, an insane ex-CIA agent named Joshua Foss (Powers Boothe), has masterminded a scheme to hold the vice-president hostage in his luxury suite while demanding that payments be transferred to his account electronically at the end of each period of the game. If he doesn't get his money, he will kill one member of the vice-president's party at the end of each period, and at game's end he will order ten bombs hidden in the arena to be detonated with all 17,000 fans present. McCord discovers the plot while his daughter Emily (Whittni Wright) is kidnapped by the terrorists too. McCord must dispatch the villains and find the bombs, while saving all the hostages. Luckily, he is adept at martial arts. He fights one henchman dressed in a Penguins mascot outfit in the arena's kitchen, and another terrorist on the arena's retracting dome. At one point, McCord switches identities with a player, is sent into the game, and scores a goal. Director Peter Hyams also directed Van Damme in the blockbuster Timecop. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

In Rage and Honor, Cynthia Rothrock is featured as a full-time high-school teacher/part-time karate instructor who's out to protect one of her students who innocently witnesses and films a mob drug transaction. He's caught and beaten but keeps the film from the bad guys. Finding and helping him is an Australian foreign-exchange cop who also gets involved in the fracas when he's set up for a murder by some cop cohorts who've gone bad. ~ All Movie Guide

Ellen Barkin stars in this mystical comedy about a detestable male chauvinist temporarily reincarnated into the body of a woman. Steve Brooks (Perry King) foolishly accepts an invite for an evening of debauchery from three former girlfriends, and thinks he's got it made when he shows up to find them waiting for him in a hot tub. Eager to exact revenge on the scoundrel, the women proceed to drown him, and Steve is cast into a purgatory in which two unseen voices are deciding whether to send him to heaven or hell. Steve is given one chance to save himself from damnation -- if he can find a woman alive who actually liked him. To complicate his task and teach him a lesson, Steve is reincarnated as a sexy woman (Barkin), just the type who would have been the target of his cheesy advances. Sloppily adjusting to his new body, Steve (now Barkin) tells people he is the sister of the missing Steve Brooks, and begins working at his old advertising agency as a means toward completing his arduous task. As Steve's sister, he also enlists the help of his best friend, Walter (Jimmy Smits), despite the complication that Walter is noticeably attracted to the woman he has become. Steve's homophobia -- and several of his other hateful traits -- are put to the test. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide

The third entry in the violent cycle of prison dramas has street-kid turned prizefighter Too Sweet back in the slammer again. Because he is such a great fighter, he finds himself caught in the uncomfortable position of having to choose whether to fight for the warden or for the crook who rules the inmates. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Detective Berzak (Robert Carradine) and his suave partner Hazeltine (Billy Dee Williams) combine forces to track down a notorious drug lord in this routine action feature. Captain Ferris (Peter Graves) monitors the progress of the decidedly different detectives. The trail leads to Dacosta (Barry Sattels) a respected member of the social elite and the community. Valerie Bertanelli plays Berzak's daughter Teresa, who is pumped for information by her father about his ex-wife (Doris Roberts). ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Harry's courtroom becomes Ground Zero for several Cold War crises between the US and the former Soviet Union. It all begins when Harry (Harry Anderson) launches a search for the brother of Russian émigré Yakov (Yakov Smirnoff), a circus performer who has decided to defect. Before long, Night Court is swarming with clowns and jugglers, KGB and CIA agents, and even a pair of contentious arms negotiators! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this plotless, mindless chase movie, papa Big Enos and son Little Enos (Pat McCormick and Paul Williams) hire Cletus (Jerry Reed) to haul a Jaws-replica shark from Miami to Texas to advertise their new seafood restaurant. There is big money in it for Cletus if he can get to Texas on time. Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason) mistakes Cletus for his old nemesis the Bandit (Burt Reynolds, who only appears briefly at the end of the film), postpones his retirement, and with his inept son Junior (Mike Henry) in tow, chases Cletus across the South for a disconnected series of misadventures and bad jokes. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Director Robert Aldrich's last film, All the Marbles stars Peter Falk as a "win-at-all-costs" type manager of a ladies tag-team wrestling combo. These girls are good and Falk wants them great. And he doesn't really care what they've got to do to get there. (This film's "R" rating is not for Raunchy, but it could be for "Revealing.") Following sort of a Rocky theme, this film finds our ladies tag team climbing its way to the top of the women's wrestling world where they face off against the world's best. ~ All Movie Guide

The year 1979 saw an epidemic of American street-gang films, including Phil Kaufman's hit period drama The Wanderers. Set in the Bronx in 1963, the film concerns the titular gang of Italian-American teens and their ongoing power struggle with the rival "Fordham Baldies." Richard Price, upon whose novel this film was based, drew from his own experiences to weave his tale. Essentially a series of anecdotes-some tension-filled, some amusing -- The Wanderers climaxes on the occasion of the J.F.K. assassination, which for Price and hundreds and thousands of his aimless contemporaries served as a wake-up call. Viewed from the vantage point of the 1990s, one would wish that the current street gangs be shocked into adulthood with such suddenness (though not through the same tragic means). Ken Wahl, Karen Allen, and Linda Manz are among the standout performers in this richly detailed period piece. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide