Ed Begley, Jr. Movies

A feature-length pilot film for a proposed NBC series, War Stories is set in a battle-torn Middle Eastern country that is obviously Uzbekistan (but not identified as such). Cynical, hard-as-nails American war correspondent Ben Dansmore (Jeff Goldblum) balks at being assigned a new photographer/partner so soon after the newcomer's predecessor (who happened to be Ben's best friend) was literally blown to bits while covering a hot story. "There's no such thing as truth; that's why they call them stories." That is Ben's philosophy, one that he hopes to impart to idealistic young Nora Stone (Lake Bell). But Nora, whose sister died in the terrorist attacks of September 11, refuses to be as cold and dispassionate as Ben. It takes a series of near-death experiences dodging bullets and fanatical rebels for Ben and Nora to find the common ground so necessary to their future teamwork. War Stories premiered January 29, 2003, on the eve of what seemed certain to be the United States' ultimate showdown with Iraq. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The debut film from director Joseph A. Pineda, Going Down is a raunchy independent comedy starring Jay Michael Ferguson and Josh Blake as two pals who find themselves mired in a fiasco in the aftermath of a wild party. With Jack's (Ferguson) parents due back in just a few hours, the guys find themselves running ragged to not only get the house in order but also take care of the two dead bodies that mysteriously made their way into the suburban abode. As the clock ticks, the mishaps mount. The film also features appearances by Ed Begley Jr. and Saved by the Bell's Dennis Haskins. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

The life and sordid, untimely death of Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane are explored by director Paul Schrader in this biopic, which marks one of the few times the filmmaker has not scripted his own film. Auto Focus chronologically traces the meteoric rise of Crane's show business career, beginning with his early success as a jokey deejay on Los Angeles morning radio in the early '60s. A devout family man, Crane lives in Southern Californian comfort with his wife Anne (Rita Wilson) and their young children, relishing the modicum of celebrity his job provides him. His life begins to change, however, when his agent Lenny (Ron Leibman) proposes that he take a breakthrough role on the CBS POW-camp sitcom Hogan's Heroes. Initially reluctant to take the job, Crane signs on with the production and, to his and everyone else's surprise, the show becomes a smash hit. With celebrity comes a new set of friends, and Crane falls in with audio-visual guru John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe), a Sony sales rep who spends his days setting up home entertainment systems for the Hollywood elite, and his nights cruising strip clubs for anonymous sexual encounters. Already a pornography buff, Crane starts using his fame to secure him and Carpenter an endless parade of affairs, which they videotape and then obsessively review. It isn't long before Anne demands a divorce, and Crane marries his Hogan's co-star Patti Olsen (aka Sigrid Valdis, here played by Maria Bello), who's more accepting of his escapades. When the sitcom is canceled, however, Crane has trouble securing acting jobs, and recedes further and further into his life of amateur porn with Carpenter. Auto Focus premiered at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals before its art-house run in the fall of 2002. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

Joseph Brustman's erotic drama Diary of a Sex Addict tells the tale of Sammy Horn (Michael Des Barres), a man whose sexual addiction forces him into situations where he risks the comfortable suburban life he has created for himself and his family. Rosanna Arquette, Nastassja Kinski, Ed Begley Jr., Alexandra Paul, and former gossip columnist A.J. Benza co-star in this sexually charged thriller. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Some six months after the cancellation of the popular, hard-hitting TV cop series Homicide, most of the cast members were reunited for a two-hour TV movie, which deftly (and somewhat surprisingly) combines stark, raw realism with Sartre-esque flights of fantasy. Several members past and present of the Baltimore Police Department's homicide squad are brought back together when their former skipper and current mayoral candidate, Al "G" Giardelli (Yaphet Kotto), is gunned down by a would-be assassin. As former partners Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor) conduct their own personal search for the perpetrator, the comatose "G" discovers that not all police review boards are conducted by the living. Like its weekly predecessor, Homicide: The Movie was co-produced by Baltimore native Barry Levinson. The film made its first NBC network TV appearance on February 13, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After parodying the idiosyncrasies of community theater devotees in the mock documentary Waiting for Guffman, actor/director Christopher Guest returns with another semi-improvised comedy that casts a satirical gaze on the world of championship dog breeding and training. A television crew is on hand to document the prestigious Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show, and competition is fierce among the canine devotees vying for top honors. Salesman Gerry Fleck (Eugene Levy), who is cursed with two left feet (literally), and his wife Cookie (Catherine O'Hara) have entered their Norwich terrier "Winky" in competition. Wealthy and neurotic Meg Swan (Parker Posey) and her husband Hamilton (Michael Hitchcock) are on hand with their Weimaraner "Beatrice," who they fear may have been traumatized by watching them have sex. Scott Donlan (John Michael Higgins) and his life partner Stefan Vanderhoof (Michael McKean) have brought their beloved Shih Tzu, "Miss Agnes." Trophy wife Sherri Ann Cabot (Jennifer Coolidge) and her close friend and trainer Christy Cummings (Jane Lynch) are hoping for a repeat victory for Sheri's poodle, "Rhapsody In White." And Harlan Pepper (Guest), who operates a store specializing in fly-fishing gear, has decided to stack his bloodhound "Hubert" up against the competition. In addition to Guest, Levy, O'Hara, and Posey, several other veterans of the Waiting for Guffman cast also appear in Best in Show, including Fred Willard, Bob Balaban, and Lewis Arquette. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This 1998 film about a dysfunctional Los Angeles family is directed by Bruce Wagner, on whose novel this is based. Everyone in this family has a problem. Perry (Frank Langella) is a successful TV producer who has been diagnosed with inoperable cancer just before his 60th birthday. His son Bertie (Andrew McCarthy) is an unsuccessful actor but a wonderful father with an adorable daughter and an ex-wife who is known to show up for visitations visibly stoned. Rachel (Rosanna Arquette), a niece who is now his adopted daughter, finds out that her father murdered her mother years ago before taking his own life. We follow these characters as they go through their share of hardships and love. We are given a lot to chew on, including death, adultery, AIDS, and deceit. Wagner got a lot of very good actors to appear in small roles, including Amanda Donohoe, Buck Henry, Elizabeth Perkins, and Ed Begley Jr.. Prior to this film Wagner was chiefly known as the writer of Wild Palms and Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills. ~ Brett Harrison, All Movie Guide

This Australian animal adventure begins at a Queensland farm where young Billy (Jamie Croft), who lives with his widowed mother Penny (Rebecca Gibney), likes to watch the kangaroos, including baby Joey. Mean-spirited neighbor Dixon (Errol O'Neill) hires brutish Kanga Catcher (Harold Hopkins) to remove the 'roos. They are drugged and carted off, leaving Joey without a mother, so Billy heads for the city with Joey in his backpack. After he teams with Linda Ross (Alex McKenna), free-spirited daughter of American ambassador Ted Ross (Ed Begley Jr.), the two youths take off to reunite Joey with the kidnapped kangaroos. Sydney street scenes shown here are actually in Brisbane. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

A wife and mother from Billings, Montana takes a stand against a white supremacist hate group in Not In This Town. Tammy Schnitzer (Kathy Baker) and her husband Brian (Adam Arkin) hope to raise two young children in the quiet town. Henry Whitcomb (Ed Begley Jr.) leads the hate group into distributing their ant-Semitic and racially intolerant ideology through handbills. She becomes a target of the sinister group when she forms the Montana Coalition for Human Rights. Brian, a respected dentist, fears for his wife's safety but backs away from involvement until a brick goes through the window of the children's bedroom. Newly appointed police chief Wayne Inman (Max Gail) is the white man married to a black woman who moved to Montana to escape the big-city problems of racism. Inman helps Tammy in her cause as both families become the target of the hate mongers. The film is based on actual incidents that occurred in Billings, Montana in 1993. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

A pair of not-so-happily married academics confront their various emotional problems as temptations appear on all sides in this comedy. Mary Jane Dankworth (Sally Kellerman) teaches film at the same university where her husband Harvey (Ed Begley, Jr.) teaches Russian literature. Their relationship has been in rough waters for some time now; Harvey is no longer sexually attracted to M.J., and she feels as though she threw away her career as a documentary filmmaker in exchange for a marriage that doesn't make her happy. Mary Jane begins seeing a therapist, Dr. Guttmacher (Tyne Daly), and she discusses with her the Walter Mitty-esque daydreams that have lately been pervading her thoughts. Harvey, on the other hand, is also seeing an analyst, Dr. Brown (Rance Howard), and as he tries to regain his lost youth after turning 50, he attracts the attentions of Muriel Johansen (Sandra Taylor), an attractive graduate student who is working with Harvey on her masters thesis concerning erotic literature. Suspecting that something is up with her husband, M.J. hires a private detective, Carmine Ficcone (Stuart Margolin), but she soon discovers that he's more interested in chasing her than in following Harvey. Mel Shapiro wrote the screenplay based on his own play, while leading lady Sally Kellerman also served as co-producer, in tandem with her husband Jonathan D. Krane. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Monica (Roma Downey) is the nurse at the bedside of elderly Joe Carpenter (Harvey Vernon), who is on the verge of being "collected" by Angel of Death Andrew (John Dye). But before Joe can leave this world, Monica and Tess (Della Reese) must somehow repair the fractured relationships between the old man's three grown children: Control-freak Kate (Concetta Tomei), unhappily married Chris (Ed Begley Jr.), and eternal misfit Kim (Joan Van Ark). As often happens on this series, the Angels' assignment requires them to surreptitiously expose a startling family secret. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the most atypical weekly series to emerge from the Aaron Spelling TV factory, 7th Heaven, created by Spelling and Brenda Hampton, has eschewed the sex-and-sin shenanigans of such series as Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place in favor of honest, three-dimensional family values, with generous doses of warmth, heart, humor, and pathos. There can be no doubt that this fundamentally wholesome program has struck a universal chord. The series has not only been lavishly praised by critics, honored by such organizations as the Parents Television Council, the Academy of Religious Broadcasting, and the Anti-Defamation League, and given innumerable industry awards, but it is also one of the most successful offerings of the WB network; indeed, it was the first WB series to run more than seven seasons, and during four of those seasons, it was the network's highest-rated show. Set in the suburban L.A. community of Glen Oak, the series revolves around the Camden family, headed by Eric Camden (Stephen Collins), pastor of the town's Community Church, and Eric's homemaker wife, Annie (Catherine Hicks). In the tradition of The Waltons, loyal 7th Heaven viewers have enjoyed the rare privilege of watching the Camden children grow up before their very eyes. When the series debuted on August 26, 1996, handsome and personable Matt Camden (Barry Watson) was 17 years old; basketball-playing Mary Camden (Jessica Biel) was 13 going on 14; intellectual, inquisitive Lucy Camden (Beverley Mitchell) was 12; happy-go-lucky Simon Camden (David Gallagher) was ten; and precocious Ruthie Camden (Mackenzie Rosman) was five. By the time the series entered its eighth season, the three oldest Camden kids were married and pursuing careers, while the two youngest were seasoned veterans of the school dating scene. (Two more Camden youngsters, twin boys Sam and David, were born halfway through the 1998-1999 season). All of the Camdens, parents included, have had more than their share of setbacks and tragedies (some of them absolutely devastating) as the series has rolled forward, but somehow all of the members of the clan, from patriarch Eric on down, have been able to recover, rally, and persevere with the help and support of their family and friends -- not to mention their inner faith. And unlike so many other TV series which traffic in personal interrelationships, the characters in 7th Heaven are very much a part of the "real" world. During its lengthy WB run, the series has exposed its principals to a wide variety of contemporary issues: teen suicide, racial prejudice, substance abuse, drunken driving, homelessness, negative peer pressure, teen pregnancy, Alzheimer's disease, the Holocaust, the war in Iraq, and the crisis in the Sudan. Eminently suitable for viewers of all ages, but never a mere sop to the "kiddie" trade nor a placebo for the clean-up-TV brigades, 7th Heaven has been and will likely always remain the jewel in the WB crown. ~ All Movie Guide