Nancy Bell Movies

A couple finds that breaking into the Hollywood elite is harder than they ever imagined in this improvised, independent comedy of manners. Loudmouth Soup takes place over the course of a long dinner party thrown by Jason (Joe Mellis) and Catherine (Melanie Chapman), a married couple from New York whose recent feature-film effort landed them some buzz at Sundance. Now relocated to L.A., the pair throw a dinner part for some potential investors, including producer Charlie (Kevin Chamberlin), ambitious actress Blake (Nancy Bell), and surprisingly, Blake's superstar boyfriend, Sam (Michael James Reed). Blind-sided by the A-list guest, each diner tries to cozy up to the money man to try to attain some cash and credibility for his or her next project. The action in Loudmouth Soup was captured in near real time by a handful of video cameras; director Adam Watstein would provide plot suggestions to the performers when they walked off-camera. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi

Paul and Jamie Buchman (Paul Reiser, Helen Hunt) try to play matchmaker with their dogwalker, Nat (Hank Azaria), and their babysitter, Arley (Lili Taylor). Thing of it is, Nat and Arley don't need any help -- though that's not the story they tell the Buchmans. On other fronts, a sleep clinic serves as the setting for a startling revelation, and Paul's cousin Ira (John Pankow) vows to abstain from sex. This was one of two episodes telecast on May 19, 1998, as Mad About You's sixth-season finale (the other, appropriately enough, was "The Finale"). ~ Rovi

This follow-up to the successful 1973 thriller Westworld stars Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner as Chuck Browning and Tracy Ballard, investigative reporters. The team has been dispatched to the expensive theme park Westworld on the remote island of Delos, to find out what caused the park's robots to go berserk and begin killing the cash customers. They discover that Duffy (Arthur Hill), creator of Westworld, has retooled his park into Futureworld, a supposedly "fail safe" recreational mecca. In truth, he is scheming to replace all of the world leaders with robot clones, the better to take over the globe. Yul Brynner, the steely-eyed cowboy android from Westworld, makes a brief return appearance. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Czech filmmaker Milos Forman's first American production stars Linnea Heacock as Jeannie Tyne, a runaway teenager. While she wanders aimlessly around New York, her suburban parents, Lynn (Lynn Carlin) and Larry (Buck Henry), desperately search for their "missing" daughter. Larry and his best friend, Tony (Tony Harvey), inaugurate a search, but their expedition is sidetracked by a drinking binge at a local bar. Meanwhile, Lynn and Tony's wife, Margot (Georgia Engel), begin discussing their sex lives. Jeannie does finally return home, to constant questioning by her parents about which drugs she has taken; later, after Lynn and Larry join a support group for the parents of runaway children, they turn around and get stoned on marijuana themselves during one of the group meetings, then lapse into a randy game of strip poker -- little realizing that their daughter is close at hand and within earshot. As a critically revered lampoon of late-'60s sensibilities, Taking Off is full of "unknown" Manhattan-based performers who became famous during the '70s and '80s, including Paul Benedict, Vincent Schiavelli, Allen Garfield, Audra Lindley, and, in fleeting roles as auditioning singers, Carly Simon, who performs "Long Time Physical Effects," and Kathy Bates (billed as Bobo Bates), who performs "Even the Horses Had Wings." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi