Daniel Newman Movies

Based on Bram Stoker's classic 1897 novel, this film from Francis Ford Coppola and screenwriter James Victor Hart offers a full-blooded portrait of the immortal Transylvanian vampire. The major departure from Stoker is one of motivation as Count Dracula (Gary Oldman) is motivated more by romance than by bloodlust. He punctures the necks as a means of avenging the death of his wife in the 15th century, and when he comes to London, it is specifically to meet heroine Mina Harker (Winona Ryder), the living image of his late wife (Ryder plays a dual role, as do several of her costars). Anthony Hopkins is obsessed vampire hunter Van Helsing, while Keanu Reeves takes on the role of Jonathan Harker, and Tom Waits plays bug-eating Renfield. Bram Stoker's Dracula was the winner of three Academy Awards. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

First telecast by the BBC on November 14, 1993, the two-part British TV movie The Return of the Borrowers is a sequel to the classic children's book by Mary Norton. Real-life husband and wife Ian Holm and Penelope Wilton head the cast as Pod and Homily Clock, a pair of teeny-tiny people who, with their equally microscopic daughter, Arietty (Rebecca Callard), live beneath the floorboards of a Victorian house. In order to survive, the Clock family must "borrow" various necessities from normal-sized people -- or as they're known to the trio, "Human Beans." Forced to move from their familiar digs, the Clocks stumble across a miniature model house that proves to be just right for their needs, and in the bargain they befriend a youthful Human Bean named George (Paul Cross). Alas, the well-being of the diminutive brood is threatened by the evil designs of one Mrs. Drivers (Sian Phillips). In America, The Return of the Borrowers was first seen over the TNT cable network on June 4 and 5, 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Unlike the barren and forbidding moors elsewhere in England, Return of the Native's Egdon Heath attires itself in vibrant wildflowers, mossy hillsides, winding streams, arching footbridges, and undulant meadows. An enchantress would be at home in this place, but not Eustacia Vye, portrayed by Zeta-Jones. Though coveted by every man in Egdon Heath -- and every boy old enough to stare -- the beautiful Eustacia longs for the smoking chimneys and broad stone buildings of Paris. When a native of Egdon Heath, Clym Yeobright Ray Stevenson, returns from his job in Paris as a jeweler, Vye stuns him with her beauty and marries him in hopes of persuading him to take her to Paris. But, alas, Clym is a clod at heart. He vows to remain in Egdon Heath to teach and edify. After his eyesight deteriorates, Eustacia turns her attentions to rakish Damon Wildeve Clive Owen, and the plot begins to churn and curdle. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide

Edina (Jennifer Saunders) moves into a commune but chafes at the paternalistic attitudes of the charlatans who run it; she spends her time impatiently waiting for her turn with "the talking stick," dejected over her separation from best friend Patsy (Joanna Lumley). Pats, meanwhile, finds that her well-worn fashion-world aphorisms don't fly in straight-talking New York. Professional ally Magda (Kathy Burke) sympathizes but offers no help, leaving Pats to the tender mercies of fashion barracudas Candy (Ruby Wax), Gina (Suzanne Bertish), and Sante (Sean Chapman). After chance encounters with a trio of transvestites and with Bo (Mo Gaffney) -- the sometime girlfriend of Eddy's ex-husband, Marshall -- Pats wanders up to the rooftop of the magazine to smoke and think. Suddenly a helicopter flies by, a familiar face waving from the passenger seat, and soon the world doesn't seem so terrible anymore. After the closing credits, a 25-years-later epilogue then provides a glimpse into the future exploits of Pats, Eddy, Gran, and Saffy. Originally broadcast on BBC1 on May 11, 1995, Absolutely Fabulous: The End marked series three, episode six of this popular Brit-com. The next installment would be the 1996 two-part TV movie Absolutely Fabulous: The Last Shout; regular episodes would not appear again until series four in 2001. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Young Tom (Daniel Newman) is a London prostitute pimped by the violently psychotic gangster Norris (Mark McGann), who regularly "offers" him to Dunston (John Benfield), a brutally corrupt detective with Scotland Yard. A tragic twist of fate frees Tom from Norris, but Dunston discovers Norris had been secretly videotaping his sessions with Tom in order to blackmail him later. Tom flees the city -- with the condemning videotape -- for a remote Welsh cottage with his American neighbors, Max (Corey Johnson) and Nikke (Toni Barry), with an enraged Dunston one step behind. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide