Robert Noble Movies
- 2004
Paris (Liza Weil) launches a romance with the much older professor Fleming (Michael York), a fact that may adversely affect her future at the Yale Daily News; and later, the paper's editor Doyle (Danny Strong) goes ballistic without explanation. Back in Stars Hollow, Lorelai receives more information than she cares to deal with when she spends an evening with Jason (Christopher Eigeman) at his apartment. Luke (Scott Patterson) books Lane (Keiko Agena) and her band for a gig. And disaster reigns supreme when the imperious Michel (Yanic Truesdale) babysits for Sookie's son, Davey. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 2002
The big day has finally arrived: Xander (Nicholas Brendon) and Anya (Emma Caulfield) are getting married. The obstacles on their path to wedded bliss include atrocious bridesmaid's dresses, a stubborn cumberbund, and bitter sniping from the alcoholic Harris clan about the "circus freaks" (aka demons) who make up Anya's half of the wedding party. During the preparations, Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) has a wistful encounter with Spike (James Marsters), whose cheap floozie of a wedding date causes pangs of jealousy even as the Slayer resolves to keep their relationship in the past tense. As for Anya, her dreams of wedded bliss soon also recede into memory when Xander disappears from the chapel. It seems the prospective groom has received a visit from his time-traveling, elderly self, who shows Xander a vision of the future in which his marriage ends in bitterness and murder. Later, when old-man Xander turns out to be a disguised enemy of Anya seeking revenge against the former vengeance demon, Xander still can't overcome his conviction that he isn't ready to get married. The guests riot, the absentee groom checks into a hotel, and the jilted bride turns to D'Hoffryn (Andy Umberger), her former demon master, for comfort. Originally broadcast March 5, 2002, on UPN, "Hell's Bells" marked episode 116 of the cult-favorite series. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
In this Australian comedy, adapted by Louis Nowra from his own play and updated from a '70s to a '90s setting, a Sydney slacker gets the chance to stage an opera, but his cast is assembled from the ranks of the mentally ill. After a long stretch sponging off his law-student girlfriend Lucy (Rachel Griffiths), college dropout Lewis (Ben Mendelsohn) fakes his way into a job doing occupational therapy with a group of asylum inmates. Although his original assignment is to stage a variety show, manic-depressive patient Roy (Barry Otto) soon hijacks the project and convinces Lewis to helm an adaptation of his favorite opera, Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutti. Lewis' unlikely cast ranges from psycho firebug Doug (David Wenham) and scruffy loudmouth Sandra (Kerry Walker) to depressive, dirt-obsessed Ruth (Pamela Rabe) and self-effacing drug addict Julie (Toni Collette). Given the dearth of acting and singing experience among these players, Lewis opts to translate the piece from Italian to English and stage it as a play with only a few pieces of music. The show still proves to be more than its director bargained for -- despite the dubious assistance of his friend Nick (Aden Young), an actor/director who's currently staging his own over-the-top production of Diary of a Madman. Although Cosi reteams Muriel's Wedding co-stars Collette and Griffiths, their characters here never share a scene. The production also includes former Men at Work singer Colin Hay in a featured role, plus cameos from Greta Scacchi and Paul Mercurio (who appeared alongside Otto in Strictly Ballroom). ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ben Mendelsohn, Barry Otto, (more)
- 1994
Another "based on an actual event!" TV movie, Murder Between Friends is set in 1980s New Orleans. Two friends become involved in murder when the wife of one of them begins cheating on her spouse. Constructed along the lines of "Rashomon", the script offers two entirely different accounts of the homicide and the events leading up to it. Timothy Busfield heads the cast as the hardworking prosecutor who wants to cut through the bull. When first telecast on January 10, 1994, Murder Between Friends was accompanied by a "viewer discretion" disclaimer; smart move. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Timothy Busfield, Stephen Lang, (more)
- 1994
A woman's greed wreaks havoc on those in her life in this made-for-cable movie. Madchen Amick stars as Lauren Harrington, the seemingly perfect and beautiful wife of Paul (John Lithgow). What Paul doesn't know is that Lauren set up a former boyfriend (Eric Roberts) and sent him to jail as part of a million-dollar scheme -- and he's ready for some payback. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Lithgow, Eric Roberts, (more)
- 1993
- PG13
Mel Brooks directed and co-wrote this satiric comedy which lampoons a number of cinematic treatments of the legend of Sherwood Forest, including Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and The Adventures of Robin Hood. Robin Hood (Cary Elwes) comes home after fighting in the Crusades to learn that the noble King Richard (Patrick Stewart) is in exile and that the despotic King John (Richard Lewis) now rules England, with the help of the Sheriff of Rottingham (Roger Rees). Robin Hood assembles a band of fellow patriots to do battle with John and the Sheriff, including Asneeze (Isaac Hayes) and his son Ahchoo (Dave Chappelle), the blind watchman Blinkin (Mark Blankfield), Will Scarlet O'Hara (Matthew Porretta), and Rabbi Tuckman (Brooks). The Sheriff is eager to put Robin Hood out of business with the aid of criminal mastermind Don Giovanni (Dom DeLuise), but Robin soon has an ally in the royal palace when he falls for the lovely Maid Marian (Amy Yasbeck), whose minder Broomhilde (Megan Cavanagh) has uncooperatively outfitted Marian with a chastity belt. The cast also includes Tracy Ullman, Robert Ridgely, and Clive Revill. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cary Elwes, Richard Lewis, (more)
- 1992
Made for cable television, a TV-show homemaker (Dyan Cannon) invites a local hero (Kris Kristofferson) over for a live-broadcast Christmas dinner, but her lack of cooking skills could cause a problem. The film was directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
Also released as Spotswood, The Efficiency Expert stars Anthony Hopkins as Wallace, a cold-blooded management consultant, infamous for radically "downsizing" every firm he comes in contact with. Wallace's latest assignment is to streamline a small, family-owned shoe factory in Australia. As he gets to know the eccentric (and endearingly inefficient) factory workers, Wallace undergoes a slow-but-sure "humanizing" process. Eventually realizing that he can simultaneously cut costs and preserve the dignity of the workers, he finds a way to modernize the operation without a single firing. In traditional fashion, the main story shares screen time with a romantic subplot involving the factory-owner's son and a female employee. Characterized by many critics as "Capraesque," The Efficiency Expert also bears trace of all those Ealing comedies of the 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anthony Hopkins, Ben Mendelsohn, (more)
Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey find the two obtuse pals battling The Grim Reaper, God, robots, great philosophical questions, and girls -- although not necessarily in that order. In this loose parody of the Terminator movies, directed by Peter Hewitt, the ultimate has happened -- at Bill and Ted University of the future, for many years now the people of the world have been "excellent to each other." But fed-up with Bill and Ted's peaceful world and even more fed up with heavy metal, the evil De Nomolos (Joss Ackland) decides to do something about it. De Nomolos creates a cyborg Bill and Ted, who travel back in time to kill the original Bill and Ted, win the Battle of the Bands and pave the way for the hellish reign of De Nomolos. In the past of 1990, Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are immediately dispatched by the time-traveling cyborgs. And while the cyborgs Bill and Ted make time with the real Bill and Ted's girls (Sarah Trigger and Annette Azcuy) and prepare to take the real Bill and Ted's place in the Battle of the Bands, Bill and Ted are forced to deal with Hell ("Just like an Iron Maiden album cover"), the Grim Reaper (William Sadler), and God himself. When Bill and Ted are asked the secret of the universe, they get it right and as a reward a pair of Martians construct a set of "good" Bill and Ted robots to go head-to-head with the "bad" Bill and Ted robots at the Battle of the Bands. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, (more)
Roseanne Arnold, her then-husband Tom Arnold and Shelley Duvall teamed up to produce the made-for-TV Backfield in Motion. Roseanne plays a widowed real-estate agent who lives with her teenaged son Johnny Galecki. Mother and son have moved to an upstate California town where high school football-and male chauvinism--reigns supreme. When Galecki joins the junior-varsity team, Roseanne, appalled by the subservient behavior of the town wives, organizes a "mothers vs. sons" football game. Tom Arnold costars as the school's vice-principal, who puts his standing in town on the line when he falls in love with Roseanne. Backfield in Motion was originally telecast November 13, 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1985
Empty Beach brings Australian novelist Peter Corris' detective hero Cliff Hardy to the big screen. F/X star Bryan Brown plays Hardy, who this time around is hired to confirm or disprove the reported death of a millionaire. Hardy confers with journalist Brian Henneberry (Clifford Tate), who has some potentially explosive evidence -- and who, inevitably, is murdered before he can talk. The trail of evidence runs hot and cold, thanks to a gaggle of suspects and hangers-on who aren't revealing everything that they know. Co-starring in Empty Beach is Anna Maria Monticelli, aka Anna Jemison. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bryan Brown, Anna Maria Monticelli, (more)
- 1982
The trial of three men in the bombing of a Hilton Hotel in Sidney in 1978 serves as the general focus for this docudrama on the nature of prejudice and justice. After the hotel bombing, authorities suggested that non-Indian members of a Hindu sect called Ananda Marga (path of bliss) had done the deed -- which killed a few people, including a policeman, but did not harm any of the Commonwealth Nations' delegates at the hotel at the time. About a year later, a paid police informant accused three members of the evangelical Hindu sect of making a bomb to kill a right-wing politico. The police arrested the men, a trial ensued with much conflicting evidence, and the trio was acquitted because of a hung jury. As noted at the end of the movie, in a second trial six months later, the men were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms. Several noted Australian actors such as Tony Barry, Max Cullen, Chris Haywood, and Richard Moir) were cast as the attorneys, defendants, and detectives in this drama directed by Esben Storm. Years later, after many appeals, the fact that the whole trial was based on manufactured evidence and that the men were innocent came to light. They were chosen as scapegoats because of their participation in an unpopular religious sect. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Scott Burgess, John Ley, (more)
- 1980
Yes, Stir is a prison picture, but don't be put off by the seeming flippancy of its slangy title. Ben Jewson based his screenplay on his own experiences while incarcerated. Jewson spares us nothing: the gleeful brutality of the guards, the sexual outrages in the cells, the grim future in store for those "lucky" enough to be set free. The film culminates in a riot, clearly inspired by TV news footage of Attica. Stir proved an impressive debut for Australian director Stephen Wallace. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bryan Brown, Max Phipps, (more)
- 1975
In this comedy, a jobless public relations specialist goes to get some much-needed rest in sunny Florida and discovers a whole new set of troubles. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
This dark, brooding low-budget effort opens in Vietnam, where young infantryman Andy Brooks (Richard Backus) is struck down by a sniper's bullet. At the same time in Andy's hometown, his poor mother is uttering a desperate prayer for Andy to come home... and shortly thereafter, he does. Despite Mrs. Brooks' exultation at her son's safe return, it becomes apparent to the rest of the family that there's something terribly wrong with Andy; he won't do much more than sit in a chair, staring blankly at the walls of his room... that is, until nightfall, when he prowls the town in search of human blood, which he extracts from his victims through a syringe and injects into his own veins. The first horror effort from director Bob Clark, who followed with Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things! and the effective thriller Black Christmas, this haunting film (released as The Veteran in 1972) functions as a Vietnam-era variant on the classic story of "The Monkey's Paw" and was one of the first films of the genre to address the stateside reactions to the horrors of that war. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- 1969
In the first episode of a three-part story arc, Arnold the pig inherits 20,000,000 dollars from an eccentric Chicago meat-packer. Alas, the human relatives of the decedent are hotly contesting the will. Thus, a reluctant Oliver (Eddie Albert) is drafted to be Arnold's attorney, and in the company of both his wife Lisa (Eva Gabor) and the porcine millionaire he is shipped off to fight for Arnold's rights in far-off Chicago. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roland Winters, Robert Noble, (more)
- 1939
In this mystery, a newspaper executive and three of his colleagues conspire to have the owner of the highly-respected London Sun committed to an insane asylum. The hapless publisher manages to escape. Soon after, the four collaborators begin dying one-by-one. Oddly their obituaries appear in a rival publication before they are actually killed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edmund Lowe, Wendy Barrie, (more)
In order to avoid the material copyrighted by Douglas Fairbanks Sr. for his 1922 Robin Hood, the scripters of this Flynn version relied on several legendary episodes that had never before been filmed, notably the battle between Robin and Little John (Alan Hale Sr., who played this part three times in his long career) and the "piggy-back" episode between Robin and Friar Tuck (Eugene Pallette). The film ties together the various ancient anecdotes with a storyline bounded by the capture in Austria of Richard the Lionheart (Ian Hunter) on one end and Richard's triumphant return to England on the other. Robin Hood is already an outlaw at the outset of the film, while Maid Marian (Olivia de Havilland) is initially part of the enemy camp, as one of Prince John's (Claude Rains) entourage. Marian warms up to Robin's fight against injustice (and to Robin himself), eventually becoming a trusted ally. James Cagney was originally announced for the role of Robin Hood, just before Cagney left Warner Bros. in a salary dispute. William Keighley was the original director, but he worked too slowly to suit the tight production schedule and was replaced by Michael Curtiz (both men receive screen credit). A lengthy opening jousting sequence was shot but removed from the final print; portions of this sequence show up as stock footage in the 1957 Warners film The Story of Mankind. The chestnut-colored Palomino horse ridden by de Havilland in the Sherwood Forest scenes later gained screen stardom as Roy Rogers' Trigger. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, (more)
