Rochelle Oliver Movies

A down-on-his luck auteur gets one more chance at the big time -- provided his neuroses don't swallow him whole -- in Woody Allen's 33rd feature release, Hollywood Ending. Allen plays Val Waxman, a one-time cinematic genius who's resorted to taking advertisement work to pay the bills for himself and his airhead live-in girlfriend, Lori (Debra Messing). Val finds his luck is about to change, however, when he receives the script for The City Never Sleeps, a period noir set against the backdrop of 1940s New York City. It seems his ex-wife, Ellie (Tea Leoni), now an executive at Galaxy Pictures, has been pulling for him to direct the picture, claiming he's the only man who can do justice to the script. She even manages to convince her boyfriend, Hal (Treat Williams), Galaxy's high-powered studio head, to take a chance on Val's "unique vision." Just when the cameras are ready to roll, however, Val finds that unique vision in jeopardy -- literally -- as he's struck with a psychosomatic case of blindness. When physicians and psychiatrists fail to cure him, Val contrives a scheme to forge ahead with the picture, for fear of blowing his one last chance at greatness. Hollywood Ending co-stars George Hamilton and Mark Rydell. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi

The detectives investigate when Richard Spiegel, chief financial officer for an upscale family owned department store, is found murdered. As usual, the case is top-heavy with likely suspects. Eventually the field narrows to two women, the dead man's widow (Anne Twomey) and his possible mistress (Jean de Baer) -- both of whom are daughters of the store's owner Seymour Bergreen (Joseph Wiseman). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The focus in this episode is on Lt. Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson), the boss of detectives Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Logan (Chris Noth). During an attempted holdup, Van Buren shoots and kills one of her teenaged assailants. Already racked with guilt, Van Buren must also endure the ordeal of an investigation from the D.A.'s office when evidence indicates that she might have shot an unarmed youth in the back. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A highly decorated police officer is killed in a shootout with a drug dealer. In his statement to the police, the dealer indicates that the dead cop's fellow officers failed to provide proper backup. When it is revealed that the victim was gay, the staff of the DA's office grimly prepare to charge three of the cop's homophobic colleagues with hatching a criminal conspiracy. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this film, sisters Frances and Evelyn McEllany (Patricia Neal and Shelley Winters) are two older women who have put aside their differences to set up a comfortable life together. However, when shy, retiring Frances falls in love with an Asian mechanic (Mako), her stuffy, intolerant sister falls into a rage that threatens to destroy their relationship. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

A prequel to Horton Foote's 1918, On Valentine's Day was filmed in 1984, then held back from release till 1986. On the titular day, Elizabeth Vaughn (Hallie Foote, Horton's daughter) and Horace Robedeaux (William Converse-Roberts) elope. Horace stubbornly refuses to ask for financial assistant from his parents or in-laws, so the penniless couple is compelled to live in an inexpensive boarding house. Their fellow tenants are the usual assortment of eccentrics, including alcoholic Bobby Pate (Richard Jenkins), spinster Miss Ruth (Carol Goodheart), heartbroken George Tyler (Steven Hill) and garrulous young Bessie (Jeanne McCarthy). After several months of enduring the woes of the other boarders, Horace swallows his pride and agrees to allow father-in-law Michael Higgins to support him and Elizabeth. There's a reconciliation, but one tinged with the premonition that Horace and Elizabeth aren't out of the woods yet. Together with Portrait of a Marriage (never released theatrically), On Valentine's Day and 1918 were later reedited and incorporated into a Horton Foote TV trilogy on the PBS network. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

After helping to kick-start the independent film movement in America with The Return of the Secaucus Seven, John Sayles wrote, directed, and edited his second feature, about a woman who finds herself staring life over after coming out of the closet as a lesbian. Lianna (Linda Griffiths) is a woman in her early thirties who's married to Dick (Jon DeVries), who teaches film at a college in Boston. Lianna first met Dick when she was a student in his class, and while she's grown more assertive and independent with time, Dick has become bitter and difficult, though he tries to be patient with their two children, Spencer (Jesse Solomon) and Theda (Jessica Wight MacDonald). Lianna, who dropped out of college when she married Dick, has begun taking classes again, and strikes up a close friendship with one of her professors, Ruth (Jane Hallaren); Dick, however, would prefer that she spend her time helping him with research on his upcoming thesis. When Lianna discovers Dick has been having an affair with one of his students, she begins to wonder about her future with him as well as her own feelings, and one evening, after dinner and conversation with Ruth, Lianna discovers her new friend has romantic feelings toward her -- and that she feels the same way toward Ruth. When Lianna confronts Dick with the news of her relationship with Ruth, he's livid and makes her leave the house, forcing her to start a new life for herself as she comes to terms with her own sexuality. Comic actor Chris Elliott makes his screen debut in Lianna in a small role as a lighting technician for a dance troupe. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

An aspiring actor leaves his home in Brooklyn for adulthood in Manhattan in Paul Mazursky's loosely autobiographical comedy-drama. In 1953, would-be thesp Larry Lapinsky (Lenny Baker) flees his hysterically clinging mother (Shelley Winters) for a $25-a-month (!!) apartment in bohemian Greenwich Village. Between Method-like acting classes, a movie audition (where he meets a posturing actor played by Jeff Goldblum), and work at a juice bar, Larry hangs out with a circle of archetypal Village eccentrics, including suicidal Anita (Lois Smith), womanizing poet Robert (Christopher Walken), and flamboyantly un-closeted homosexual Bernstein (Antonio Fargas), as he negotiates the pitfalls of love and sex with liberated girlfriend Sarah (Ellen Greene). The fallout over the group's ill-fated love affairs, and the Lapinskys' inopportune surprise visits, finally lead Larry to make peace with his past as he contemplates his future in Hollywood. Mazursky looks back to the 1950s as in such other 1970s films as American Graffiti, Grease, and TV's Happy Days, but his Greenwich Village life is less a time of lost pre-'60s innocence than a precursor of things to come. Sex, Larry jokes, may be serious, but it is also an omnipresent fact of life rather than something to be feared or repressed; love is the real problem. Even as Larry's friends strike various poses, they are all out to do their own thing as best they can. Critical response to Mazursky's nostalgia trip was mixed when the film was released, but the performances, particularly Winters, were admired. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi