Ron Orbach Movies

The Angels arrive in Salt Lake City, which is also the temporary stopover for nomadic con artist Bart Ewing (Jack Wagner) and his 12-year-old daughter Haley (Anastasia Emmons). A talented ice skater, Haley yearns to settle down in one place and take lessons--especially now that she has befriend Olympic contender Alex Thorpe (Tara Lipinski), a meeting secretly arranged by angel Andrew (John Dye). Unfortunately, Bart regards an upcoming charity skating event as just another opportunity to fleece the local suckers--and as a result, it is Haley who may have to pay the penalty for her dad's crimes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jane Austen might never have imagined that her 1816 novel Emma could be turned into a fresh and satirical look at ultra-rich teenagers in a Beverly Hills high school. Cher (Alicia Silverstone) and Dionne (Stacey Dash), both named after "great singers of the past that now do infomercials," are pampered upper-class girls who care less about getting good grades than wearing the right clothes and being as popular as possible. But Cher, who lives with her tough yet warm-hearted lawyer dad (Dan Hedaya) and hunky, sensitive stepbrother (Paul Rudd), also has an innate urge to help those less fortunate -- like the two introverted teachers she brings together ("negotiating" herself improved grades in the process) and new friend Tai (Brittany Murphy), who starts out a geek and ends up a Cher prodigy. Cher also possesses her own sensitive side, and she is looking for the perfect boyfriend, whom she ends up finding where she least expected. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

The Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan affair is deftly fictionalized in this episode. Just before an important tournament, tennis player Korey Burke (Stacey Moseley) is attacked by a mysterious assailant and her wrist is broken. Not surprisingly, Burke's principal competitor Alison Hall (Allison Dunbar) ranks high on the list of suspects. But this is fiction, not fact, and events play themselves out in a most surprising fashion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Love Crimes, an erotic thriller directed by Lizzie Borden, explores the psychology of a con man posing as a photographer, who seduces women and then blackmails them using humiliating, revealing pictures he has taken of them. David Hanover (Patrick Bergin) preys on the hopes of women by offering them love and a possible career as fashion models. When some of the women complain, but refuse to aid in Hanover's prosecution, DA Dana Greenway (Sean Young) becomes obsessed with catching Hanover, to the point where she tracks him down and spys on him in his secluded home, making herself a potential victim. He catches her and holds her captive. Feminist filmmaker Borden, who also directed the remarkable, low-budget film Working Girls, raises interesting questions regarding sex, humiliation and male-female relationships, but the film is spoiled by the ambiguity of her central character, Dana. An abused child herself, she has the same self-loathing that the other woman who are preyed upon by Hanover possess, but her motivations for her actions remain murky. Despite these flaws, Borden, always an interesting filmmaker, raises important issues which perhaps can't be adequately resolved using the restrictions of the thriller genre. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

Murphy (Candice Bergen) is getting tired of accusations that she dates men solely on the basis of their looks, especially since the accusations are true. To prove something not only to her friends but to herself, Murphy agrees to go out with her new acquaintance, nerdish-but-brilliant physicist Victor Rudman (Buck Henry). Naturally, Murphy is certain that she is in for an evening of intellectual rather than carnal stimulation--but Victor Rudman turns out to have other ideas! This is the 17th episode of Murphy Brown--which happens to be the same number of secretaries that she's already hired and fired. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide