Grace Phillips Movies
An aggressive publicity campaign mounted by ABC in the fall of 1996 left no doubt that the first season of the network's new courtroom drama Murder One would break standard weekly series precedent by focusing on a single, solitary murder case throughout the entire season. Led by ruthless criminal attorney Theodore Hoffman (Daniel Benzali), a crack team of lawyers builds a persuasive defense on behalf of arrogant movie star Neil Avedon (Jason Gedrick), who is the prime suspect in the murder of his drug-abusing girlfriend Jessica. Even as Hoffman and his associates Chris Docknovich (Michael Hayden), Arnold Spivak (J.C. MacKenzie), Justine Appleton (Mary McCormick), and Lisa Gillespie (Grace Phillips) move heaven and earth to get Neil off, the equally diligent prosecution team, headed by DA Roger Garfield (Gregory Itzin) and ADA Miriam Grasso (Barbara Bosson), are dedicated to establishing Neil's guilt. Complicating matters is the presence of another suspect: Richard Cross (Stanley Tucci), multimillionaire businessman and owner of the building where Jessica died. Even so, Avedon is tried and convicted -- but there's a breathtaking twist at the very end of season one. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Benzali, Michael Hayden, (more)
- 2002
Rachel (Hallee Hirsh) accidentally causes Elizabeth's (Alex Kingston) infant daughter, Ella, to OD on Ecstasy. Abby (Maura Tierney) gives shelter to the battered Joyce (Christina Hendricks), incurring the terrible wrath of Joyce's husband, Brian (Matthew Settle). Carter's mother (Mary McDonnell) tries to make belated amends for the death of her other son, Bobby, by lavishing care on young leukemia patient Mickey (Colton James). Victims of a letter bomb are brought into the ER. Gallant (Sharif Atkins) treats a blind man, despite being allergic to the man's dog. And Romano (Paul McCrane) angers Weaver (Laura Innes) by apparently giving preferential treatment to Lewis (Sherry Stringfield). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Described as an inverted Runaway Bride (1999), The Best Man is a zany comedy about male marital jitters. Three years after being left at the alter, Adam (John Newcombe) still cannot make it through a wedding ceremony without becoming violently ill. His friend and editor Jimmy (John Hines) makes a deal with the struggling cartoonist; he will find a buyer for Adam's comic strip if Adam acts as best man for his wedding. Reluctantly agreeing, Adam follows Jimmy and his bride-to-be (Grace Phillips) to small-town Indiana to attend his nightmare dressed in white. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Grace Phillips, John Newcombe, (more)
- 1998
Unemployed for lo these many weeks, Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) could certainly use a major ego boost. Thus, when he receives a message from what appears to be a secret admirer, Frasier is on the proverbial Cloud Nine. Unfortunately, the message was not meant for him but for his brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce). And to make things dicier, the "admirer" is none other than Niles' estranged wife Maris. Will Niles and Maris get back together -- and will Frasier mess up his own love life by pursuing a "sweetheart" that doesn't really exist? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Seduced by the pastoral existence of a vacation, a doctor decides to remain and savor the slow pace of life in another dimension. Unfortunately, he soon discovers that even his newfound paradise is not totally devoid of chaos. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tate Donovan, Ming-Na Wen, (more)
The Cleaver Family makes the jump from the small black and white screen to color and Panavision in this updated version of the classic TV sit-com. Eight-year-old Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver (Cameron Finley) is a good natured kid with a habit of getting in trouble; he's not bad, mind you, just a bit absent-minded. Beaver lives with his 12-year-old brother Wally (Erik Von Detten), his father Ward (Christopher McDonald), and his mother June (Janine Turner) in a small town in Ohio. Beaver wants a new bicycle more than anything, but his father wishes that he had more of an interest in team sports; someone suggests to Beaver that if he joined the school's football team, Ward might be impressed enough to buy him the bike. Beaver signs up, but his skills on the gridiron fall somewhere between slim and none, and the experience proves more than a bit embarrassing for both Beaver and Ward. Before long, Beaver has quit the team, but he tries to hide this fact from his father. Beaver does get his bike -- but he doesn't get to do much with it before it's stolen by a bigger kid in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, Wally's best friend, the mildly sleazy Eddie Haskell (Adam Zolotin), has fallen for a cute girl at school, Karen (Erika Christensen), and wants Wally to help him impress her; however, Karen seems to like Wally more than Eddie. This puts Wally in dutch with his best friend, and Wally feels even worse when he and Karen begin to quarrel. Ken Osmond, who played Eddie Haskell on the original TV series, plays Eddie's father here, and Barbara Billingsley, the original June Cleaver, appears as Aunt Martha. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christopher McDonald, Janine Turner, (more)
The directorial debut of Kiefer Sutherland is part-Western, part-gangster flick in the style of Quentin Tarantino. Raymond (Vincent Gallo) is paroled from prison but decides to do one last robbery to get money to help him successfully woo his love Addy (Kim Dickens). With fellow ex-con Curtis Freley (Sutherland) and his friend Marcus Weans (Mykelti Williamson), who is really an undercover narcotics agent, Raymond botches a drug heist. Fleeing to Mexico, they pick up a pair of young yuppie lovers, Donna (Grace Phillips) and Gordon (Kevin Pollack), and hold them hostage for the ride. They change their getaway vehicle to Gordon's Winnebago mobile home. In Las Vegas, they try to sell stolen drugs to a mob kingpin, Tony Vega (Rod Steiger). ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vincent Gallo, Mykelti Williamson, (more)
- 1995
During its first year on the air, the weekly, hour-long ABC series Murder One was unique among legal dramas, in that it dealt with only a single murder case per season. Debuting September 19, 1995, the series spent all of season one focusing on the murder of a young substance-abusing woman, with her lover, obnoxious movie star Neil Avedon (Jason Gedrick), as prime suspect. Handling Avedon's defense were Chris Docknovich (Michael Hayden), Arnold Spivak (J.C. MacKenzie), Justine Appleton (Mary McCormick), and Lisa Gillespie (Grace Phillips), all ambitious young attorneys working for celebrated, controversial, and not entirely ethical criminal lawyer Theodore Hoffman (Daniel Benzali). Appearing for the prosecution were ruthless Assistant DA Miriam Grasso (Barbara Bosson), who worked for the even more ruthless DA Roger Garfield (Gregory Itzin). The Grasso-Garfield team included police detective Arthur Poulson (Dylan Baker) and investigator David Blalock (Kevin Tighe). Among the other first-season regulars were Patricia Clarkson as Theodore Hoffman's long-suffering wife, Ann; John Fleck as Hoffman's office manager, Louis; and Grace Phillips as his receptionist, Lila. While the "one case per year" gimmick attracted a lot of publicity, and -- for a while, anyway -- a lot of viewers, the ratings for Murder One fell precipitously as season one wore on. Thus, when the series returned for its second season, several changes had been imposed, the first being that three cases would be dramatized, rather than merely one. On the docket for season two were a political assassination in which DA Garfield was implicated, an O.J.-like celebrity murder case involving an arrogant basketball star, and a case involving a serial killer who preyed only on professional criminals. Series co-star Daniel Benzali was gone, replaced by younger but no less crafty and cunning defense attorney James "Jimmy" Wyler (Anthony LaPaglia). Also missing was Grace Phillips as Lisa Gillespie, whose replacement, hotheaded junior attorney Aaron Mosely, was played by David Bryan Woodside. Concluding its weekly run on January 23, 1997, Murder One briefly returned five months later in a miniseries format, remaining on the air from May 25 to 29, 1997. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Benzali, Anthony LaPaglia, (more)
It's 1958, and the producers of the quiz show 21 have a problem. Their current champ, Herbert Stempel (John Turturro), has a phenomenal memory and a broad range of knowledge. He's also a pudgy loudmouth with a grating personality, so Herbert is encouraged to "take a dive" and allow Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), a handsome and charming college professor, to become the show's new champion. Audiences like Van Doren, and he's certainly not averse to the money he's winning, but the ethics of the situation begin to trouble him, especially when the show's producers begin to give him the questions in advance. Director Robert Redford and writer Paul Attanasio paint a telling portrait of how the network heads and advertising men who manipulated the quiz shows were also able to manipulate the responsibility for the scandal away from themselves. While on the surface a story about the scandal itself, Quiz Show is just as importantly about a turning point in the 1950s when TV and advertising began to change American character and culture. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Turturro, Rob Morrow, (more)
- 1990
When a private girl's school is haunted by a group of ghostly inhabitants, the young students find themselves being seduced by the spirits. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1990
From experimental filmmaker Jon Jost comes this romantic drama comprised of mostly improvised scenes. Emmanuelle Chaulet plays Anna, a struggling French actress in New York who meets an overworked financial broker named Mark in the Vermeer Room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Anna resembles one of Mark's favorite paintings, so he asks he out for coffee. From there, the two struggle to overcome their personal baggage and attempt to allow themselves to fall in love. Director Jost was awarded the Caligari Film Award at the 1991 Berlin International Film Festival for this film and Sure Fire. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emmanuelle Chaulet, Stephen Lack, (more)
