Peggy Pope Movies
- 2005
The talented but aimless son of a famous writer embarks on an existential road trip with his best friend in the heartfelt feature debut from writer/director Dylan McCormick. Sean (Frederick Weller) lives in the college town where his father used to teach, and divides most of his time between construction work, bartending jobs, and senseless one night stands. One day, fearing the worst for his future, Sean decides to take fate into his own hands by gassing up the car and heading for New York in search of Molly (Greer Goodman) - a former girlfriend whom he met while bartending. On the road, Sean and his hard-drinking best friend Lyle (Reg Rogers) gradually begin to discover that life is precisely what one makes it out to be. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frederick Weller, Wynter Kullman, (more)
- 2001
A criminal well known to detectives Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Green (Jesse L. Martin) may have been responsible for the murder of a businessman. Unfortunately, the investigation is impeded by the FBI, who insist upon shielding the prime suspect. Without giving away the outcome, it can be noted that one of the guest actors plays a dual role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
An ex-mercenary (Tom Berenger) becomes a take-no-prisoners teacher in a drug-ridden, gang-infested Miami high school in this campy morality tale about restoring lost American virtues to the inner city. Berenger's character, Shale, has no first name, a shadowy past as a patriotic gun-for-hire, and is temporarily unemployed and living with an idealistic teacher, Jane Hetzko (Diane Verona). Jane has angered a school gang leader, Juan Lucas (Marc Anthony), by asking the principal to get him transferred after he has threatened her in the schoolyard. After Jane is kneecapped by a gang member, Shale fakes a resume and becomes a substitute teacher, Mr. Smith. He lectures his class on the lessons of Vietnam ("We were fighting Communism") while looking for a way to get revenge on Juan. When he challenges the school's tolerance for student misbehavior, Smith is fired by the slimy principal, Claude Rolle (Ernie Hudson), an ex-cop who is running for City Council and doesn't want to rock the boat. Shale stays because he cites a union rule requiring two weeks' notice. During that period, tensions escalate and eventually Shale intervenes in a gang war that degenerates into a school-destroying inferno of violence. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Berenger, Ernie Hudson, (more)
- 1995
New ER boss Dr. Swift (Michael Ironside) requests (read: "demands") that Greene discuss the OR death of Jodi O'Brien death before a hospital conference. Deb's (Ming-Na) rush to pile up more procedures than Carter (Noah Wyle) results in serious error. Ross (George Clooney) grows ever closer to Diane (Lisa Zane). And Lewis (Sherry Stringfield) is unpleasantly surprised by her sister Chloe's (Kathleen Wilhoite) sudden return. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1988
This comedy focuses on the troubles an heiress has with her boisterous family who disrupts high society. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1986
Bull (Richard Moll) hopes to express his love of youngsters by entering a children's book contest. Unfortunately, the judges reject his efforts as being too violent--and profane--for youthful consumption, leading Bull to dash out of the courtroom and shamefully squirrel himself away in a museum. Meanwhile, Dan is confused to the point of madness when he dates a schizophrenic client named Miriam (played by a pre-stardom Fran Drescher). Watch for Joe Alaskey, the post-Mel Blanc voice for cartoon stars Porky Pig and Daffy Duck, in a supporting role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Best remembered for containing the film debut of phenomenally popular comedian of the early '90s, Jim Carrey, Once Bitten is a horror comedy that chronicles the attempts of a bloodthirsty female vampire living in modern day Los Angeles to find the three male virgins she needs every year to stay alive and young-looking. If she cannot do it by Halloween, she will surely die. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lauren Hutton, Jim Carrey, (more)
- 1984
There was once a time within living memory when people eagerly awaited a TV-movie starring Mister T. The Toughest Man in the World casts the former Laurence Turand as nightclub bouncer "Bruise" Brubaker. Marshmallow-soft on the inside, Bruise befriends a group of underprivileged kids at a youth center. The film bears a marked resemblance to Mister T's Saturday-morning cartoon series; whether it is better or worse is left to the viewer. I pity the fool who missed The Toughest Man in the World when it was first telecast on November 7, 1984. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1984
After years on the waiting list, Bull (Richard Moll) is delighted to learn that a volunteer-fathers organization has found an underprivedged boy for whom he can act as surrogate daddy. While escorting young "Andy" around the courtroom, Bull gets the shock of his life when the "boy" reveals himself to be a girl named Stella (played by Pamela Segall, who as Pamela S. Adlon would two decades later costar on the cutting-edge HBO sitcom Lucky Louie). Meanwhile, Judge Harry (Harry Anderson) determines the fate of a robbery victim (Philip Bruns) charged with mugging a group of Japanese tourists, and Dan (John Larroquette) adopts an elaborate strategy to snag a sexy woman (Peggy Pope) who loves sports. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Trailer-park teenager Lance Guest regularly escapes from his humdrum existence by playing the video game Starfighter. His expertise at this recreational endeavor attracts the attention of affable stranger Robert Preston. Before he knows what's happening, Guest is whisked by Preston into the outer reaches of the galaxy! It turns out that the Starfighter game is being played in deadly earnest in outer space, and that Guest is expected to join Preston's Star League, then do battle with the wicked Kodan forces. Guest's principal ally is the lizardlike Grig (Dan O'Herlihy--and we didn't recognize him either). His great rival is the traitorous Xur (Norman Snow). The contrast between Guest's earthbound life as the son of single-mother Barbara Bosson and his new position as Starfighter is daunting at first, but soon the boy is manning a spacecraft and zapping the baddies as though he's been doing it all his life. The Last Starfighter was clearly designed with "sequel" in mind: giveaways include the resurrection of a "dead" character and the surprisingly casual escape of the villain. While the film didn't stir up enough business to warrant a sequel, the Starfighter video game remained a much-sought-after commodity by joystick-happy "warriors" all over the country. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lance Guest, Robert Preston, (more)
- 1981
- R
Gene Hackman plays a disgruntled suburbanite who manages the Ultra-Sav, an all-night drugstore. He hates his job, hates his debts and responsibilities, and isn't overly fond of his wife (Diane Ladd) and son (Dennis Quaid). Partly as a form of protest, Hackman enters into an affair with Barbra Streisand, one of his wife's distant relatives (don't ask how she's related - it takes Hackman about thirty seconds to explain it to another character). Streisand doesn't belong in this picture at all, but she can be forgiven her acting excesses because she wasn't the first choice for the role anyway (Lisa Eichhorn dropped out just before shooting began). The best moments in All Night Long involve the steady stream of oddballs and losers who trickle into Hackman's establishment. There is also a cute Apocalypse Now parody involving a battery-operated toy helicopter. The principal attraction of All Night Long is Gene Hackman playing an endearingly recognizable modern type. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gene Hackman, Barbra Streisand, (more)
Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda), a housewife whose husband has left her for his secretary, begins her own secretarial career at a huge corporation. Violet Newstead (Lily Tomlin), a feisty, veteran office manager, instructs her on the perils and procedures of office life -- and of working for Franklin Hart Jr. (Dabney Coleman), their chauvinistic, sleazy boss, and his right-hand woman, the crisp, nosy Roz (Elizabeth Wilson). Meanwhile, Hart's endless attempts to seduce his happily married secretary, Doralee Rhodes (Dolly Parton), lead the entire office to think she's a trollop. When Hart unfairly passes Violet over for a promotion, she drowns her sorrows at a local bar with Judy and Doralee, who regales the others with tales of Hart's epic advances. Later, at Doralee's house, the women smoke pot, eat barbecue, and concoct hilarious revenge fantasies -- a rodeo hog-tie, a Wild West shootout, and a gothic Snow White scenario -- about killing their boss. When a mix-up leads the women to think they have accidentally poisoned Hart's coffee, they hatch a scheme to protect themselves by stealing Hart's body from the morgue. When he turns up alive, never having drunk the coffee, they must kidnap him to prevent him from blackmailing them or calling the police. The women then use the occasion of their boss' absence to effect some changes around the office. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, (more)
The death of Jessica Tate (Katherine Helmond) was the big shocker at the end of Soap's third season. So imagine everyone's surprise when, as the series launched season four, Jessica was brought back to life -- following a brief stopover in Heaven to commiserate with all her ex-lovers! In another dangling plot strand resolved by the fourth-season opener, Jessica's son, Billy Tate (Jimmy Baio), is rescued from the bullet fired by his scorned lover, Leslie Walker (Marla Pennington). Additionally, the Tates have acquired a new butler named Saunders (Roscoe Lee Browne), replacing their former retainer Benson (actor Robert Guillaume had of course left Soap to star in his own sitcom, titled -- you guessed it -- Benson). The many subplots wending their way through the series' final network season include the election of Jessica's brother-in-law, Burt Campbell (Richard Mulligan), as sheriff leading to Burt's run-in with mob-connected hooker Gwen (Jesse Welles) -- with whom Burt's stepson, Danny (Ted Wass), becomes enamored. Also highlighted are the long-delayed wedding of Jessica's daughter, Eunice (Jennifer Salt) and ex-convict Dutch (Donnelly Rhodes); the long, anguished search by Danny's brother, Jodie (Billy Crystal), for his missing daughter; and Jessica's abduction to South America, where she falls in love with revolutionary leader El Puerco (Gregory Sierra), culminating in her divorce from Chester (Robert Mandan). As in previous years, season four of Soap ends with a cliffhanger as Jessica Tate faces a South American firing squad. This time, however, there was to be no resolution -- the series had been canceled! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Mandan, Katherine Helmond, (more)
When Soap arrived at its cliffhanging season-two finale, Jessica Tate (Katherine Helmond) was trying to choose between her husband Chester (Robert Mandan) and a detective named Donahue; Jessica's son Billy (Jimmy Baio) was in the clutches of a religious cult called the "Sunnies"; and Jodie's step-father (and Jessica's brother-in-law) Burt Campbell (Richard Mulligan) had been abducted by space aliens. Season Three finds Billy being rescued from the Sunnies by Jessica's butler Benson (Robert Guillaume), while an alien clone of Burt moves into the Campbell home undetected -- much to the delight of Burt's spouse Mary (Cathryn Damon), who immensely enjoys the vast improvement in her sex life! In other developments, Jessica's daughter Eunice (Jennifer Salt) is getting tired of life on the run with her escaped-con husband Dutch (Donnelly Rhodes); Eunice's sister Corrine (Diana Canova) is just about fed up with her do-nothing husband, ex-priest Father Tim; Jodie's gangster brother Danny (Ted Wass) is saved from mob retribution by a girl named Millie (Candy Azzara), but ultimately forges a new romance with a black girl named Polly Dawson (Lynne Moody); Jessica decides to forgive Chester, only to have him cheat on her again; "Alien Burt" impregnates Mary, and later "Real Burt" runs for sheriff; Mary's gay son Jodie (Billy Crystal) launches a few more "straight" relationships; and Benson leaves the employment of the Tate family (a move necessitated by actor Robert Guillaume's defection to his own sitcom titled -- what else? -- Benson). This season's 60-minute cliffhanger finale finds Danny proposing to Polly, Jodie fighting for custody of the son born to him by Carol David, and Mary trying to figure out how to tell Burt that her baby is not his; and, after a lengthy illness, Jessica Tate dies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Mandan, Katherine Helmond, (more)
- 1972
Any resemblance between the U.S. president in Hail and Richard M. Nixon was purely intentional. Faced with rebellious teenagers and college students, paranoid chief executive Dan Resin comes up with a brilliant idea: lock all the malcontents in concentration camps. Unfortunately, this leads to ramifications that turn the Good Ol' USA into an armed stockade. Amusing at first, the film's satirical content is compromised by repetition and predictability. Also known as Hail to the Chief and Washington BC, Hail was released in 1973 -- though, incredibly, it was completed before the Watergate incident. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1971
- PG13
In this semi-autobiographical romantic comedy starring Joseph Bologna and Renee Taylor (who also wrote the script together) two lonely hearts find each other in group therapy. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1968
While visiting the home of permissive parent Gretchen Millhowser (Peggy Pope), little Tabitha is tormented by Michael (Teddy Quinn), Gretchen's obnoxious brat of a son. Though she promised her own mommy, Samantha, that she wouldn't practice witchcraft, Tabitha can't resist the temptation to turn the bullying Michael into a bulldog. This was one of several Bewitched episodes written by former Orson Welles associate Richard Baer. "Playmates" was originally telecast on March 21, 1968. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elizabeth Montgomery, Agnes Moorehead, (more)
