Richard Portnow Movies

To escape his persistent--and dishonest--corporate sponsors, a Nobel Prize-winning microbiologist fakes his own death. It's a clever ruse, but not a particularly healthy one: soon afterward, the missing scientist turns up murdered for real. Typically, the wrong man is accused of the crime, obliging Jessica (Angela Lansbury) to take over investigation of the case herself...while her old friend Lt. Artie Gelber (Herb Edelman) fusses and fumes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This video documents the strange life and discoveries of Robert Ripley, founder of the Believe It or Not empire. This tape follows the career of Ripley from his beginnings in 1918, when he began a newspaper column chronicling the strange and bizarre. From there, viewers watch as Ripley branches into comics, radio, and TV. The story of how one man made a career peddling information most people wouldn't want to know is an almost unbelievable tale in itself. This video is a paean to the great American dream and should be of interest to those fascinated by the strange and unusual.
~ Rob Ferrier, All Movie Guide

Elizabeth Pena and Christina Applegate play Carmen and Kathy, two women from Los Angeles with practically nothing in common. Carmen is a working-class Latina and single mother from the East Side barrio, while Kathy comes from a wealthy family in Beverly Hills. However, both of their boyfriends, Richie (Tony Dean Fields) and Lyle (Peter Berg), have ended up in a jail in the Mojave Desert as part of a confidence scheme. Carmen and Kathy want to be near the men they love to show their support, so they head out to the desert in Kathy's convertible to wait out their stay in jail as they share living quarters in an old trailer home. Across the Moon was the second feature film for director Lisa Gottlieb, who previously helmed the cult favorite Just One of the Guys and episodes of the TV series Dream On. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Director Ron Underwood follows up his crowd-pleasing hit City Slickers (1991) with this likable, feel-good comedy drama about a selfish businessman who discovers that he's permanently being followed by a group of ghosts. In 1959, a bus accident links the spirits of four fatally injured passengers to a newborn baby whose birth is caused by the crash. For 25 years, Milo (Tom Sizemore), Harrison (Charles Grodin), Penny (Alfre Woodard) and Julia (Kyra Sedgwick) remain bound to Thomas Reilly (Robert Downey Jr.), who believes the quartet to be imaginary childhood friends that have long since disappeared. When the four spooks suddenly realize that they are meant to use Thomas as a conduit to bring closure to their unfinished corporeal lives, they reemerge, causing Thomas to think that he's gone insane. As he becomes reattached to his supernatural companions, however, Thomas' innate decency asserts itself and he begins helping them to right the wrongs in their lives, allowing them to possess his body to achieve their goal of settling accounts and moving on into the afterlife. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

A sleeper hit that received a lukewarm reception from critics but was a success with audiences, Sister Act (1992) was star Whoopi Golberg's first bona fide smash after her Oscar victory for Ghost (1990). Goldberg stars as Deloris Van Cartier, a Reno lounge singer who accidentally witnesses a brutal murder carried out by her gangster boyfriend Vince (Harvey Keitel). Under the protection of a detective (Bill Nunn) who's trying to bring down Vince's criminal operation, Deloris is placed in protective custody at a San Francisco convent. Masquerading as a nun renamed Sister Mary Clarence, Deloris shakes up the established order of the sisters' lives, particularly enlivening their choral efforts. Although running constantly afoul of the Mother Superior (Maggie Smith), the new, jazzed-up musical act becomes a huge hit in the community, even drawing the attention of the Pope, but also alerting Vince to Deloris' whereabouts. Although credited to the pseudonymous Joseph Howard, Sister Act was actually written by Paul Rudnick and Carrie Fisher. The film was followed by a sequel, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

The title character, played by John Turturro, is a Broadway playwright, based on Clifford Odets, lured to Hollywood with the promise of untold riches by a boorish studio chieftain (played by Michael Lerner as a combination of Louis B. Mayer and Harry Cohn). Despising the film capital and everything it stands for, Barton Fink comes down with an acute case of writer's block. He is looked after by a secretary (Judy Davis) who has been acting as a ghost writer for an alcoholic screenwriter (John Mahoney, playing a character based on William Faulkner). Also keeping tabs on Fink is a garrulous traveling salesman (John Goodman), the most likeable, stable character in the picture. And then comes the plot twist to end all plot twists, plunging Barton Fink into a surreal nightmare that would make Hieronymus Bosch look like a house painter. Once more, Ethan and Joel Coen serve up a smorgasbord of quirkiness and kinkiness, where nothing is what it seems and nothing turns out as planned. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While attending a convention in Las Vegas, Jessica (Angela Lansbury) links up with Susan Hartley (Amy O'Neill), the daughter of her editor Ted Hartley (Bruce Gray). When Susan's boyfriend is accused of murdering a nasty casino manager, Jessica steps in to prove the poor fellow's innocence. In so doing, our heroine places her own life in dire jeopardy. Andrew Brye makes his second appearance in the semi-regular role of Ahmed Shanker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Arnold Schwarzenegger sheds his action image in Ivan Reitman's police comedy Kindergarten Cop, where he plays an undercover cop teaching a class of hyperactive six-year-olds. As the film begins, John Kimble (Schwarzenegger) and his partner Phoebe O'Hara (Pamela Reed) are in pursuit of notorious drug dealer Cullen Crisp (Richard Tyson) and his scabrous mother Eleanor (Carroll Baker). John learns Cullen is searching for his ex-wife and his little boy, and Kimble plans to nail them when they find the former wife, who is believed to have $3 million of Cullen's drug profits. John and Phoebe follow the trail to Astoria, Oregon, where they believe Cullen's son is attending kindergarten. Although the child and his mother have changed names, John hopes they can pick up some clues. By coincidence, Phoebe used to be a schoolteacher and the school board permits her teach the kindergarten class, but Phoebe gets food poisoning and John is forced to teach the six-year-old whippersnappers himself. Along with lighthearted gags with the kids and the pursuit of the drug dealers, John has time for a little romance when he falls in love with one of the teachers (Penelope Ann Miller), who ends up surprising him with more than love. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

A cynical gambler reluctantly comes to the aid of a mysterious beauty in this interpolation of Casablanca and the real-life Cuban revolution. Big-stakes American gambler Jack Weil (Robert Redford) is comfortable in the anything-goes Havana of 1958. But with Fidel Castro out in the wilderness broadcasting revolutionary messages, it seems the good times may be on the way out. On a boat back to the island nation from the U.S. mainland, Weil agrees to help beautiful Bobby Duran (Lena Olin) smuggle in some contraband by trading vehicles with her on their way through the checkpoint. He's amused to discover not jewelry, but radio transmitters squirreled away in her car. Eventually, he learns that she's the European wife of monied Cuban communist Arturo Duran (Raul Julia), who believes his class and status will protect him from the ruling party. When that assumption turns out to be false, Jack finds himself sucked in by the plight of the suddenly widowed Bobby, who remains committed to her dangerous ideals. Risking his cushy lifestyle to protect Bobby from the coming tumult -- and from herself -- Jack must grapple with the dictates of his newfound conscience. With a supporting cast that includes Alan Arkin and Tomas Milian, Havana reunited director Sydney Pollack with Redford and David Rayfiel, star and co-screenwriter of The Way We Were. Rayfiel has also worked on a number of Pollack pictures, stretching from 1969's Castle Keep to 1995's remake of Sabrina. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Peter Gunn was a one-shot TV movie revival of the classic detective series (1958-61) created by Blake Edwards. Edwards wrote and directed this pilot for a potential Gunn revival, with Peter Strauss stepping into Craig Stevens' gumshoes as private eye Peter Gunn. Peter Jurasik assumes Herschel Bernardi's old role as Lt. Jacobi, while Barbara Williams takes over for Lola Albright as saloon singer Edie ("Mother's", the night spot where Edie vocalizes, is operated by "special guest star" Pearl Bailey). The film is not updated to the present time, but is set in 1964. Gunn finds himself between gangsters and rogue cops when he agrees to get to the bottom of a mob hit. A lot more verbose than the old, visually dynamic TV series, Peter Gunn (1989) has the saving grace of Henry Mancini's original progressive-jazz theme song and musical score. Blake Edwards' daughter Jennifer is featured as Gunn's ditsy secretary, a character (thankfully) missing from the earlier series. This actually represented Edwards's second attempt to revive the Peter Gunn character in a movie format; he first did so with the 1967 big-screen feature Gunn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Since Chattahoochee is a story based on true events, it may seem absurd to suggest that the actual events of Chattahoochee are pirated from other true-life tales like Gideon's Trumpet. But it certainly seems as if true stories are just as derivative as any fictional narrative coming out of Hollywood. The Chattahoochee saga details the Emmett Foley (Gary Oldman) story. The film takes place in 1955, when Foley, a Korean war veteran depressed and shattered by continual unemployment, snaps and shoots up his neighborhood, hoping that the police will come and shoot him down like a crazed dog so that his wife Mae (Frances McDormand) can collect on the insurance money. Instead of being gunned down by the law enforcement officers, he is sent to Chattahoochee, a notorious prison for the mentally ill which makes The Snake Pit look like a vacation in Bermuda. The gruesome conditions in the jail send Foley into listlessness. But then his anger gets the better of him and, encouraged by a friend, Walker Benson (Dennis Hopper), he begins sending letters to the authorities protesting the sub-human conditions in the mental facility. Due to his efforts, a state commission is formed to investigate conditions in Chattahoochee, and Foley has a chance to tell the world of the horrible conditions. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide