Edward Power Movies
Michael Douglas runs afoul of a treacherous supervisor in this film version of Michael Crichton's novel. Douglas plays Tom Sanders, an executive at DigiCom, a leading computer software firm. DigiCom is about to launch a new virtual reality-based data storage system that is expected to revolutionize the industry, and Bob Garvin (Donald Sutherland), the owner of the company, is in the midst of negotiating a merger that could bring $100 million into the firm. However, while Tom is expecting a promotion, he discovers the position has been given instead to a new hire, Meredith Johnson (Demi Moore), with whom Tom had an affair years ago, before he was married. After her first day of work, Meredith invites Tom up to her office and makes a concerted attempt to seduce him; while Tom doesn't fight off her advances with very much gusto at first, eventually he decides things have gone too far and leaves in a huff. The next morning, Meredith accuses Tom of sexual harassment, and he realizes this was merely a power ploy to get him out of DigiCom for good; Tom, determined to fight, files a counter-suit, which makes him no friends at the company, since rocking the boat too hard could very well scotch the merger. Dennis Miller also appears as one of Tom's wise-cracking co-workers. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Douglas, Demi Moore, (more)
- 1993
The seemingly heartbroken parents of a murdered child make a sheriff suspicious, in this made-for-television drama. Park Overall and Robby Benson star as The Sims, a couple whose infant daughter is kidnapped and later found dead. By all accounts the Sims appear to be the victims, but when another child in the Sims family is found dead several years later, the local sheriff (Frederick Forrest) becomes suspicious. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
When a group of miners discovers a mysterious but delicious white substance bubbling up from the earth, a conglomerate markets the gooey, addictive fluff as a dessert in this tongue-in-cheek horror spoof from former NBC scriptwriter Larry Cohen. When a new product called "The Stuff" begins eating into the market share of traditional frozen desserts, the dairy industry hires former FBI agent Moe Rutherford (Michael Moriarty) to investigate the competition. With the assistance of deposed ice-cream magnate Chocolate Chip Charlie (Garrett Morris), Rutherford discovers that the substance is actually a sentient entity that takes over its victims' minds while eating away at their bodies from the inside. Meanwhile, young Jason (Scott Bloom) realizes that his family's strange behavior has something to do with the dessert product in their refrigerator that refuses to stay in its carton, and he launches a campaign to destroy the threatening confection. Soon Rutherford and Jason must team up with Nicole Kendall (Andrea Marcovicci), The Stuff's unwitting advertising mastermind, and Vietnam vet-turned-militia leader Colonel Spears (Paul Sorvino) to save America from its own sweet tooth. Sorvino and Moriarty would go on to co-star in NBC's hit police procedural, Law & Order. Icy-eyed As the World Turns hunk Brian Bloom appears alongside his brother, Scott Bloom. The Stuff's television connections also extend to cameos from Clara Peller, pitchwoman for the Wendy's "Where's the beef?" campaign, and Abe Vigoda of Barney Miller fame. Actresses Brooke Adams, Tammy Grimes, and Laurene Landon also appear in parodic commercials for the titular dessert. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Moriarty, Andrea Marcovicci, (more)
- 1977
Delta County USA was the feature-length pilot film for a proposed prime-time serial. The titular county is an old, hidebound Southern community, harboring ever so many dark secrets. The dramatic tension of the film is manifested in the lack of understanding between the older citizens and the young set. Jim Antonio heads the cast as "Jack the Bear," who's smarter than the av-er-age...you know. Delta County USA was initially telecast May 20, 1977. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1977
Four months away from retirement, hard-bitten narcotics cop Eddie Boggs (Ned Beatty) oversteps his bounds, brutalizing a drug-dealing stoolie and planting a weapon on the man. In his efforts to cover up his misdeeds, Boggs succeeds only making things worse. Played out against all this intrigue are the efforts by Stone (Karl Malden) and Robbins (Richard Hatch) to get the goods on a particularly insidious drug ring called the Tucson Connection. Susan Oliver, best remembered to Star Trek fans as the "Green Girl" in the original Star Trek pilot film, appears as Eddie Boggs' long-suffering wife. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
In the '50s, Bert I. Gordon made a career out of sci-fi movies about gigantic mutated insects (Beginning of the End, Earth vs. the Spider), lizards (King Dinosaur, Serpent Island), and even people (The Amazing Colossal Man), and in 1977, he was still up to his old tricks with this picture, loosely adapted from a story by H.G. Wells. Marilyn Fryser (Joan Collins) is a less than scrupulous businesswoman who is trying to sell shares in a worthless Florida housing development to a group of naive souls. However, both Marilyn and her potential customers have bigger things to worry about than low property values, when they discover that a large stock of nuclear waste was dumped near the development site, and the result is a pack of gigantic mutated ants with a nasty disposition and a taste for human blood. The supporting cast features Robert Lansing, John David Carson, and Albert Salmi. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Collins, Robert Lansing, (more)
- 1977
Kojak returned to its familiar Sunday-night network berth for its fifth and final season. Things get off to a rousing start with this opening episode, with Lt. Theo Kojak (Telly Savalas) determined to nail the murderer of a fellow cop. Unfortunately, the only witness to the crime, Janet Carlisle (Paula Kelly), is the girlfriend of a gangster (Charles Cioffi) who hates Kojak--and who goes to great and violent lengths to intimidate Janet into non-cooperation. This is the episode in which Kojak leans into the villain's face and snarls "If you touch her again, I'm going to splatter your brain" (Could this line have been written by future Quantum Leap and JAG producer Donald P. Bellisario, the man credited for the teleplay--or was it another Telly Savalas inspiration?) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1976
The crash of a private jet exposes a heroin-smuggling operation based in Mexico. The Angels head south of the border -- Kelly (Jaclyn Smith) posing as a vacationing schoolteacher, Jill (Farrah Fawcett-Majors) as a swimming instructor, Sabrina (Kate Jackson) as a stewardess -- to get the goods on the smugglers. Their main target is a drug kingpin known as Escobar, whom no one has ever seen, and thus could be any one of the episode's main characters (except, of course, the Angels). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Kate Jackson, (more)
"Gorgeous goyish guy" meets Jewish radical girl in Sydney Pollack's glossy romance. In 1937, frizzy-haired Red co-ed Katie Morosky (Barbra Streisand) briefly captures the attention of preppy jock Hubbell Gardiner (Robert Redford) with her passionate pacifism, while the writing talent beneath his privileged exterior entrances her. Almost eight years later, the two are reunited in New York, when well-coiffed leftist radio worker Katie spies military officer Hubbell snoozing in a nightclub. Through her force of will, and in spite of his smug rich friends, the two opposites fall in love, sparring over Katie's activist zeal and Hubbell's writerly ambivalence after a failed first novel. They head to Hollywood so that Hubbell can write a screenplay for his buddy-turned-producer J.J. (Bradford Dillman). But the House Committee on Un-American Activities' Communist witch hunt in 1947 tears the pair apart, as a pregnant Katie refuses to keep silent about the jailing of the Hollywood Ten, while a faithless Hubbell decides to save his career. When the two meet again at the dawn of the '60s, TV hack Hubbell and A-bomb protestor Katie feel the old pull, but they have to decide if it's worth the grief. Although blacklisted writers had returned to Hollywood -- and won Oscars -- by the early 1970s, the HUAC sections of Arthur Laurents's screenplay were still considered dicey, resulting in substantial cuts; Laurents reportedly blamed star Redford for not fighting them hard enough. Regardless of the edits, and critics' complaints about the film's schlockiness, 1973 audiences went for the well-executed and still politically tinged weepie, turning The Way We Were into one of the most popular films of 1973 and Redford into a major heartthrob. Streisand won an Oscar nomination for Best Actress and the Streisand-sung title tune won for Best Song. Despite the eviscerated politics, The Way We Were poignantly captures the insoluble dilemma of reconciling private desires with public awareness. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbra Streisand, Robert Redford, (more)
