Harold Pruett Movies
- 1996
Thanks to the bad influence of his new college pals, the normally levelheaded Bailey (Scott Wolf) is torn between knuckling down to his schoolwork and taking "short cuts" in order to have a good time. High school seniors Julia (Neve Campbell), Sarah (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Justin (Michael Goorjian) compete in a writing contest, with Justin overstepping all bounds of taste and propriety by penning a tell-all piece about Julia. And Charlie (Matthew Fox) makes a shocking discovery about his troubled ex-fiancee Kirsten (Paula Devicq). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1996
Having been ignominiously booted from the PhD program, Kirsten (Paula Devicq) takes a job as hostess at Salinger's--and quickly allows her depression to get the better of her, despite the herculean efforts by Charlie (Matthew Fox) to cheer her up. Elsewhere, when his sister Julia (Neve Campbell) begins to date his roommate Cooper (Harold Voight), Bailey (Scott Wolf) discreetly moves into a new place and picks up a new roomie in the form of the extremely high-spirited Callie Martel (Alexondra Lee in her first series appearance). And in her efforts to repair the plumbing in the family home, Claudia (Lacey Chabert) succeeds primarily in depleting the Salinger bank account. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1996
In this drama, an adolescent awakens from a coma to discover herself in the bosom of her family. This troubles her deeply because before she became comatose, she had run away from them. Matters become worse as she slowly starts remembering the events that led to her current condition. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tracey Gold, Bess Armstrong, (more)
- 1996
Now that Bailey (Scott Wolf) has moved in with the terrifyingly vivacious Callie (Alexondra Lee), his former roommate Cooper (Harold Pruett) thinks the time is ripe to make the "big move" on Bailey's sister Julia (Neve Campbell)--leading to a nasty fight and a nastier breakup. As for Bailey himself, he finds that living with Callie can be treacherous indeed, especially when she makes some weird comments about his favorite teacher (and her former boyfriend) T.J. Digman (Larry Poindexter). And back at the Salinger household, Claudia (Lacey Chabert) worries that her best friend Jody (Maria Sokoloff) may have been molested by a "trusted" adult--and that the troubled Kirsten (Paula Devicq) is about to go completely off the deep end. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1996
- R
Philippe Mora, the genre filmmaker whose marsupial-themed Howling III and alien-abduction hit Communion solidified his reputation as a director of clunky, substandard fantasy, returned with this space-set remake of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. True to form, it's a clunky mess, with Harold Pruett as a young prospector named Ben (complete with a lovable canine sidekick), who teams up with gambler Armand Crile (Rutger Hauer) and a shifty engineer named Horton (Brion James) to look for Au79, a valuable ore also called "Precious." Mora throws in everything but the kitchen sink with sabotage, explosions, crazed hijackings, and a few tacky aliens in an obligatory cantina scene. He also includes a lame CGI monster and some campy humor (as if Don Stroud as a long-haired Asian robot wasn't campy enough). Brion James steals the show as the cynical Horton, and even gets to sing, while Mora makes a cameo appearance as a scummy merchant. Despite its outer-space setting, the science fiction elements pretty much fall by the wayside once the cast leaves the moon and gets to Asteroid 18, which may as well be Bronson Canyon in an old B-Western. While it is true that most science fiction movies are basically frontier Westerns at heart anyway, this one forces the issue in such a way that one can only wonder why Mora didn't just do a straight ripoff of Sierra Madre rather than adding the unnecessary spaceships. Probably because low-budget sci-fi rents and low-budget Westerns don't. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rutger Hauer, Joan Chen, (more)
- 1991
- R
In this horror thriller, a scary sorcerer opens up his ancient Italian castle and allows the winners of a music contest to enter it and search for a fabulous treasure--provided they can stay alive long enough to enjoy it. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1990
- R
In this straightforward horror film, a new widow (Karen Black) and her daughter (Rainbow Harvest) have just moved into a new home. They don't discover until much later that the previous owner was mad, mad, mad. By then, the mirror that the woman left behind in the house has served its purpose as a gateway to demonic worlds, and the evil ones have wreaked havoc in this one. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Karen Black, Rainbow Harvest, (more)
Set during the Watts riots of the mid-'60s, the made-for-cable Heat Wave follows the story of Los Angeles Times reporter Robert Richardson (Blair Underwood), who was the only journalist on staff able to cover the story, since White reporters were unable to gain access to the area and the rioters. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Blair Underwood, Cicely Tyson, (more)
- 1989
Based on a true story, the two-part TV movie I Know My First Name Is Steven tells the tragic story of Steven Stayner. At age seven, Steven was kidnapped by two men who held him captive in a tiny shed for seven years. One of the men, a habitual child abuser named Kenneth Parnell, sexually assaulted Steven on an almost daily basis during the boy's ordeal. At age 14, Steven finally was able to escape and return to his family. But we are shown that Steven's safe return was far from the happy ending it appeared to be. He's forced to adjust to a family he'd never really known, to convince himself that his parents had never forgotten him, and to put his seven-year hell behind him. While I Know My First Name Is Steven ends on an upbeat note, the real Stayner died in a motorcycle accident only a few months after this film was first telecast in May 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1986
- PG13
Offering an updated take on William Golding's Lord of the Flies, complete with anti-fascist metaphors, this drama is set at a summer camp where the kids rise up against their counselors and start running things themselves. It is based on a novel by William Butler, The Butterfly Revolution. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Connors, Charles Stratton, (more)
- 1985
In the first episode of a two-part story, the Night Court staff is cut off from their paychecks by a municipal budget crisis. This freeze could not have come at a worse time for Harry, who is trying to save a cleaning lady (Susan Ruttan) and her troubled son (Harold P. Pruett) from being tossed into the street by a nasty landlord (Charles Bouvier). Ultimately, tragedy strikes--and a frustrated Harry quits his job! This episode marks the first appearance of the Wheelers, a rambunctious family of indigents who claim to hail from West Virginia (future Star Trek: The Next Generation regular Brent Spiner is seen as Bob Wheeler). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
