Robert D. Raiford Movies

The bane of the existence of city attorney Elizabeth Gates (Shelley Long) is the jovial, widowed former barber (Bruce Kirby) who has chosen to be a year-round Santa Claus, transforming his house into a permanent "North Pole" village and giving away free presents to needy children. Unfortunately, "Santa" is operating out of a residential zone, and thus is technically running an illegal commercial business. Elizabeth's problem is to evict the would-be Kris Kringle without endangering her mayoral campaign -- and to hide from her impressionable son Tommy (Nathan Lawrence) the real reason behind her dislike for "Santa." Meanwhile, a cynical big-city reporter (Barry Bostwick) follows the case with interest (his interest is mainly in Elizabeth, of course), and a local land developer goes into "Scrooge" mode as he schemes to tear down a landmark train station. Based on an actual 1989 court case, A Different Kind of Christmas was made for cable, airing originally over the Lifetime network on December 9, 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Steve Austin (Lee Majors) and Jaime Sommers (Lindsay Wagner) reunite for another go around as the popular 1970s bionic duo. In this two-hour TV-movie, the couple's long overdue wedding is put in jeopardy when Jaime suffers from a virus. Richard Anderson and Martin E. Brooks reprise their TV-roles as mentor Oscar Goldman and bionic-specialist Dr. Rudy Wells, respectively. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide

A blend of screwball farce and whodunit murder mystery, this madcap period piece was the brainchild of executive producer George Lucas. In 1939, Penny Henderson (Mary Stuart Masterson) is the harried general secretary and de facto manager of a new fourth radio network, WBN. On the night that the Chicago station goes live on the air, a mysterious voice interrupts, and a series of murders soon follows, each one described by the same sonorous phantom. While Penny and her staff desperately try to keep WBN's roster of shows afloat during the unfolding crisis, her estranged husband Roger (Brian Benben), a staff writer, becomes the chief suspect. Roger is forced to dodge a detective, Lieutenant Cross (Michael Lerner), find the real killer, win Penny back, and perform last-minute script rewrites for an unhappy sponsor. As the backstage hysteria reaches a fever pitch, the show goes on with real-life radio-era pros such as George Burns and Rosemary Clooney. Although never explicitly pointed out in the film, Radioland Murders (1994) was a pseudo-prequel to an earlier Lucas feature -- Roger and Penny are the future parents of Curt Henderson (Richard Dreyfuss) from American Graffiti (1973). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Eastern State University isn't particularly notable for anything except its football program. Lately, even that hasn't been doing too well, and the athletic staff led by Coach Winters (James Caan) are under considerable pressure by the administration and alumni to bring in a winning season. To do that, he has to recruit some able, promising young players out of high school. It's not too surprising to learn that he will do almost anything to get these kids, and its even less surprising that, as long as they keep producing on the field, he and the college will overlook almost any obnoxious behavior the boys can perpetrate to the limit of their ability. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Nightmare in Columbia County was inspired by a true-life crime which occurred in South Carolina in the 1980s. An elusive psychopath is stalking a beauty contest winner. He kidnaps the girl's sister, then murders several people to cover his tracks. The police are at a loss to find the maniac, who remains in contact with the beauty queen via short, untraceable phone calls. William Devane plays the obsessed police detective who burns the midnight oil to put the clues together. Nightmare in Columbia County refuses to insult the intelligence of its audience with a sugarcoating of the events or with any tacked-on happy endings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this dystopian fable, a librarian wife and mother becomes the childbearing pawn of a Christian theocracy. In the near future, as war rages across the fictional North American Republic of Gilead and pollution has rendered 99 percent of the female population sterile, Kate (Natasha Richardson) sees her husband killed and her daughter kidnapped while trying to escape across the border. Kate herself is transformed into a handmaid -- a surrogate mother for one of the privileged but barren couples who run the country's fundamentalist regime. Although she resists being indoctrinated into the bizarre cult of the handmaids, which mixes Old Testament orthodoxy and misogynist cant with 12-step gospel and ritualized violence, Kate soon finds herself ensconced at the home of the Commander (Robert Duvall) and his frosty wife, Serena Joy (Faye Dunaway). Forced to lie between Serena Joy's legs and be penetrated impersonally each month by the Commander, Kate longs for her vanished earlier life; she soon learns that since many of the nation's powerful men are as sterile as their wives, she may have to risk the punishment for fornication -- death by hanging -- in order to sleep with another man who can provide her with the pregnancy that has become her sole raison d’être. When that other man turns out to be Nick (Aidan Quinn), the Commander's handsome, sympathetic driver, Kate grows attached to him -- and eventually pregnant with his child. Only the mysterious rebel affiliations of her fellow handmaid, Ofglen (Blanche Baker), seem to offer any chance of giving her unborn child a life of freedom -- or finding the daughter she already lost. Loosely adapted by Harold Pinter from the novel by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale also features Elizabeth McGovern in a small but pivotal role as Moira, a "gender traitor" who befriends Kate at the handmaids' reprogramming center. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide