Remak Ramsay Movies
- 1967
Expanded from a two-character play by Murray Schisgal, this comedy stars Eli Wallach as Ben Harris, a disgruntled New York City mail carrier. Harris is fed up with being cheated by his landlords, the Kellys (Roland Wood and Ruth White), so he terrorizes them and the city's housing authority until they agree to give him a new apartment. Not satisfied, Harris "goes postal" by kidnapping a bored suburban housewife, Gloria Fiske (Anne Jackson) and taking her back to his apartment. To his surprise, he finds that Gloria also hates the world, and they become fast friends. He eventually lets her go but follows her home. When he tries to climb into her window, her husband Jerry (Bob Dishe) chases him away. Harris returns to his apartment building, where the Kellys invite him in to watch TV, and somehow this soothes his wrath. Dustin Hoffman has a small role as a hippie named Hap. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi
- Starring:
- Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson, (more)
In the William Goldman-scripted, Bryan Forbes-directed adaptation of Ira Levin's savagely satiric sci-fi novel The Stepford Wives, housewife Joanna (Katharine Ross) moves with husband Walter (Peter Masterson) and their children to the "ideal" suburban community of Stepford, CT. Slowly, Joanna deduces that something is amiss; most of the other housewives are vapid creatures who speak in trivialities and live only to please their husbands. Together with new friend Bobby (Paula Prentiss), she investigates this curious status quo. When Bobby also succumbs to cloying sweetness, Joanna discovers that Stepford's husbands have conspired with male chauvinist scientists to replace all the wives with computerized android duplicates. The Stepford Wives became a massive, runaway hit, earning four million dollars domestically. Mega-producer Scott Rudin and director Frank Oz teamed up for a remake in 2004. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Katharine Ross, Paula Prentiss, (more)
The McCarthy-era "witch hunts" in the entertainment industry set the stage for this comedy drama set in the 1950s. Howard Prince (Woody Allen) is a cashier at a corner bar who works as a small-time bookie on the side, with little success. One day, Howard's old friend Alfred Miller (Michael Murphy), a successful television writer, makes a business proposal to him; Alfred's leftist political views have resulted in him being blacklisted from the major television networks, and he can no longer get work. Alfred asks Howard to act as a "front" -- Howard puts his name on Alfred's scripts, sells them, and takes a cut of the payment for his trouble. Howard's new career as a "writer" is an instant success, and soon Howard is fronting for a handful of blacklisted scribes while earning a healthy income and becoming the toast of the television industry; another fringe benefit is a romance with beautiful network employee Florence Barrett (Andrea Marcovicci). However, comic Hecky Brown (Zero Mostel), who had a brief fling with socialism years before, now finds his past catching up with him, and he's told in order to save his job as host of a weekly television show, he has to get the goods on some suspicious figures, among them Howard Prince, whose background looks a little too clean for comfort. The Front was written by Walter Bernstein, who was himself blacklisted during the 1950s, as were co-stars Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi, and Lloyd Gough. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Woody Allen, Zero Mostel, (more)
- 1980
- PG
In this far-out comedy that slams it to academia, television, and the military, Simon (Alan Arkin) is a puffed-up professor who is boondoggled by a group of geniuses in a think tank. Becker (Austin Pendleton) leads the wacked-out thinkers as they invent off-the-wall games to keep themselves amused instead of solving global problems in ecology or whatever. They manage to convince Simon he is really a space alien, but then Simon gets away from them and takes refuge in a strange commune headed up by a former television executive (Adolph Green) whose bible is TV Guide. Simon's life does not get any easier since he is being hunted by the army with orders to shoot on sight. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Alan Arkin, Austin Pendleton, (more)
- 1981
Dream House is an opposites-attract TV movie which strives mightily for social relevance. John Schneider plays a Georgia-cracker contractor who journeys to New York for a major building project. Out of love for Manhattanite urban planner Marilu Henner, he scraps his big-bucks assignment. Instead, he endeavors to build a "dream" house in the middle of one of New York City's most rundown ghettos. Dream House coasts merrily along on its star power alone; the storyline is acceptable, but nothing to break a date over. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
With a plot that is a cross between a teen, low-brow farce and a coming-of-age story, Class opens with scenes of two best friends -- nerdy whiz Jonathan (Andrew McCarthy) and carefree jock Skip (Rob Lowe) -- going around in lingerie; they also barf on a double date, break into a quiet meeting at a girls' school, and generally behave as emotional throwbacks. But when the nerd Jonathan is picked up in a Chicago bar by Skip's mother Ellen (Jacqueline Bisset), the tone changes completely. The affair between the student and the older woman is torrid until they rendezvous in New York and Ellen dumps Jonathan because she finds out he is not a Ph.D. candidate from Northwestern University. Meanwhile, Jonathan does not know who Ellen is until Skip brings him home for the Christmas holidays and the two clandestine, September-May ex-lovers come face to face with the truth. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Rob Lowe, Jacqueline Bisset, (more)
- 1986
One room, several dinners, and a multitude of characters figure into the A.R. Gurney Jr. play The Dining Room. Several lives and relationships are built up and destroyed in consistently amusing fashion. The film consists of wall-to-wall vignettes, some lasting a mere few minutes. The charm and novelty of the original play rested in the fact that the huge "dramatis personae" was played by a mere six actors. This versatility is carried over to film version, though it sure seems like that dining room is full at all times. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Yes, there are commies under the bed. But are there Nazis there too? Emily Crane (Kelly McGillis) is a modestly successful Life photo editor living in 1950s New York, until she is called before the Senate Un-American Activities Committee to testify about her "communist" associations. When she refuses to divulge the names of friends in her civil liberties group, she loses her employment and her friends. In desperation, she takes a job reading books for Miss Venable, a somewhat crotchety lady (Jessica Tandy) who lives in a quiet residential neighborhood. Then, while taking a break in Miss Venable's back yard, Emily overhears something from the house behind that compels her to investigate and leads her eventually to conclude that it is the headquarters of a group smuggling in ex-Nazi scientists for some mysterious purpose. Meanwhile, she is being harassed by two FBI men, on behalf of the Senate Committee, as well as by a sinister, McCarthyite, Senate investigator named Salwen (Mandy Patinkin). One of the FBI men, Cochran (Jeff Daniels), takes a liking to Emily and humors her by agreeing to investigate her suspicions. This quiet mystery is a nostalgia piece. It's '50s backgrounds are authentic and the plot device -- an innocent becoming entangled in an unbelievable conspiracy -- is closer to one of Hitchcock's masterpieces of that period (e.g., North by Northwest) than to Reservoir Dogs or Speed. The people seem to be from a simpler time, too, when the distinction between good and evil was clearer. Emily shines with idealistic integrity and the naive Cochran is so honest that he finds it impossible to deceive the target of his investigation. There is even a terrifying, "acrophobe's nightmare" scene played out in a dome high above Grand Central Station. For those tired of endless shoot-em-ups and car chases, this is the mystery to choose. ~ Michael P. Rogers, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kelly McGillis, Jeff Daniels, (more)
Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (played by real-life "Mr. and Mrs." Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward) are well-to-do residents of Kansas City in the 1940s. So far as the Bridges are concerned, however, it's the 1920s, with Mr. Bridge treating his wife like property, regarding his grown children as if they're still adolescents, and habitually voting against that upstart Roosevelt. Though the underlying painfulness of such an archaic arrangement is never ignored, Mr. Bridges' obstinancy is for the most part amusing. The scene that seemed to please the audience most was the one in which Mr. Bridge orders Mrs. Bridge not to leave their table at their country club despite tornado warnings (they sit quietly in the deserted dining room while the building shakes and shudders). As for Mrs. Bridge, her "life" is totally defined by those around her--which in any other film would be a tragedy, but which here seems a logical extension of all that's gone before. Based on two separate novels by Evan S. Connell, Mr. & Mrs. Bridge is a rare excursion into Americana by the Ismail Merchant-James Ivory team. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, (more)
Woody Allen's black-and-white curiosity piece is a mixture of influences -- from German silent film expressionism to Franz Kafka's nightmare worlds to the contemporary fables of Wim Wenders. Woody Allen plays the nebbish clerk Kleinman (in a throwback to his characters from Sleeper and Love and Death), who is awakened in the middle of the night by a vigilante group who want him to help capture a serial killer on the loose. Kleinman reluctantly agrees, but when he gets to the street, the vigilantes are gone and Kleinmen spends most of the film wandering the shadowy back alleys in search of the citizen's brigade. Meanwhile, a circus is in town. When sword-swallower Irmy (Mia Farrow) catches her creepy clown husband (John Malkovich) getting familiar with trapeze artist Marie (Madonna), she packs her bags and heads for town, where she meets up with Kleinman. This meeting sets up a number of plot lines that has Irmy befriending a trio of prostitutes (Jodie Foster, Lily Tomlin and Kathy Bates) at the local brothel and accepting $700 from a university student (John Cusack) who wants to sleep with her. She finally meets up with her husband, and they then find an abandoned baby which they decide to raise as their own. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, (more)
- 1992
The tragic wreck of the super-tanker Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound, Alaska on March 24, 1989 was one of the most devastating ecological disasters in recent history. Immediately after the ship ran aground and began pumping over 11 million gallons of suffocating oil from its ruptured hold, experts were sent out to assess the damage and clean up the mess. This gripping docudrama tells their story. Much centers on the conflict between local officials, the fishing industry, and the Exxon official sent out to oversee the clean-up and take the rap. With unflinching moral outrage, the filmmakers point out that much of the aftermath could have been minimized had the officials in charge been better prepared and not spent so much time involved in useless red-tape and petty bureaucratic bickering. Most of the film was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia, but it also utilizes archival filmclips of the actual disaster and clean up efforts. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1993
- PG13
Steven Soderbergh, after the success of sex, lies, and videotape and the commercial failure of Kafka, pulls a rabbit out of his hat with this quiet and evocative recollection of a childhood lived in the Depression, based on A. E. Hotchner's memoir. Twelve-year-old Aaron Kurlander (Jesse Bradford) is coming of age in a rotting working class section of St. Louis in 1933. As the film begins, Aaron's family is coming apart at the seams due to the increasingly bleak economy. His father (Jeroen Krabbe) ekes out a living with a series of failed sales jobs as the family lives in the dilapidated Empire Hotel in a seamy section of town. When his younger brother (Cameron Boyd) is sent to live with relatives to save expenses, his consumptive mother (Lisa Eichhorn) goes away to a sanitarium and his father abandons him to sell watches in Iowa. At first Aaron retreats into a concocted fantasy world but he gradually becomes drawn into the shattered lives of the tenants of the hotel. Aaron sees the rotting social fabric laid bare and discovers he must temper his childhood dreams with the hard-hitting realities of adult existence. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jesse Bradford, Jeroen Krabbé, (more)
In this slightly dark comedy about romantic obsession, Sam (Matthew Broderick) is an astronomer who likes his life in the small New England town he calls home and loves his fiancée, Linda (Kelly Preston). But one day, Linda tells Sam that she's moving to New York because she has found a new job -- and a new boyfriend. Sam is shocked and doesn't want to give Linda up, so when she moves to Manhattan, Sam follows her. Moving into an empty loft across the street from Linda's new apartment, Sam constructs a camera obscura that allows him to watch what she and her new beau, a French restaurateur named Anton (Tcheky Karyo), are up to. Sam's convinced that Linda is just going through a phase, and when she gets tired of Anton, he'll be there to pick up the pieces. But Sam soon has company in his obsessive watch over Linda's new flat: Anton's former girlfriend, Maggie (Meg Ryan), crashes Sam's hideout and joins him in his spy mission. While Sam just wants Linda back, Maggie is seething with rage against Anton after he dumped her and now she's out for revenge. Addicted to Love was the directorial debut of actor and producer Griffin Dunne; he cast his father, noted author Dominick Dunne, in a small role as a food writer. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Meg Ryan, Matthew Broderick, (more)
- 1998
Two prominent members of the same exclusive country club have apparently committed suicide. Ballard (Callie Thorne) and Munch (Richard Belzer) investigate one of the deaths, while Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and Bayliss (Andre Braugher) investigate the other -- whereupon both teams unearth evidence of a blackmail-murder plot. Meanwhile, Lewis (Clark Johnson) is off suspension and back on duty; another member of the Mahoney crime operation turns up dead; and even though the civil suit against the police is dismissed, Kellerman (Reed Diamond) can't leave well enough alone, launching into a public tirade that may very well seal the doom of one of the key players in the suit. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, (more)
- 2000
A certain high-profile murder which peripherally involved a well-connected political family was the obvious inspiration for this episode. Under orders from their higher-ups, Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Green (Jesse L. Martin) reopen a 20-year-old murder investigation. The principal suspect at the time was the spoiled teenaged son of a powerful U.S. ambassador (Remak Ramsay). The question: Considering the age of the suspect when the killing occurred, should he be tried in juvenile court even though he is now well into adulthood? ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Nora Ephron adapts Julie Powell's autobiographical book Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen with this Columbia Pictures production starring Amy Adams as an amateur chef who decides to cook every recipe in a cookbook from acclaimed celebrity chef Julia Child (played by Meryl Streep) in order to chronicle it in a blog over the course of a year. Streep's Devil Wears Prada co-star Stanley Tucci re-teams with the actress as Child's husband. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi
- Starring:
- Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, (more)
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