Patrick Renna Movies

The lowbrow side of higher education returns to the screen in this purposefully tasteless comedy brought to you by the folks at National Lampoon. It's a few days before Christmas vacation, and a mood of giddy enthusiasm is in the air at a coed college dormitory. However, one of the students, a freshman, is despondent over his lack of success with the ladies during his first term at school. His older brother decides the lad needs to lose his virginity before he can make any real progress with his classmates, and hires a prostitute named Dominique (Boti Bliss) to give his brother some experience in the ways of physical love. However, it turns out that more than one Dominique is on her way to the dorm -- a French foreign-exchange student with the same name and almost no working knowledge of the English language (Marie Noelle Marquis) also shows up, and much confusion and comic hijinks ensue. Shot under the title Dorm Day Crazy, National Lampoon Presents: Dorm Daze was produced independently, but was later picked up by the National Lampoon organization, who in turn arranged a distribution deal for the picture. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Teenage patients pour into the ER after a suspicious explosion in a high school science class. Lawrence (Alan Alda) becomes erratic and violently angry, leading the staff to wonder if the veteran doctor is functioning at full capacity. Elaine (Rebecca De Mornay) hopes to "connect" with her former brother-in-law, Carter (Noah Wyle), before heading to Europe. Dr. Dave (Erik Palladino) gets another much-needed lesson in humanity and humility. Carol (Julianna Margulies) is outraged to discover that pregnant waitress Meg (Martha Plimpton) is shooting heroin. And Jeanie (Gloria Reuben) is finding it increasingly difficult to juggle her workload with her domestic duties. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this gritty drama executive-produced by Gus Van Sant, a teenaged would-be stock-car driver gets more than he bargained for when he makes a pit stop in Las Vegas to earn a little cash. Almost as soon as he arrives in the city, high-school dropout Johnny (Jesse Bradford) finds himself victimized at the slot machines by a slick little vixen. His journey to glory on the racetrack thus sidetracked, he soon falls in with a group of hoods and street urchins. Befriended by solicitous hustler Steven (Jordan Brower) and condescended to by gay-for-pay stud Eric (Jonathan Taylor Thomas), Johnny gets a quick introduction to the sleazy Vegas landscape. At first he rejects his new acquaintances, but after a disastrous liaison with a buxom young lady (Tiffani-Amber Thiessen), he finds himself the reluctant new best friend of the besotted Steven. Adamantly professing his own heterosexuality, Johnny tries to find female clients to bankroll his ticket out of town. But soon Eric arrives, promising big bucks from his wealthy male patrons, setting the stage for conflict with Steven and unexpected bloodshed. Shown during the Panorama program at the 1999 International Berlin Film Festival, Speedway Junky was the debut feature from writer/director Nickolas Perry. Daryl Hannah co-stars as an older ex-prostitute who serves as a sort of foster mother for both Johnny and Steven. The film also marked the acting debut of musical artist Warren G and features a cameo appearance from Patsy Kensit. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

In this light-hearted fantasy, a talented young magician stumbles across an unusual ring and ends up in Camelot before King Arthur. It turns out the ring belongs to none other than Merlin. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The rocky relationship between two brothers is told in flashbacks in this made-for-television coming-of-age drama from Hallmark Entertainment. Based on the novel by Ethan Canin, a long-lost brother (Jerry O'Connell) comes back to his dysfunctional family and unearths his younger brother's mixed feelings. Emmy nominee Richard Welsh (The Piano Lesson) served as executive producer. ~ Bernadette McCallion, Rovi

In the modern-day retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk, a young man named Jack (J.D. Daniels) is looking for a way to help out his financially stressed single mother. Finding a handful of magic seeds, Jack plants them and soon discovers that a gigantic beanstalk has sprouted, leading into the sky and to a strange but remarkable world of giants and adventure. The supporting cast includes Margot Kidder and Richard Moll. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The Sandlot is sparsely narrated by the main character (now an adult) who occasionally drops in on the action to comment on events or help move the story along. Tom Guiry plays Scotty Smalls, the shy new kid on the block who wants to join the rowdy pickup baseball team that plays every day in the neighborhood sandlot. But he doesn't know how to catch a baseball, and his stepfather (Dennis Leary) is too busy to teach him. He tries out for the sandlot gang anyway, and though he isn't very good, it turns out he's lucky: there happen to be only eight of them, and nine makes a team. The summer passes blissfully as Scotty learns to play ball under the wing of Benny Rodriguez (Mike Vitar), the oldest and best player, as well as Ham, Squints, Repeat, and the rest of the kid-eccentrics. The skies darken, however, when Benny literally knocks the stuffing out of the team's only baseball, a sign of impending doom, or worse, bad luck. Wanting to set things right, Scotty returns home and "borrows" his stepfather's ball, which he promptly uses to hit his first home run, knocking the ball clear out of the sandlot into mean old Mr. Mertle (James Earl Jones)'s junkyard, home to Mertle's legendary guard dog The Beast. Scotty admits that he took the ball without asking, and he naively explains that his stepfather will want it back since it had a woman's name written on it: some lady named Babe Ruth. Horror-stricken, the sandlot gang mobilizes to fetch the autographed ball from the clutches of The Beast, building a series of mechanical ball-retrieval machines which get progressively more complicated and preposterous as The Beast's size grows in their imaginations. ~ Anthony Reed, Rovi