Valente Rodriguez Movies
Katherine Heigl stars as a lovelorn television producer who's made to run a gauntlet of romantic exploits by a pig-headed morning-show host (played by Gerard Butler) as a way to prove whose romantic methods are more accurate. Legally Blonde's Robert Luketic directs from a script by Karen McCullah Lutz, Kirsten Smith, and Nicole Eastman. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Katherine Heigl, Gerard Butler, (more)
An aged, divorced mother becomes "the other woman" in her ex-husband's life when the pair enters into an unexpected affair during an out-of-town trip. Jane (Meryl Streep) has been divorced from Jake (Alec Baldwin) for a decade. The mother of three grown children, she owns a successful Santa Barbara bakery/restaurant and maintains a friendly relationship with Jake, who has since been remarried to the much younger Agness (Lake Bell). Jane and Jake are attending their son's college graduation when they agree to an innocent meal together. Before long a simple dinner date has erupted into an all-out affair, and when architect Adam (Steve Martin) falls for Jane, he realizes he's been drawn into a most peculiar love triangle. Is love sweeter the second time around, or should Jane and Jake just be happy with what they had, and finally move on with their lives? ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, (more)
- Starring:
- George Lopez, Constance Marie, (more)
- Starring:
- George Lopez, Constance Marie, (more)
- Starring:
- George Lopez, Constance Marie, (more)
- Starring:
- George Lopez, Constance Marie, (more)
- Starring:
- George Lopez, Constance Marie, (more)
- Starring:
- George Lopez, Constance Marie, (more)
David Portlock's darkly comic film about race, The Gristle, concerns a pair of struggling medical technicians who get a moonlighting gig to deliver kidneys to a Senator. Complications ensue when a drug deal set to go down in the same place and at the same time leads to the wrong deliveries being made to the wrong groups of people. Soon the pair of kidney deliverers hatch a plan to get the drug money all for themselves. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Dorn, Barry Corbin, (more)
Benton (Eriq La Salle) gives British surgeon Corday (Alex Kingston) a crash course in American ER procedures and later helps Carla (Lisa Nicole Carson) choose a name for their baby. Carter (Noah Wyle) and Del Amico (Maria Bello) are assigned to train two new med students, with Carter drawing the "short straw." Greene (Anthony Edwards) is handed a subpoena in the wrongful-death suit filed by the Law family. And Weaver's (Laura Innes) authority -- and imperiousness -- increases while Morganstern (William H. Macy) recovers from his heart attack. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
If, in the world of the movies, a dog can play basketball and a donkey can play football, why can't a chimp play baseball? That question is answered in the family comedy Ed. Jack "Deuce" Cooper (Matt LeBlanc) is a struggling baseball pitcher who has great natural talent but keeps choking under pressure. Traded to a class A minor league team, Deuce is appalled to discover his third baseman -- and roommate on the road -- is a chimpanzee named Ed Sullivan. While Ed can actually hold his own on the diamond, Deuce feels there's something a bit undignified about having to look after a monkey, and it doesn't help that Ed has poor hygiene and a chronic case of flatulence. Ed was Matt LeBlanc's first starring vehicle following his success on the TV series Friends. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matt LeBlanc, Jayne Brook, (more)
In this crime drama with comic overtones, Tanya (Lara Flynn Boyle) is a barmaid who works at a sleazy tavern, while her husband Henry (Luca Bercovici), a one-time baseball player sidelined by a knee injury, divides his time between praying at home and praying at a Catholic mission. Henry is supposed to receive an insurance settlement for his injury, but at the moment Tanya's low-pay/high-stress job is the household's sole means of support. When she discovers that Henry has already been sent a $130,000 settlement, which is now sitting in his bank account, he claims that the money is cursed, and he doesn't want her to have any. Predictably, Tanya doesn't share this superstition; when he hits her in the ensuing argument, Tanya walks out. Before long, she meets Benny (Benny O'Malley), a would-be card shark and con man who agrees to help Tanya get some of the money away from Henry. Posing as a representative of the mission, Benny intends to ask Henry to help them pay for some repairs that cost, oh, about $130,000; to reinforce his scheme, he and a friend fabricate a miracle on the mission's grounds involving a tree that grows incredibly fast. The theatrical release of The Big Squeeze ran 98 minutes; the version released on home video added another 7 minutes of footage. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lara Flynn Boyle, Peter Dobson, (more)
Featuring Jennifer Lopez in her first major big-screen role, Gregory Nava's My Family traces three generations of the Sanchez's, a Mexican-American family living in East Los Angeles. Beginning in the 1930s, the film outlines the struggles faced by Jose (Jacob Vargas) and Maria (Lopez) as a recently immigrated married couple raising a family. As Jose and Maria age, the focus shifts to their son, Jimmy (Jimmy Smits), as he starts his own family in the 1960s. While Lopez' role was uncredited, she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her performance. My Family has also been released under the titles My Family, Mi Familia, Cafe Con Leche, and East L.A. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
The title character, a manic depressive prone to very irrational behavior (Richard Gere), is hospitalized for treatment. While there, the psychiatrist responsible for his rehabilitation (Lena Olin) becomes involved with him and cannot stand to allow his check-out. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Gere, Lena Olin, (more)
Milcha Sanchez-Scott adapted her own play for this moving and poetic tale of family obsessions directed by Robert M. Young. Edward James Olmos stars as Gallo, the macho head of the Morales family. He has been in prison for the last seven years for murdering a man over a cockfight, but now he is returning home to his family -- his wife Juana (Sonia Braga) and his sister-in-law Chata (Maria Conchita Alonso). Also awaiting his homecoming are his two children -- Hector (Danny Nucci), who is embittered by his father's imprisonment, and Angela (Sarah Lassez), who eagerly looks forward to his return. Gallo, however, has his own agenda upon returning home. Consumed by his passion for cockfighting all his years in prison, he wants to begin to raise a new prize flock of roosters -- and he won't let anyone or anything stand in his way. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edward James Olmos, Sonia Braga, (more)
This fascinating chronicle of the life and times of a twenty dollar bill was originally written by Endre Boehm in 1935 and languished forgotten on the shelf until his son Leslie resurrected it after his father's death, and updated the script. (Both received screenwriter credit for the released version). The scrap of currency's journey begins after it is spit out of a downtown Minneapolis ATM machine into the hands of a busy young mother. It's a windy day, and the crisp bill is blown out of her hands into those of a bag lady who uses it on the lottery because she believes the serial numbers are lucky. Unfortunately, the bill is plucked from her hands by a light-fingered skate boarder who uses the money at a local bakery. From there the bill's odyssey takes it to a wide variety of places including a wedding, a stripper's g-string, a con artist's scam, and a robbery. It ends up used as a note pad, a birthday present, a coaster, and a fishing contest trophy. Interestingly, every one who encounters the bill changes in some way. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Linda Hunt, David Rasche, (more)
Taylor Hackford directed this urgent melodrama about the realities of street crime, gangs, and prison life among the Chicanos of East Los Angeles. Miklo (Damian Chapa), Paco (Benjamin Bratt) and Cruz (Jesse Borrego) are three friends who are living in the East Los Angeles of 1972 as it is torn apart by violence. When the gang violence hits the three friends, they are affected by their participation in the bitter violence in different ways. Cruz, an artist, becomes crippled, and he sinks deeply into drug addiction. Paco, an accessory to murder, joins the military to avoid jail time, leading to a spot on the LAPD. Miklo, the kid with the gun, is sent to jail, where he slowly rises up in the ranks of La Onda, the San Quentin Latino gang. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Damian Chapa, Jesse Borrego, (more)
So many screenwriters have surreptitiously updated the works of Mark Twain with contemporary jargon and "political correctness", without saying they've done as much, that it's a bit refreshing to see an admitted, all-out updating of Twain. Scenarist Chrstopher Sturgeon has transplanted the characters and situations of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn into a modern-day setting that accomodates both Hannibal, Missouri and Las Vegas, Nevada! The "Huck" counterpart, played by Chauncey Leopardi, escapes his abusive stepfather in the company of a cardsharp named Injun Joe-played herein by genuine Native American Graham Greene. Featured in the cast are such surefire laughgetters as Joe Piscopo and John Astin, the latter cast in the "Widow Douglas" role (you have to be there). As audacious and stilted as it sounds, Huck and the King of Hearts works, and works beautifully. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chauncey Leopardi, Joe Piscopo, (more)
Actress Sondra Locke directed this visceral film noir about undercover cop Lottie Mason (Theresa Russell). A narcotics cop with the LAPD, she works a second shift at night as an undercover vice cop. Lottie works the bars and lures johns into the arms of the law. But her life is in a rut, and she would love to act on impulse like the narcotics and vice personas she adopts daily on the job. During the course of her duties, she begins a romantic relationship with district attorney Stan Harris (Jeff Fahey), who gets her involved with a case he is working on against a drug lord. But Stan is too nice to her, and she bolts from his apartment and into the nearest bar. After a few slugs of whiskey, she decides that for this one time, she will play out the role as a hooker, take a john to her apartment, and take the money. A guy saddles up to her and she goes back to his house. But the man happens to be the same drug kingpin Stan is building his case against. He is soon murdered, and she is left with a dead body and a case with $900,000 in drug money. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Theresa Russell, Jeff Fahey, (more)
Disco-gone-Latin, that's what's happening in Salsa, where a grease monkey who's sick and tired of knuckle-busting lives for his nights on the dance floor where he gyrates to the salsa beat. Not much plot but plenty of dancing is the fare here, as the lead guy (Robby Rosa) is out to show he's the Travolta of the Latino swing scene. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robi Rosa, Rodney Harvey, (more)
























