Roger Rook Movies

Cult hero Paul Bartel directed this low-budget satire in which America's passion for cars, violence, and sporting events are finally brought together in one convenient package. In the not-so-distant future, the United States has become a totalitarian regime overseen by the charming but sinister Mr. President (Sandy McCallum), who, in order to satisfy the masses' need for entertainment (and to quench their thirst for violence), has created a new national sport -- the Death Race, a nationwide road rally in which the winner is not determined by who finishes first, but by who scores the most points along the way by running over hapless pedestrians. Aspiring champions Machine Gun Joe Viterbo (Sylvester Stallone), Calamity Jane (Mary Woronov), Nero the Hero (Martin Kove), and Matilda the Hun (Roberta Collins) are all looking to take the top honors away from Frankenstein (David Carradine), a half-man/half-machine who has been built to be the best racer on Earth and can outrun and outkill anyone on the circuit. However, not everyone likes the Death Race, and revolutionary leader Thomasina Paine (Harriet Medin) wants to sabotage the event in the name of restoring democracy; her plan is to foil Frankenstein's expected victory by smuggling her daughter Annie (Simone Griffeth) into Frankenstein's race car as his navigator. Featuring David Carradine at the height of his Kung Fu fame (and Sylvester Stallone a year before Rocky), Death Race 2000 was a major drive-in hit in 1975; Bartel and Carradine teamed up for another road race movie, Cannonball, a year later, and a semi-sequel, Death Sport, appeared in 1978. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Director Jonathan Demme made one of his more conventional movies with Swing Shift, an examination of life on the American home front during WWII. Goldie Hawn, who also served as the film's producer, stars as Kay, a woman who takes a job on the line at a plant producing war planes after her husband goes off to fight in Europe. One of her coworkers is her best friend Hazel, played by Christine Lahti, whose performance earned an Oscar nomination and a New York Film Critics award. Kay falls in love with another coworker, Lucky (Kurt Russell), who couldn't enlist because of a weak heart. Kay's husband Jack (Ed Harris) comes home on leave and finds out that his wife has betrayed him. Lucky then decides to pursue Hazel, driving a wedge between the two best friends. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi

This film, loosely-based on the book by Bob Woodward, follows the career of comedian John Belushi (Michael Chiklis) as his spirit is guided through the past by the Angel Velasquez (Ray Sharkey). ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

High in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona, a cache of stolen bank money was hidden back in the 1960s. LA based lawyer Bill Paxton, whose security-guard father (David Michael-Standing) has long been held responsible for the heist-he was the only survivor when his armored car was ambushed-conducts a search for witnesses in order to clear his dad's name. Working from his late father's notes, Paxton and his mentally handicapped brother Todd Field attempt to reconstruct the crime and recover the loot. Expressing inordinate fascination in Paxton's efforts are mysterious hitchiker Apollonia Kotero, as well as local sheriff Luke Askew, whose brother was murdered during the robbery. A great many hidden truths and deep dark secrets come to surface during a final bloody confrontation in the mountains. All evidence indicates that director John Kincade intended Back to Back as a tribute to filmmaker Sam Peckinpah-as evidenced by the presence of Peckinpah regular Ben Johnson in a pivotal role. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this made-for-cable chiller, a psychopath provides himself with a veritable smorgasbord of victims by masquerading as a member of the California Highway Patrol and bedeviling the residents of a small desert town during his vacation. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Though based on fact, the two-part TV movie False Arrest plays more like one of those Linda Blair "babes in prison" flicks. Donna Mills plays Joyce Lukezic, a well-off Phoenix businesswoman/homemaker accused of murder. She knows, and we know, that she didn't do it. The double homicide was the handiwork of her sleazy husband Robert Wagner, who works diligently behind the scenes to make certain his wife is convicted. And with the "guilty as charged" verdict, he leaves Joyce high and dry at the end of part one. Part two of False Arrest was telecast three days later, with Joyce fending off hostile and sexually abusive inmates, courting a nervous breakdown, and battling to have her conviction overturned. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The whole story is in the title of this made-for-TV heartstopper. Based on a true 1988 incident, the film details the breakout of a fire in a Los Angeles high-rise. The LA fire department does what it can, but their ladder equipment falls short of the 37-story requirement. Lee Majors, Lisa Hartman and Peter Scolari comprise the all-TV star cast of this Towering Inferno clone (which improves upon its role model): Majors is the LAFD supervisor, while Hartman and Scolari are the unlucky entrapped office workers. The focal point of Fire! Trapped on the 37th Floor is not the conflagration itself but the resourcefulness of the professional firefighters and the improvisational skill with which they utilize their equipment. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This fact-based drama follows the flight of a Milwaukee woman wrongly convicted for murdering her husband's ex-wife. Hoping to have a chance for a re-trial she escapes from prison and heads for Canada. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Based on a true story, the made-for-TV Child Lost Forever was advertised as a "docudrama." A unwed teenage mother is forced to give up her baby for adoption. 16 years later, the girl (played as an adult by Beverly D'Angelo), now married and the mother of two, decides to look for the son she lost. She finds that the boy died at age three under mysterious circumstances. The more she investigates, the more she realizes that she's stumbled upon a long-hushed-up case of child abuse. Child Lost Forever debuted November 16, 1992. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This TV movie recounts the true-life story of a corporate takeover in the greed-driven 1980s. James Garner is F. Ross Johnson, CEO of RJR-Nabisco. Having just been burned by an expensive failure of a smokeless cigarette product, Johnson doesn't wish to incur the wrath of the stockholders. He begins drawing up plans to buy RJR-Nabisco outright so he'll have no one to answer to but himself. Unfortunately for Johnson, his company is also being coveted by sharkish "buyout king" Henry Kravis (Jonathan Pryce), who turns out to have $25 billion at his beck and call. Barbarians at the Gate was adapted by Larry Gelbart from the book by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar. Advertised as a "docucomedy", the film premiered March 20, 1993, over the HBO cable service. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This made-for-television thriller tells the story of an unstable woman who goes to bizarre lengths to keep her drifting lover. Kate Jackson stars as Rita Donohue, a nurse who believes that she can re-ignite her disinterested lover's passion by having a child. Unable to have a child of her own, Rita plots to snatch an infant from her hospital's maternity ward to later pass off as her own. She feigns a pregnancy, switches records on a stillborn and healthy child, and then steals a baby from new mother Jane Morgan (Lori Loughlin) in order to support her charade. The plan goes sour though, when Jane refuses to accept the hospital's claim that her child died, and she investigates the unsettling clues on her own. ~ Bernadette McCallion, Rovi