Diane Salinger Movies

The Hollywood dreams of two runaway lovers are suddenly transformed into living nightmares when a momentary pause at an abandoned roadside rest stop turns into a struggle for survival against a predator who sadism knows no boundaries in this tense nail-biter from X-Files writer and executive producer John Shiban. The west coast was a long way off, and when Jess and Nichole decided to stretch their legs at a deserted rest stop they could never have anticipated the terror that awaited them. Now Jess has disappeared, and a savage stranger with a penchant for cruel games has turned up in her place. This is no coincidence, however, and before the day is over Nichole will be forced to fight for her life against a murderous maniac whose creative use of power tools will have her screaming for mercy. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

1934. The Dustbowl. The last great age of magic. In a time of titanic sandstorms, vile plagues, drought and pistilence - signs of God's fury and harbingers of the Apocalypse - the final conflict between good and evil is about to begin. The battle will take place in the Heartland of an empire called America. And when it is over, man will forever trade away wonder for reason. See the conflict of good vs. evil played out against a pair of vivid and unusual backdrops: a traveling carnival working the American Dustbowl circuit, and an evangelical ministry in California.

A girl poised on the brink of adolescence finds herself shouldering a whole new set of responsibilities in this made-for-TV drama based on the autobiographical book by Esmeralda Santiago. In 1961, Mami Santiago (Wanda De Jesus) decides to leave her life in a Puerto Rican farming community behind and move herself and her six children to New York City in search of a better life -- and better medical care for her ailing son. Mami's oldest daughter, Esmerelda (Ana Maria Lagasca) -- Negi for short -- not only has trouble adapting to her new environment, but doesn't quite fit in at her new school, where she's lumped in with other Spanish speaking students with whom she shares no common culture. Negi's burden is intensified by the fact her mother and siblings are counting on her to learn English and serve as the family's interpreter. One of Negi's teachers senses her creative gifts and arranges for her to audition for the Performing Arts School in Manhattan, but as Negi struggles to learn a monologue in a new language she has yet to master, she isn't sure if she has what it takes to make the grade. Esmeralda Santiago penned the screenplay for Almost A Woman from her own memoir; the film was first broadcast as part of the award-winning PBS anthology series Masterpiece Theater. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

After a member of Kira's former Shakaar Resistance group is killed, she receives a recording warning that several more of her old comrades-in-arms will die. Unable to stop the carnage, Kira comes to the terrifying conclusion that she is next on the hit list (and, by extension, so is her unborn child). Racing against time, she must expose the identity of the vendetta-seeking assassin, and what she learns is both shocking and saddening. First broadcast January 6, 1997, "The Darkness and the Light" was scripted by Ronald D. Moore from a story by Rene Echevarria. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Duncan Regehr guest stars as Shakaar, a celebrated Bajoran resistance leader. Upon being appointed head of the Bajoran government, Kai Winn (Louise Fletcher) asks Kira to help her recover some much-needed agricultural equipment, currently in Shakaar's possession. Instead, Kira defiantly casts her lot with Shakaar's cause and becomes an outlaw herself. First made available to local syndication on May 22. 1995, "Shakaar" was written by Gordon Dawson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Julia Cole (Diane Salinger) is more than a little upset about turning 40. She's depressed about growing older, distressed at the lack of attention from her workaholic husband Charles (John Calvin), and bored with being a stay-at-home wife and mother. On her birthday, she finds a bottle of enchanted soap bubbles. Blowing them transports her to moments of happiness from earlier times in her life. Soon, she not only regains her youthful vigor, she cannot even remember how old she is. She changes her appearance, her personality is transformed from reclusive to outgoing, and her values change from strict to permissive. Eventually, she realizes that happiness is not age-dependent. George Clooney and Wallace Shawn are the biggest names in this low-budget, independently produced romantic comedy, also known as The Magic Bubble, directed by Deborah Taper Ringel and Alfredo Ringel. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

The 1988 TV movie Maybe Baby stars Jane Curtin as Julia, a 39-year-old career woman, married to upwardly mobile 57-year-old Hal (Dabney Coleman). Julia and Hal had originally agreed not to have children, but after heeding the tick-tock of her biological clock, Julia has changed her mind. At first resistant to the concept of parenthood, Hal goes along with his wife's new agenda, confident that at her age the chances of pregnancy are slim. But Julia does get pregnant--and suddenly begins to harbor second thoughts. Maybe Baby ends with Julia settling upon her third thoughts, and deciding to shoulder the burdens of late motherhood. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Raquel Welch's astonishing performance in the made-for-TV Right to Die compensates for any number of script deficiencies. Ms. Welch plays a successful psychologist with a happy home life who is suddenly stricken with the dreaded neurological affliction ALS (aka "Lou Gehrig's Disease"). At first, she is determined to fight for her life, but as her conditions deteriorates and she becomes more of a human vegetable, Ms. Welch begs her husband (Michael Gross) to help her die. The producers of Right to Die chose Raquel Welch not so much for her resemblance to the real-life person upon whom the story is based, but in the hopes that this "offbeat" piece of casting would attract a large TV audience. Ms. Welch accepted the role to counter industry accusations that she was impossible to work with. Thus the motivations behind Right to Die were more commercially oriented than the film's subject matter deserved, but this can be excused in the light of Welch's harrowingly accurate portrayal of a woman literally dying by inches before our eyes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Simply switch on the nightly news and you will see that the media has become increasingly intrusive into the lives of people involved in extraordinary circumstances. What is the true impact of the omnipresent camera upon those circumstances? How does it change the existence of those living beneath a publicly broadcast microscope? This provocative drama takes the notion of the intruding camera a step further to follow the machinations of a determined documentary filmmaker who chooses an ordinary man on the street for the subject of her latest probing film. In following her attempts to chronicle even the most intimate details of his mundane existence the film offers a double character portrait, not only of the victim himself, but also of the disaffected (and but for her hands, unseen) filmmaker who is unable to relate to life without the barrier of a hand-held camera to protect her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel of hypocrisy among America's pilgrims was brought to the screen by director Roland Joffe in this 1995 feature. Demi Moore stars as Hester Prynne, a new arrival to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1666. Prynne, who interacts freely with slaves and Quakers and wears revealing garb, is something of a free thinker and off-putting to the uptight locals. She awaits the arrival of her husband, Roger (Robert Duvall), but he is reported killed. One person who does not find Prynne unsettling is the new preacher, Arthur Dimmesdale (Gary Oldman). A torrid encounter between them produces a child, Pearl, and Hester is condemned by the colony, forced to wear a scarlet letter "A" (for "adultery"). Roger reappears; he had been living with a native tribe -- an experience that has driven him mad. He masquerades as "Roger Chillingsworth," trying to discover the identity of Pearl's father. When Hester is about to be executed, Dimmesdale confesses, but a timely Indian raid intervenes, saving him and Hester. The Scarlet Letter was widely derided by critics for sexualizing and changing Hawthorne's novel to an absurd degree. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

For sheer abject self-indulgence this side of an Eric Schaeffer movie, one need look no further than the films of Henry Jaglom. Jaglom's vanity productions require an intense Stalin-like loyalty to the filmmaker and his films going in, otherwise a viewer is lost. So when, in Venice/Venice, Henry Jaglom appears as a filmmaker named Dean at the Venice Film Festival, there promoting a film resembling a Henry Jaglom film, a viewer must give himself up to the force or walk out of the theater. Dean is the kind of pretentious Hollywood type who likes to wear his heart and his distribution contract on his sleeve, so when adoring European journalist Jeanne (Nelly Alard) inexplicably smiles at him the right way, filmgoers will come to understand why the film business is so attractive to wimpy film geeks. Jeanne and Dean fall in love and take a walking tour of Venice, but Jeanne pays no attention to the city, since she religiously hangs on every word Dean has to say regarding love, films, and destiny. Since there are more pearls of wisdom to be gloaned from this Bel-Air Gandhi, Jeanne willingly follows Dean back to Venice, California. Realizing that she has already spent too much time basking in the brilliance of Dean's sun, Penny (Melissa Leo), Dean's California girlfriend, obligingly offers to pack up and leave when she sees Dean returning to Southern California with Jeanne in tow. When Henry Jaglom talks, they all listen. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide