Jay O. Sanders Movies

John Cusack plays Myrl Redding, a horse trader who locks horns with a rancher who has callously mistreated two of his horses, as well as their handler, a Crow Indian. When the law gives Myrl no justice, he is forced to take matters into his own hands, leading to a cycle of violence and chaos. The Jack Bull was written by Cusack's father, Dick, who also plays a small part as the jury foreman in the film. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This 200th episode of Law & Order is set in motion when a professor of philosophy is pushed in front of a subway train. Investigating the murder, detectives Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) must deal with a wily suspect (Jay O. Sanders) who changed his identity and place of residence after a bitter divorce and child-custody battle. Can the key to the mystery be found with the suspect's ex-wife, or with the children he "appropriated" before taking flight? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After devoting his career to such horror films as Scream, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Last House on the Left, director Wes Craven makes a dramatic change of pace with this inspiring drama about a teacher who helps change the lives of her students. Roberta Guaspari-Tzavaras (Meryl Streep) teaches at an elementary school in Harlem, where discipline is a higher priority than the lively arts. But Roberta believes that studying music will give the children a sense of purpose invaluable in later life. Despite indifference from the school administration and budget cuts that force her to seek outside funding (and even threaten her job), Roberta struggles to teach the violin to her students, instilling a love of classical music in kids who might otherwise never have heard Bach or Mozart, and leading to a student recital at Carnegie Hall. Angela Bassett, Cloris Leachman, and Aidan Quinn highlight the supporting cast, and virtuoso violinists Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, and Mark O'Connor appear as themselves. The Music of the Heart is based on a true story; the real Roberta Guaspari-Tzavaras and her students can be seen in the documentary Small Wonders. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Howard Deutch directed this sequel to the The Odd Couple (1968), originally adapted from the 1965 Broadway comedy by Neil Simon. Thirty years later, Felix Ungar (Jack Lemmon) and retired sportswriter Oscar Madison (Walter Matthau) meet at LAX and drive a rental car across the desert to attend the wedding of Oscar's son Brucey (Jonathan Silverman) to Felix's daughter Hannah (Lisa Waltz), but a breakdown leaves them stranded at some distance from the main highways where they are sprayed by a cropduster and hang out with two flirtatious women (Christine Baranski, Jean Smart) in a small-town bar before getting a lift from slow-driving elderly Beaumont (Barnard Hughes), eventually arriving at the wedding. Composer Alan Silvestri brings in Neal Hefti's original theme from the 1968 film, music also featured in ABC's 1970-75 TV series with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman. Another Odd Couple sequel is the TV movie The Odd Couple: Together Again (CBS, 1993, repeated July 1997), starring Randall and Klugman; it also involved the wedding of Felix's daughter. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Plagued by debts, New Yorkers Brad (Tim Allen) and Caroline (Kirstie Alley) Sexton continue to live the high life while maintaining the deception of wealth. But then real estate developer Brad learns his accountant has balanced the books in his own favor, appropriated $5 million, and flown to South America -- after first devising a set-up in which only Brad and Caroline would be blamed by the IRS. With IRS agent Derek Lester (Larry Miller) on their tail, the Sextons escape from New York. They arrive at the Amish community of Intercourse, Pennsylvania, where they pose as the Missouri relatives of farmer Samuel Yoder (Jay O. Sanders). It's the perfect hiding place, but it requires Brad and Caroline to suppress their previous sophisticated lifestyle, as they attempt to adopt Amish attitudes and customs. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Grumpy, chain-smoking prosecuting attorney Ingrid Maynard (Stockard Channing) hasn't accepted a case since the accident that left her confined to a wheelchair. But when the husband of assistant DA Rachel Simone (Michelle Forbes) is killed in a robbery, Ingrid decides to return to the courtroom to take over the investigation and ultimate prosecution of the culprit. Forced to work together, the embittered Ingrid and the dispirited Rachel don't always see eye to eye, but this does not compromise the value of their work. However, a major "conflict of interest" crisis threatens to slow the wheels of justice to a grinding halt. Made for the NBC network by the same team responsible for the series Homicide and Prime Suspect, The Prosecutors originally aired on December 2, 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this offbeat comedy set in the 1950s, Patrick Swayze plays Jack McCloud, a drifter and beatnik who enters the conservative suburban life of the Holman family after Jeanne Holman (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) accidentally hits him with her car. Jeanne takes Jack into her home while he recovers from his injuries. McCloud offends the neighbors and friends of the Holmans with his unorthodox behavior, including nude sunbathing and Buddhism. He tells the children, Tom (Joseph Mazzello) and Gunny (Seth Mumy), stories of a genie who has taken the form of a dog. Jeanne and her kids come under his sway as Jack's mystical powers help the kids' Little League team win a big game. Martha Coolidge directed the film from a script by Elizabeth Anderson, based on a short story by Ellen Green. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

In this psychological drama, a woman tries to get on with her life after she is captured and tortured in a nameless South American country. It begins as US journalist Helen McNulty and her photographer/lover Jan travel to the country to find a rebel leader. Instead they are captured during a protest demonstration, separated, and tortured. She survives the ordeal and ends up back in Portland, Oregon, still grieving for Jan a year later. Though she has buried most of the terrifying experience and is determined to live a normal life, she finds herself forced to face the experience when she attends a symposium for survivors of political torture and decides to write a story on Anna Lenke, the keynote speaker and Holocaust survivor. Lenke runs a center for survivors and while there, Helen finds Anna treating her like a therapy patient, rather than a reporter. Conflict ensues. More conflict erupts when a mysterious, Latin professor, Tomas Ramirez arrives at the clinic. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Set in a busy inner-city emergency room, this made-for-cable television drama follows the struggles of a world-weary surgeon who takes on the hospital administrators whose budget-cutting is affecting his ability to adequately care for his patients. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A divorced, thirtysomething private investigator has an early mid-life crisis and goes looking for love. As a detective, Ryan specializes in providing evidence of infidelity for spouses seeking grounds for divorce. He is assisted by his partners Vernon, a genius with technical gadgetry and Dean, his free-wheeling cameraman. Dean frequently gives Ryan a hard time about having no discernible love life. This constant razzing wears on the over-analytical Ryan and he employs a computer dating service and through them meets the lovely Tura an independent-minded girl who is as emotional as Ryan is rational. Still the detective falls deeply in love with her. Unfortunately, he is afraid to commit and she dumps him. She begins seeing others and this makes Ryan so jealous that he begins using his equipment to surveil her. This infuriates Tura and only makes matters worse in the long run. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Hostages is a made-for-cable film that chronicles the captivity of several Western hostages who were held in Lebanon for five years during the mid-'80s. Combining newsreel footage with re-enactment's, the film captures the horror of the hostages--Americans Terry Anderson, Thomas Sutherland, Frank Reed; British citizens John McCarthy, Terry Waite; and Irish teacher Brian Keenan--as they are held by the Muslim fundamentalist group, the Hezbollah. It also follows the trials and tribulations of their families, who struggle against government bureaucracy to free their loved ones. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Kathleen Turner stars as V.I. Warshawski in Jeff Kanew's film version of the hard-boiled detective character from Sara Paretsky's series of crime novels. Warshawski is a freelance private investigator in Chicago, who lives the part of the hard-boiled detective. But in her heart of hearts, she is a softy. One night, while she is drinking at her favorite bar, she meets an ex-Blackhawks hockey player named Boom-Boom Grafalk (Stephen Meadows). The two connect and a romance appears to be in the making. But Warshawski is nevertheless surprised when Boom-Boom appears at her doorstep later that night with his 13-year-old daughter, Kat (Angela Goethals) in tow. He asks Warshawski if she could watch her and Warshawski agrees. Later that night, Boom-Boom is killed in a boat explosion and Kit hires Warshawski to track down her father's killer. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The November 22, 1963, assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy shocked the nation and the world. The brisk investigation of that murder conducted under the guidance of Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren distressed many observers, even though subsequent careful investigations have been unable to find much fault with the conclusions his commission drew, the central one of which was that the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, acted alone. Instead of satisfying the public, one result of the Warren Commission Report was that an unimaginable number of plausible conspiracy theories were bruited about, and these have supported a sizeable publishing mini-industry ever since. In making this movie, director Oliver Stone had his pick of supposed or real investigative flaws to draw from and has constructed what some reviewers felt was one of the most compelling (and controversial) political detective thrillers ever to emerge from American cinema. Long before filming was completed, Stone was fending off heated accusations of artistic and historical irresponsibility, and these only intensified after the film was released. In the story, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) is convinced that there are some big flaws in the investigation of Oswald (Gary Oldman), and he sets out to recreate the events leading up to the assassination. Along the way, he stumbles across evidence that a great many people had reason to want to see the president killed, and he is convinced that some of them worked in concert to frame Oswald as the killer. Among the suspects are Lyndon Baines Johnson (the next president), the CIA, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Mafia. Over the course of gathering what he believes to be evidence of a conspiracy, Garrison unveils some of the grittier aspects of New Orleans society, focusing on the shady activities of local businessman Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones). Garrison's investigations culminate in his conducting a show trial that he knows he will lose and which he is sure will ruin his career in order to get his evidence into the public record where it can't be buried again. This movie won two of the many Academy Awards for which it was nominated: one for Best Photography (Robert Richardson) and the other for Editing (Joe Hutshing). ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide