Ned Schmidtke Movies

When the weight of rejection begins to set in after being denied entry to every college he has applied to, a high school burnout attempts to placate his mom and dad and win the heart of his dream girl by scheming with his friends to create a fake university in a hilarious comedy of artificial education directed by Steve Pink and starring Justin Long. Bartleby "B" Gaines (Long) is a high school senior whose street smarts just never seemed to translate into the classroom, and whose bad luck in love has left him pining for the unattainable Monica (Blake Lively). When Bartleby and his rebellious crew of outcasts find the frequent college rejection letters they have all been receiving bringing endless grief from their disappointed parents, they soon band together to create the fictional South Harmon Institute of Technology. After creating a believable façade in an abandoned psychiatric hospital, employing the talents of a close friend's brilliantly subversive uncle (Lewis Black) to pose as the dean, and creating a phony website in order to sell the school to their parents, Bartleby and friends soon realize that all of their hard work has paid off in ways than they never imagined. With a variety of college rejects attempting to enroll in classes at the ersatz university and the skepticism of some privileged students from a nearby college drawing unwanted attention to the South Harmon Institute of Technology, Bartleby and friends find their ruse becoming ever more difficult to maintain. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Just as the university research team is about to prove that their new technique will permit water to be used as a fuel, their laboratory is sabotaged and the lab manager is killed. Eddie Kasalivich (Keanu Reeves) stumbles onto the scene and manages not only to witness the sabotage, but to escape from it. When he tries to talk about it to authorities, he discovers that they think he and the other project survivors committed the crime. In reality, a group of energy companies have conspired with interested parties in the government to completely erase all notion of the existence of a way to use water as fuel. The project sponsor (Morgan Freeman) wants Eddie to turn himself in, but before he can do that, he must find enough evidence to clear himself and his friends. But in order to succeed, Eddie must avoid assassination attempts by the real perpetrators. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Based on a true events, this is the story of Charles Stuart, who claimed that a robber had shot him and killed his pregnant wife. Needless to say, the investigation started turning up some pieces that just didn't fit into this puzzle. ~ Tana Hobart, Rovi

Jessica Lange plays an attorney whose affable Hungarian-immigrant father Armin Mueller-Stahl is arrested. He is threatened with deportation for lying about his activities during World War II; part of the charge is that Mueller-Stahl was a Nazi collaborationist, guilty of wartime atrocities. Absolutely convinced that her father is being railroaded by a revenge-seeking Hungarian communist government, Lange handles Mueller-Stahl's defense, expertly blowing huge holes in prosecuting attorney Frederic Forrest's case. But in doing her own research, Lange discovers that her father has spent a lifetime paying off a blackmailer. Why? In contrast to the fervency of his earlier Z, Costa-Gavras refuses to make things easy by proselytizing in The Music Box (nor does screenwriter Joe Esterhas indulge in his usual right-between-the-eyes fervency). Everything in the film is offered on the same calm, collected level, making the ultimate horror of the story all the more effective. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Everyone knows that teenagers are smarter than adults, and if given a chance the kids could save the world -- if they don't blow it to bits first. The Manhattan Project tells of how 16-year-old Paul Stephens (Christopher Collet) tries to alert his community to the dangers of nuclear energy. John Mathewson (John Lithgow), a doctor in a pharmaceutical research plant wherein covert plutonium experiments are taking place, is the boyfriend of Paul's mom, Elizabeth (Jill Eikenberry). While Mathewson is romantically occupied, Paul and his girl, Jenny Anderman (Cynthia Nixon), steal the plutonium and construct their own atomic bomb. They do this, of course, as a warning to foolhardy grown-ups -- none more foolhardy than the folks who put up good money to make this film. The Manhattan Project was directed by longtime Woody Allen collaborator Marshall Brickman, whose expert sense of comic timing obscures the thickheaded "message" of this picture. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Skokie is the true story of a critical test of Constitutional rights in Illinois. In 1977, a small band of American neo-fascists calling itself the National Socialist Party of America plans to stage a swastika-dominated demonstration and rally. Their intended site is the Chicago suburb of Skokie, a town populated predominantly by Jews--many of them survivors of the Nazi holocaust. Jewish ACLU lawyer John Rubinstein is compelled to lobby for the National Socialists' freedom to express their views, despite his own inner turmoil over defending the very people who'd destroy him. The most vocal opponent to the planned rally is Skokie senior citizen Max Liebman (Danny Kaye), who spent five years in Hitler's death camps. Ernest Kinoy's teleplay for Skokie is fair-minded to a fault, presenting all points of view with equanimity, proving that there are no simple solutions when the fundamental right of Free Speech is involved. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi