Donna Biscoe
Shannyn Sossamon and Ed Burns star in director Eric Valette's remake of Takashi Miike's frightful tale about a cell-phone call from the future that foreshadows one's own death. Beth Raymond (Sossamon) is a college student whose friends have all been dying in droves, and the one connecting factor between all of the incidents is that just before their deaths, each of the victims received a message in which they heard themselves being murdered. Upon receiving her own frightening phone call, Beth has only three days to solve the mystery and cheat death. Burns co-stars as a detective who is deeply troubled by the recent spate of deaths. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shannyn Sossamon, Edward Burns, (more)
- 2007
- PG13
- AddTyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girlsto QueueAddTyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girlsto top of Queue
Diary of a Mad Black Woman mastermind Tyler Perry turns the familiar Cinderella tale on its head with this story concerning a successful female attorney who falls in love with a financially strapped mechanic. Monty (Idris Elba) is struggling mechanic and single father of three from a poor neighborhood. Upon learning that custody of his beloved daughters has been awarded to his morally bankrupt, drug-dealing ex-wife Jennifer (Tasha Smith), desperate Monty enlists the aid of beautiful Ivy league-educated lawyer Julia (Gabrielle Union) -- whom he recently met during his brief stint as a chauffeur -- in ensuring that his daughters remain with him in a stable and loving environment. Despite the vast social and economical differences that divide them, Monty and Julia soon begin to find themselves unexpectedly falling in love with one another as they work together to save Monty's daughters from a life of crime and corruption. Now, in order to reconcile their blossoming romance and overcome the forces that threaten to destroy the only thing that Monty holds dear, the concerned father and powerful lawyer will have to bridge the gap that divides them by coming together to prove that true love really does have the power to prevail. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gabrielle Union, Idris Elba, (more)
A woman's infidelity leads her into a web of larceny and danger in this noir-flavored independent thriller. Mia DuBois (Monica Calhoun) is a psychologist who until recently worked with the police department, counseling the survivors of victims of violent crime. While Mia has entered into a successful private practice, she's persuaded by her former colleagues to take on new client, Tammy (Chrystale Wilson), who is still dealing with the recent murder of her husband. As Mia helps Tammy with her problems, Mia finds herself thinking about her own marriage to Victor (Kristoff St. John), which has hardly been happy lately. As Mia begins wondering if she has other options, she visits a mysterious nightclub, Pandora's Box, where she meets the sexy and mysterious Hampton (Michael Jai White). Mia soon begins having an affair with Hampton, unaware that Hampton is actually working with Victor and Tammy; Mia is soon to inherit $20 million, and Victor is determined to get his hands on the money. Hampton soon shifts his alliances to stay with Mia, but Victor and Tammy are not giving up their shares of the fortune quite so easily. Pandora's Box also features former teen heartthrob Joey Lawrence in a supporting role. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Monica Calhoun, Michael Jai White, (more)
ER's Laura Innes heads the cast of this compelling made-for-cable domestic drama, based on a true story. North Carolinian Dot Hutlemeyer (Park Overall) sues for divorce when she discovers that her insurance-executive husband, Joe (Timothy Carhart), has been carrying on an affair with his secretary, Lynn (Laura Innes). For Lynn's part, she is convinced that Joe sincerely intends marry her as soon as he is shed of Laura. Despite Lynn's naïveté, the outraged Dot intends not only to divorce Joe, but to sue Lynn for alienation of affection, citing a 200-year-old state statute which, ironically, had been originated created to protect men way back when wives were merely property. The film adroitly shifts audience sympathy between the scorned Dot and the nonplussed Lynn and back again: if there is any villain in the piece, it is the duplicitous Joe. First seen over the Lifetime channel on August 25, 1999, The Price of a Broken Heart is one of the more ubiquitous entries in that cable service's film library. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laura Innes, Park Overall, (more)
Blue Sky was the last film directed by Tony Richardson (Tom Jones) before his death in 1991 and one of the last releases from once-thriving Orion Films, whose bankruptcy kept the picture on the shelf for several years. It also features two career-high performances by Tommy Lee Jones and Jessica Lange, who won the Best Actress Oscar for this role, as Hank and Carly Marshall, a military couple whose marriage unravels under the pressure of his job and her mental instability. Hank is an Army captain at odds with his superiors over the wisdom of nuclear testing. Carly is a free spirit spiralling into a dangerous depression after the family's move from Hawaii to a nowhere base in Alabama alarms the couple's older daughter (Amy Locane) and sends Carly into an affair with the base commander (Powers Boothe). ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jessica Lange, Tommy Lee Jones, (more)
- 1992
After his partner is killed, a police officer's vow of vengeance threatens to expose a cocaine dynasty. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mario Van Peebles
- 1992
A made for TV, two-part series, this is the story of a Southern attorney who suddenly finds himself embroiled in politics, a particularly controversial murder trial and a public battle with a vindictive journalist -- all at the same time. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Corbin Bernsen, Mel Harris, (more)
- 1992
In this complex, gripping made-for-TV courtroom drama, the new DA of a small town is given the job of prosecuting the alleged murderer of a stripper. Unfortunately, his own father is in charge of the defense. To make matters worse, both attorneys are in love with the wife of the accused. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1992
- R
Love Crimes, an erotic thriller directed by Lizzie Borden, explores the psychology of a con man posing as a photographer, who seduces women and then blackmails them using humiliating, revealing pictures he has taken of them. David Hanover (Patrick Bergin) preys on the hopes of women by offering them love and a possible career as fashion models. When some of the women complain, but refuse to aid in Hanover's prosecution, DA Dana Greenway (Sean Young) becomes obsessed with catching Hanover, to the point where she tracks him down and spys on him in his secluded home, making herself a potential victim. He catches her and holds her captive. Feminist filmmaker Borden, who also directed the remarkable, low-budget film Working Girls, raises interesting questions regarding sex, humiliation and male-female relationships, but the film is spoiled by the ambiguity of her central character, Dana. An abused child herself, she has the same self-loathing that the other woman who are preyed upon by Hanover possess, but her motivations for her actions remain murky. Despite these flaws, Borden, always an interesting filmmaker, raises important issues which perhaps can't be adequately resolved using the restrictions of the thriller genre. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sean Young, Patrick Bergin, (more)
- 1987
Malcolm "Mace" Douglas (Ed Marinaro) is a vice squad detective who investigates the drug-related murders of strippers in this uneven, low-budget crime drama. The former homicide lieutenant was demoted when he earned his nickname for spraying mace down the throat of a suspect. He and Mark Cain (Darrell Larson) later become entangled in implausible international intrigue with Bulgarian diplomats, KBG agents, lowlife club owners, and blackmail. Mace loses his badge when he falls for the stripper Amber (Cassandra Gava). Isaac Hayes, Lynn Whitfield, Corbin Bernsen, and John Hancock co-star. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ed Marinaro, Darrell Larson, (more)
