David Blackwell Movies

The true story of a middle-aged baseball rookie comes to the screen from Finding Forrester (2000) screenwriter Mike Rich and the studio behind the previous year's equally inspirational sports drama Remember the Titans (2001). Twelve years ago, the pro baseball aspirations of Texas pitcher Jim Morris (Dennis Quaid) were derailed by a severe shoulder injury. Jim became a high school science teacher and baseball coach, married his sweetheart, Lorri (Rachel Griffiths), and settled down to raise a family. After corrective surgery repairs, despite the longstanding damage to his shoulder, Jim discovers that he can pitch a ball even faster than he could before. When his team delivers a lackluster on-field performance in a losing game, coach and players agree to a wager: If they'll make it to the district championships, he'll try out for a major league ball club. When his team makes it to the championship and wins for the first time in the school's history, Jim is forced to live up to his end of the bargain. Nearly laughed off the field, he confounds the pro scouts by tossing successive fastballs that clock at nearly 100 miles per hour. It seems that Jim is about to live his dream of joining a major league team in middle age, when most players are planning their retirement. The Rookie (2002) co-stars Brian Cox, Beth Grant, and Jay Hernandez. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Like George Lucas' American Graffiti, Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused is an affectionate look at the youth culture of a bygone era. While Lucas took aim at the conservative 1950's, Linklater jumps ahead a generation to the bicentennial year of 1976 to celebrate the joys of beer blasts, pot smoking and Frampton Comes Alive. Set on the last day of the academic year, the film follows the random activities of a sprawling group of Texas high schoolers as they celebrate the arrival of summer, their paths variously intersecting at a freshmen hazing, a local pool parlor and finally at a keg party. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

In this loose adaptation of the 1942 horror classic of the same name, a 2001-style opening montage establishes some sort of sacrificial, mystical union between panthers and an ancient tribe of humans. Flash forward to 1980's New Orleans, where waifish Irina (Natassja Kinski) meets her older brother, Paul (Malcolm McDowell), a minister, for the first time since their animal trainer parents died and she was sent to a series of foster homes. Paul's Creole housekeeper, Female (Ruby Dee), helps Irina settle into her brother's home, but Paul himself disappears. Cut to a fleabag motel where a blasé prostitute finds an angry panther instead of a client; after mauling her, the cat is captured by police and a team of zoologists: Oliver (John Heard), Alice (Annette O'Toole), and Joe (Ed Begley Jr.). The next day Irina finds herself in the zoo where these scientists work; drawn to the newly captured panther, she befriends Oliver and takes a job in the gift shop. Shortly after the panther's violence turns deadly, it escapes, and soon Paul turns up spouting an unbelievable story about his family's were-cat heritage and his inevitable sexual union with little Irina. On the run from her dangerous brother, Irina takes refuge in a sexually frustrated romance with Oliver, afraid of what might happen if she consummates their passion. Astute viewers will notice that the zoologist characters refer to the film's panthers as leopards; "panther" is actually a generic term for any large cat, especially a black one, but Cat People's panthers are in fact leopards whose black color comes from a recessive trait known as melanism. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi