Vladimir Skomarovsky Movies

Now convinced that Jack (Victor Garber) was telling the truth about her mother Irina's treachery, Sydney (Jennifer Garner) is warned by Vaughn (Michael Vartan) that even Jack can't be trusted. With this in mind, the rest of the episode -- involving Sydney's efforts to stop the activities of a vice cartel called the Triad in Budapest -- takes on several extra layers of significance. Upon discovering that the Triad is training children to be enemy sleeper agents, Sydney is shocked to learn the identity of the person who thought up this insidious method of indoctrination in the first place. "The Indicator" was originally scheduled to air on October 26, 2002. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Another "get even with Hollywood" satire in the tradition of SOB and Movers and Shakers, The Big Picture is an elongated inside joke complete with un-billed celebrity cameos. In this first feature-film directorial effort by actor/writer Christopher Guest, Kevin Bacon plays a "boy wonder" director whose willingness to compromise his ideals allows him to keep afloat in Tinseltown. Bacon's corruption begins when his first Hollywood project, a black-and-white experimental film about an over-40 menage a trois, is distorted beyond recognition into a color, big-budget "youth trip". Bacon hasn't really sold out; he's merely waiting to accrue enough industry clout to strike back at the Philistines in charge. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

"Fatal attraction" has become a household term for love turned to murderous obsession, thanks to the success of Adrian Lyne's 1987 movie. Dan (Michael Douglas) is a family man whose one-night affair with Alex (Glenn Close) turns into a nightmare when she insists on continuing the relationship, claiming to be carrying his baby. Alex systematically terrorizes Dan, even temporarily kidnapping his daughter, in her attempts to win back his affection. Douglas' besieged family man guiltily tries to preserve his marriage and family from the consequences of his own indiscretion. Close's performance as the love-struck psycho-siren remains her signature role: She conveys the buried feminist message of the film in her challenge to Dan to take responsibility for his sexual behavior. Though many critics acknowlegded the film's striking similarities to Clint Eastwood's 1971 film Play Misty for Me, Fatal Attraction spawned numerous other movies about middle-class families besieged by a lone psychotic intent on infiltrating and destroying the fabric of the family unit, including The Stepfather (1987), Pacific Heights (1990), The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992), and Fear (1996). ~ Laura Abraham, Rovi

This belated sequel to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is directed by Peter Hyams. Roy Scheider plays the astronaut/skipper of a U.S.-Soviet space mission, sent to find out what happened to the missing Discovery flight that carried Keir Dullea into the beyond in the original 2001. Scheider's polyglot crew includes Americans John Lithgow and Bob Balaban (the latter a computer whiz, responsible for the notorious HAL 9000) and Russians Helen Mirren, Elya Baskin and Natasha Schneider. The reason for this international mixture is that the world is on the brink of nuclear war, and it is hoped that the space mission will assure east-west solidarity (in this respect, 2010 dates far more than 2001, given the collapse of the Iron Curtain). When the astronauts catch up with Dullea, still in orbit around Jupiter, producer/director/writer Hyams attempts to demystify the enigmatic climax of 2001. Arthur C. Clarke, author of the story upon which 2001 was based, appears in 2010 as a man on a park bench. Incidentally, the voice-over credited to Olga Mallsnerd is actually Candice Bergen. (The name Mallsnerd is a play on the name of one of the characters created by her ventriloquist father Edgar.) ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi