Geoffrey Blake Movies

House (Hugh Laurie) finds a kindred spirit in the form of Adam (Braeden Lemasters), a 10-year-old autistic boy suffering from chest pains. Due to his brain disorder, Adam has absolutely no social or anger-management skills whatsoever--clearly a boy after House's own heart. This situation proves most disturbing for Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), who arrives at the conclusion that House must be suffering from latent autism himself. . .especially when House pitches a fit because the blood-stained carpeting in his office (a souvenir of his shooting) has been replaced with a clean new rug. Meanwhile, 17-year-old Ali (Leighton Meester) persists in her romantic pursuit of House, making no secret of her lustful yearnings for our hapless hero. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Monica (Roma Downey) and the angels must restore hope and self-esteem in the heart of Dave, an aging, dispirited busboy at Bubba's Polynesian Paradise. So down is Dave on himself in particular and life in general that he may become a willing accomplice to a sinister arson scheme. All this changes when a group of former schoolmates gather for a reunion at Bubba's--whereupon they immediately recognize Dave as their former (and favorite!) teacher. Naturally, Dave is not the Angels' only "reclamation job" this week; also taken into consideration are two troubled members of the reunion party, Yvette (A. J. Johnson) and Peter (Erik King). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ron Burrus directed this low-budget romantic comedy, set in Boston. The lead role of Bostonian Christopher DiMarco is portrayed by Michael Landes (Jimmy Olson on Lois & Clark). After a blackout, the tux-clad Chris regains consciousness on the porch of a beachfront summer cottage, where he encounters attractive zoologist Melissa (Hedy Burress) and her annoying roomie Liz (Dina Spybey). Chris and Melissa become a twosome, but bad advice from his divorced pal Peter (Lenny Clarke) and intrusions by Liz lead Chris on a downward spiral. After another blackout, he seeks therapy from Dr. Maddie (Lane Smith), and long-lost, buried secrets are soon excavated. Shown at the 1998 Seattle Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

Yasmine Bleeth stars in this drama about a woman looking for a way out of her dead-end existence. Six years after she ran away from her home in Utah, Rachel (Bleeth) is living in Las Vegas, where she gets by as an exotic dancer and occasional prostitute. Rachel lives in a fantasy world as a way of distancing herself from her bleak surroundings, and she imagines that a Prince Charming will one day rescue her from her fallen world. Rachel thinks that her prince may have finally arrived when she meets Navy (Richard Grieco), a gigolo who has tired of his humiliating life in the sex industry. Navy is fond of Rachel, and when he decides to leave male prostitution behind and move to Montana to start a new life, she eagerly joins him. However, along the way she persuades him to make a stop in Utah so that she can check in with her family. Rachel and Navy discover that it's difficult to hide their respective pasts from Rachel's straight laced family and that they're out of step with life in small town America; Navy also finds himself attracted to Rachel's sister Lilli (Monica Potter), which leads a heartbroken Rachel to strike out on her own. Heaven or Vegas also features Sarah Schaub and Andy Romano. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The search for life outside our solar system becomes a personal and spiritual quest for a young researcher. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) is a scientist who lost her faith in God after her parents died when she was a child. However, Ellie has learned to develop a different sort of faith in the seemingly unknowable: working with a group that monitors radio waves from space, Ellie hopes that some day she will receive a coherent message from another world that will prove that there is a world beyond our own. Ellie's hard work is rewarded when her team picks up a signal that does not appear to be of earthly origin. Ellie decodes the message, which turns out to be plans for a space craft, which she takes as an invitation for a meeting with the aliens. Ellie and her fellow researchers soon run into interference from a White House scientific advisor, David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt), who cuts off their funding and tries to take credit for their achievements. However, Ellie receives moral support from Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey), a spiritual teacher who advises President Clinton and tries to persuade her to accept the existence of a higher power, and financial backing from S.R. Hadden (John Hurt), a multi-millionaire willing to fund her attempts to contact the source of the message. Contact was based on a novel by Carl Sagan, who advised director Robert Zemeckis during the film's production until his death in 1996. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This biographical drama was based on the true story of Dorothy Day, a devout Catholic who devoted much of her life to working with the poor and homeless on New York City's Lower East Side. Born in an Episcopalian household in 1897, Day (played by Moira Kelly) was a free-thinking agnostic in her young adulthood; she contributed to radical leftist journals and was friends with the likes of Eugene O'Neill (James Lancaste) and Mike Gold (Paul Lieber). After undergoing a painful abortion and giving birth to another child out of wedlock after her lover, Foster Batterham (Lenny Von Dohlen), abandoned her rather than marry, Day embraced Catholicism, a faith she would cling to strongly for the rest of her life. Day's leftist politics and her sense of personal activism remained; she established a political journal, "The Catholic Worker," in association with self-described Christian anarchist Peter Maurin (Martin Sheen), and was a tireless and outspoken champion of the rights of the poor and disenfranchised. Day came under heavy criticism for her political and social activism; as she put it, "If you feed the poor, you're called a saint, but if you ask why they're poor, you're called a Communist." However, Day continued her mission undaunted until her death in 1980, when she was called America's Mother Teresa. Entertaining Angels was produced by Paulist Pictures, a Catholic organization who also produced Romero, another film about a noted Catholic activist. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A crazed hunter starts stalking a group of friends on a hunting trip when they enter his territory. Lots of poor action and acting, even for direct-to-video. ~ Sean D. MacLaggan, Rovi

"Houston, we have a problem." Those words were immortalized during the tense days of the Apollo 13 lunar mission crisis in 1970, events recreated in this epic historical drama from
Ron Howard. Astronaut Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) leads command module pilot Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) and lunar module driver Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) on what is slated as NASA's third lunar landing mission. All goes smoothly until the craft is halfway through its mission, when an exploding oxygen tank threatens the crew's oxygen and power supplies. As the courageous astronauts face the dilemma of either suffocating or freezing to death, Mattingly and Mission Control leader Gene Kranz (Ed Harris) struggle to find a way to bring the crew back home, all the while knowing that the spacemen face probable death once the battered ship reenters the Earth's atmosphere. The film received an overwhelmingly enthusiastic critical response and a Best Picture nomination, but lost that Oscar to another (very different) historical epic, Mel Gibson's Braveheart. In 2002, the movie was released in IMAX theaters as Apollo 13: The IMAX Experience, with a pared-down running time of 116 minutes in order to meet the technical requirements of the large-screen format. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

"Stupid is as stupid does," says Forrest Gump (played by Tom Hanks in an Oscar-winning performance) as he discusses his relative level of intelligence with a stranger while waiting for a bus. Despite his sub-normal IQ, Gump leads a truly charmed life, with a ringside seat for many of the most memorable events of the second half of the 20th century. Entirely without trying, Forrest teaches Elvis Presley to dance, becomes a football star, meets John F. Kennedy, serves with honor in Vietnam, meets Lyndon Johnson, speaks at an anti-war rally at the Washington Monument, hangs out with the Yippies, defeats the Chinese national team in table tennis, meets Richard Nixon, discovers the break-in at the Watergate, opens a profitable shrimping business, becomes an original investor in Apple Computers, and decides to run back and forth across the country for several years. Meanwhile, as the remarkable parade of his life goes by, Forrest never forgets Jenny (Robin Wright Penn), the girl he loved as a boy, who makes her own journey through the turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s that is far more troubled than the path Forrest happens upon. Featured alongside Tom Hanks are Sally Field as Forrest's mother; Gary Sinise as his commanding officer in Vietnam; Mykelti Williamson as his ill-fated Army buddy who is familiar with every recipe that involves shrimp; and the special effects artists whose digital magic place Forrest amidst a remarkable array of historical events and people. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This exciting sci-fi thriller chronicles the further adventures of a 1943 sailor who is thrust into the mid 1980s during an experiment in time travel. Still stuck in his future, the sailor marries and starts a family. His wife dies, and afterward, he begins suffering blinding headaches. Worried, he goes to the scientist responsible for getting him to the future and learns that the scientist has again been toying with his invention. Once again the sailor is caught in a time warp and awakens to find himself several years in the future. By the early '90s, the world has changed dramatically. Now the U.S. is a military state. The sailor cares little for the world's sorry state and is only interested in returning to the '80s to be with his son. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A man finds himself living among the animals and enchanted spirits of the rainforest, and learns of the true consequences of human destruction in this animated adventure. Crysta (voice of Samantha Mathis) is a young fairy who is being tutored in the powers of magic by the older and wiser Magi (voice of Grace Zabriskie) in an Amazon rain forest. While their home was once on the verge of destruction thanks to the evil spirit Hexxus (voice of Tim Curry), the demon has been trapped inside a tree, and Crysta is free to play with her friends Batty Koda (voice of Robin Williams), a bat who escaped from an animal testing facility, and Pips (voice of Christian Slater), who has obvious romantic intentions toward the attractive young sprite. However, a clear-cutting crew destroys the tranquil peace of the rainforest, and when Crysta sees a runaway logging machine about to run over lumberjack Zak (voice of Jonathan Ward), she saves his life by shrinking him to her own size. However, Crysta isn't able to bring Zak back to his normal size, so he's forced to live among the forest creatures and learn first-hand the devastation the humans have brought to this world -- especially when the loggers accidentally free Hexxus from captivity. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The third in the tongue-in-cheek horror series liberally cribbed from Gremlins (1984) features an early performance from future heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio and was filmed simultaneously with its follow-up. This time out, it's an urban family who picks up one of the fast-multiplying beasties while on vacation, although they are warned by Charlie (Don Opper), a veteran of the creatures' earlier attacks. Once widower Clifford (John Calvin) and his kids Annie (Annie Brooks) and Johnny (Christian and Joseph Cousins) return home to their apartment building, the critter begins to reproduce, and the tenement becomes overrun with diminutive, hungry killers. The first to go is cruel superintendent Frank (Geoffrey Blake), but others soon follow, including the unscrupulous landlord, whose son Josh (DiCaprio) finds romance with Annie. With the appearance of the resourceful Charlie and the heroics of Clifford, the critters' days are soon numbered. Critters 3 was directed by Kristine Peterson, a veteran of the Roger Corman school of no-budget genre filmmaking. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Hunter (Fred Dryer) finds out that the undercover cop (Blake Bahner) who was murdered during his investigation of a computer-chip robbery ring was actually the illegitimate son of Mafia don Sal Scarlatti (played by a pre-Law&Order Jerry Orbach). While Hunter tracks down the killer, the grieving Scarlatti maps out his own plan of revenge. But neither Hunter nor Scarlatti realize (until it is too late!) that the murderer is Scarlatti's other son Tony (Paul Regina)--who never imagined that he was snuffing out his own half-brother. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi