Bill Smitrovich Movies

From Marvel Studios and Paramount Pictures comes Iron Man, an action-packed take on the tale of wealthy philanthropist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who develops an invulnerable robotic suit to fight the throes of evil. In addition to being filthy rich, billionaire industrialist Tony Stark is also a genius inventor. When Stark is kidnapped and forced to build a diabolical weapon, he instead uses his intelligence and ingenuity to construct an indestructible suit of armor and escape his captors. Once free, Stark discovers a deadly conspiracy that could destabilize the entire globe, and dons his powerful new suit on a mission to stop the villains and save the world. Gwyneth Paltrow co-stars as his secretary, Virginia "Pepper" Potts, while Terrence Howard fills the role of Jim "Rhodey" Rhodes, one of Stark's colleagues, whose military background leads him to help in the formation of the suit. Jon Favreau directs, with Marvel movie veterans Avi Arad and Kevin Feige producing. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

Greg Kinnear stars in director Marc Abraham's man-against-the-system docudrama Flash of Genius as inventor Robert Kearns, the visionary who developed the modern intermittent windshield wiper. Kearns submitted the invention to each of the big three auto companies, each of which promptly rejected it; the companies then turned around and put the device to use. The enraged inventor spent several decades attempting to collect on his patent, and mounting lawsuits that traveled all the way to the Supreme Court; he eventually collected over 30 million dollars for his obsession. Abraham co-authored the script with Scott Frank and Phillip Railsback, adapting an article by John Seabrook that originally appeared in The New Yorker. Dermot Mulroney plays Kinnear's best friend, with Lauren Graham rounding out the supporting cast. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

The tragic court case that forever altered the course of American jurisprudence is dramatized for the screen in this courtroom docudrama starring Timothy Hutton, David Straithairn, Leelee Sobieski, Anthomy Mack and Bill Sage. The year is 1931, and nine black hobos have been accused of raping two white women on an Alabama freight train. The accused, who all range in age from twelve to twenty-three, are quickly sentenced to death in the electric chair by an all-white jury fueled by racism and vengeance. But as news of the convictions spreads, something remarkable happens: the plight of the so-called Scottsboro Boys inadvertently ends up fueling the fires of socialism across the globe and the case is quickly appealed to the United States Supreme Court. As each of the nine defendants prepare for their retrials in a Decatur, Alabama courtroom, self-assured New York defense attorney Samuel Liebowitz (Hutton) accepts the formidable task of representing the accused in the trial that will hold an entire nation spellbound. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A suspense novel by Sue Miller was the source for the made-for-TV While I Was Gone, which made its CBS network debut on October 10, 2004. Boston veterinarian Jo Beckett (Kirstie Alley) feels trapped in her marriage to kindly but unexciting minister Daniel Beckett (Bill Smitrovich). Then, one day, a dog that may have to be put down is brought into Jo's office. The dog's owner turns out to be her old college friend Eli Mayhew (Peter Horton), with whom Jo shared a hippie pad along with several other shaggy students back in the 1960s. As she waxes nostalgic over her carefree youth, Jo considers leaving staid Daniel for footloose Eli, and goes so far as to set up a clandestine meeting with him. But Jo's dream romance turns into a nightmare with the revelation of a horrible secret from her past -- and the fulfillment of a strange "out-of-body" premonition which Jo had experienced in the opening scenes of the film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Maury Chaykin returns as wealthy, eccentric, ill-tempered, self-indulgent, and insufferably brilliant private detective Nero Wolfe, with Timothy Hutton as his wisecracking, skirt-chasing assistant and legman, as the A&E series bearing the blanket title A Nero Wolfe Mystery enters its second season. As in season one, most of the episodes are directly based on the original Nero Wolfe novels written by Rex Stout between 1934 and 1975. All of the episodes are ample demonstrations of the keen deductive and analytical skills of the overweight protagonist, who specializes in solving seemingly unsolvable crimes -- but only when he feels like doing so. The season opens with the two-part "Death of a Doxy," directed by series regular Timothy Hutton, in which Archie must explain the presence of a corpse in his apartment. In a later two-parter, "Motherhunt," Wolfe ignores his precious prize-winning orchids and rare beers long enough to track down the mother of an abandoned infant. Also spread over two episodes is "Too Many Clients," the title of which should be self-explanatory (Wolfe's many clients are the lovers of a libidinous murder victim). And in the final two-parter of the season, "The Silent Speaker," the case at hand is the death of a representative from the National Industrial Association. Curiously, the season ends with a rare single, self-contained episode: "Immune to Murder," in which Wolfe's talents as a gourmet chef are brought into play. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Nero Wolfe (Maury Chaykin) is the world's greatest detective, and like any genius, he has his share of idiosyncrasies -- he loves orchids with an unnatural passion, he weighs a seventh of a ton, and--oh yeah--he never leaves his New York brownstone. Instead, he is aided by an army of foot soldiers headed by Archie Goodwin (Timothy Hutton). The film opens when Pete, a young windshield washer, is begged by a woman to call the police. She is then ushered into a car and whisked away. Thinking that she has been kidnapped, Pete gives Nero the scoop in exchange for half the reward money. When Pete later turns up dead, Nero kicks his investigation into high gear. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Director Roger Donaldson teams up with star Kevin Costner for another political thriller (after their 1987 pairing, No Way Out), only this time with a film based on the actual events surrounding the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, taking place during the titular thirteen days wherein the U.S. and the Soviet Union nearly engaged in full-scale nuclear war. After President John F. Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood) is shown photographs from a spy plane detailing the presence of missiles in Cuba capable of obliterating massive areas of the U.S., he must immediately decide the most effective course of action for the country. With the aid of best friend and special assistant Kenny O'Donnell (Kevin Costner) and brother Robert (Steven Culp), the President must avoid a dire chain of events that could be dictated by General Curtis LeMay (Kevin Conway), who would rather take immediate action and invade Cuba. After initial reticence about leaking the information to the nation, President Kennedy eventually tells of the conflict, leading to widespread panic and a blockade of Cuba. With the aid of Robert McNamara (Dylan Baker) and Adlai Stevenson (Michael Fairman), the leaders must find a way to alleviate the tension of the situation. Thirteen Days also features Walter Adrian as Lyndon Johnson. ~ Jason Clark, All Movie Guide

Originally aired as a two-part miniseries on NBC, The 60's follows two families whose lives mirror much of the political and social tumult of that decade. The Herlihys are a working class family from Chicago whose three children take wildly divergent paths: Brian (Jerry O'Connell) joins the Marines right out of High School and goes to Vietnam, Michael (Josh Hamilton) becomes involved in the civil rights movement and after campaigning for Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy becomes involved in radical politics, and Katie (Julia Stiles) gets pregnant, moves to San Francisco and joins a hippie commune. Meanwhile, the Taylors are an African-American family living in the deep South. When Willie Taylor (Charles S. Dutton), a minister and civil rights organizer, is shot to death, his son Emmet (Leonard Roberts) moves to the city and eventually joins the Black Panthers, serving as a bodyguard for Fred Hampton (David Alan Grier). The 60's incorporates much newsreel footage from the era in an attempt to give the proceedings a greater realism, as well as a soundtrack of many popular songs of the era, including a new recording of Bob Dylan's Chimes Of Freedom by Dylan and Joan Osborne. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Expectant parents Bill and Joanne McNabb (Bill Smitrovich, Betsy Brantley) are torn apart by the news that their unborn child has Down Syndrome. Though Joanne wants to keep the baby, Bill is leaning in the opposite direction--and, out of shame over having an "imperfect" child, he has told Joanne to keep the baby's condition a secret until a final decision is made. Though angels Monica (Roma Downey) and Andrew (John Dye) are on hand to help alleviate the tension, it falls to another angel named Taylor (Chris Burke), himself a Downs child, to lead the McNabbs towards the right decision--but not before a near-fatal disaster! This episode features a piquant reunion of actors Bill Smitrovich and Chris Burke, respectively cast as father and son on the earlier series Life Goes On. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A group of intrepid humans attempts to save the Earth from vicious extraterrestrials in this extremely popular science-fiction adventure. Borrowing liberally from War of the Worlds, Aliens, and every sci-fi invasion film inbetween, director Roland Emmerich and producer and co-writer Dean Devlin present a visually slick, fast-paced adventure filled with expensive special effects and large-scale action sequences. The story begins with the approach of a series of massive spaceships, which many on Earth greet with open arms, looking forward to the first contact with alien life. Unfortunately, these extraterrestrials have not come in peace, and they unleash powerful weapons that destroy most of the world's major cities. Thrown into chaos, the survivors struggle to band together and put up a last-ditch resistance in order to save the human race. As this is a Hollywood film, this effort is led by a group of scrappy Americans, including a computer genius who had foreseen the alien's evil intent (Jeff Goldblum), a hot-shot jet pilot (Will Smith), and the President of the United States (Bill Pullman). While some critics objected to the film's lack of originality and lapses in logic, the combination of grand visual spectacle and crowd-pleasing storytelling proved irresistible to audiences, resulting in an international smash hit. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Created by Chris Carter of X-Files fame, the Fox sci-fi crime thriller series Millennium starred Lance Henriksen as Frank Black, a former Washington, D.C.-based FBI agent who in the opening season returned to his native Seattle with wife Catherine (Megan Gallagher) and daughter Jordan (Brittany Tiplady). Gifted with a sixth sense enabling him to "see" through the eyes of dangerous criminals, thereby helping him keep one step ahead of those criminals in order to stop their reigns of terror, Frank utilized his talent on behalf of the Millennium Group, a secret organization purportedly dedicated to thwarting serial killers and also preparing humanity in case one of the various "end of the world" scenarios floating around turned out to be true. Frank also offered his services as a criminal profiler to his old friend Lt. Bob Bletcher (Bill Smitrovich), a Seattle homicide detective. Catherine provided indirect assistance to her husband in her capacity as a counselor to crime victims and trauma patients. During the series' first season, Frank dealt mainly with straightforward murder cases, but after the bizarre death of Bob Bletcher, he devoted more and more of his time to cases involving the supernatural. In these, he was occasionally aided by Millennium Group representative Peter Watts (Terry O'Quinn).

Later on, the pressures of their work led Frank and Catherine to separate, whereupon Frank and his daughter Jordan (who had apparently inherited vestiges of her dad's "gift") were left alone in their Seattle home. Replacing Bletcher as Frank's police liaison was Det. Bob Geibelhouse (Stephen James Lang), while Frank's new Millennium Group contact was Lara Means (Kristen Cloke). It gradually dawned on Frank that the Millennium Group was not as beneficent and altruistic as it first appeared, and in fact may have been using Frank's psychic talents as part of a campaign to take over the world. Things got curiouser and curiouser as the series progressed, culminating in an apocalyptic second-season finale in which a deadly virus was decimating the populace, killing Catherine and rendering Frank insane.

When Millennium was unexpectedly renewed for a third season, the producers hastily "re-invented" the events of season two, so that the virus was not nearly as all-consuming as it had been cracked up to be; also Frank had completely recovered from his mental breakdown (many of the horrific sights he and the audience had witnessed were written off as "delusions"), and had moved to the Washington, D.C., suburb of Falls Church, VA, with his daughter Jordan in tow. Despite having developed a deep mistrust for bureaucracy, Frank nonetheless utilized his psychic skills on behalf of the FBI, working with agents Andy MacLaren (Stephen E. Miller) and Emma Hollis (Klea Scott) as well as Barry Baldwin (Peter Outerbridge) of the Critical Incidents Response Group. All the while, Frank conducted a personal investigation of the Millennium Group, his suspicions having been confirmed that the organization was up to no good. First telecast October 25, 1996, Millennium officially ended its network run on May 21, 1999, though the series' "true" final episode was seen later as an entry on The X-Files. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The first superhero ever, created by Lee Falk in 1936, gets another shot at movie stardom 60 years after achieving fame in comics and serials. Billy Zane stars as Kit Walker, who discovers that he's the 21st in a line of purple-clad African superheroes known as "The Phantom" or, to superstitious Bengalla Island natives, "the Ghost Who Walks." When he's not fighting the evil Singh Brotherhood with his faithful wolf Devil and white horse Hero, the Phantom lives in the hidden Skull Cave. Kit discovers that Xander Drax (Treat Williams), a slimy industrialist, is plotting to take over the world by uniting the three long lost magical Skulls of Touganda. So he travels to New York, where he finds allies in crusading newspaper publisher Dave (Bill Smitrovich) and his niece, Diana (Kristy Swanson), who's also Kit's ex-girlfriend. Kit and Diana tackle Drax's forces, including the conflicted Sala (Catherine Zeta-Jones), in a quest for the Skulls that brings both sides back to Bengalla for a showdown. The Phantom's mixture of elaborate stunts with liberal doses of tongue-in-cheek humor was characteristic of screenwriter Jeffrey Boam, whose previous films included Innerspace (1987) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide