John Snyder Movies

A boy learns to get by on his wits and comes to depend on the kindness of (relative) strangers in this independent drama. Jimmy (Brendan Fletcher), whose abusive foster father (Ike Gingrich) likes to call him "Jimmy Zip" (that is, "Jimmy Nothing"), is fascinated with fire and sees no good reason to stay at home where he's not wanted. So Jimmy hits the road and ends up in Hollywood, where he hooks up with a pair of fellow runaway teens, Sheila (Adrienne Frantz) and Snake (Zia). While Jimmy's new friends show him the finer points of scraping up a living on the streets, Rick (Chris Mulkey), a pimp and dope dealer, gives Jimmy a job dealing drugs. While on his way home from a drug buy, Jimmy makes the mistake of getting in an argument with Horace (Robert Gossett), a homeless man with Tourette's syndrome who lives in his car. Horace accidentally ends up with Jimmy's jacket, which has $20,000 of Rick's money inside; when Jimmy realizes what happened, he tries to warn Horace before Rick can get to him, but Horace and Jimmy soon take it on the lam with Rick's money. Horace has artistic ambitions, and with Rick's drug money as a stake, he hopes to create some metal sculptures that he can sell for bigger money, allowing him and Jimmy to support themselves after paying back Rick. Jimmy Zip was shown at the 1999 Hollywood Film Festival, where it won a special prize for best film with a budget under one million dollars. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In the erotic thriller Illegal in Blue, Chris Morgan (Dan Gauthier) is a young policeman who confronts the harsh reality that he must compromise his ideals to get along in a world of moral ambiguity. When police officers split a large sum of confiscated illegal gambling money among themselves, Morgan reports it to Internal Affairs. He starts receiving death threats, and the police department suspends him without pay. Morgan begins a steamy love affair with a stunning nightclub singer, Kari Truitt (Stacey Dash), whose husband is found murdered. Morgan's suspension is lifted, and he goes back to the police department to face open hostility from officers who want him to soften his testimony against the policemen who split the gambling money. He also gets caught up in the murder investigation, where his new lover is the prime suspect, and he soon finds that he must make some difficult choices. A well-integrated musical score, moody shots of the city at night, and lyrical love scenes help to make Illegal in Blue somewhat better than many similar low-budget efforts. ~ Rovi

The crew of Babylon 5 is thrown into a state of panic when Cmdr. Sinclair rescues an alien Soul Hunter (W. Morgan Sheppard). It is well known that the alien's avowed purpose is to capture people's souls at the moment of death. Thus, each crew member is terrified that he or she will be targeted as the alien's next "catch." Also known as "Amaranth", "Soul Hunter" was written by J. Michael Stracynski; the episode first aired on February 2, 1994. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Celebrated indie filmmaker Eddie Israel (Harvey Keitel) heads to California to shoot his latest movie, Mother of Mirrors, an examination of a marriage in which the wife pressures her husband to abandon their formerly mutual sex-and-drugs lifestyle and seek the same kind of religious conversion she has experienced. Leaving behind his own wife Madlyn (Nancy Ferrara) and his young son, Eddie explains the impetus of his latest project in a series of behind-the-scenes interviews. Meanwhile, Sarah Jennings (Madonna), a TV actress, has taken the wife role in Eddie's film, and her first item of business on the set is to sleep with Francis Burns (James Russo), who is set to play her husband. Things go sour between the two players and their conflicts spill onto the set, adding even more tension to a shoot in which Eddie alternately bullies and cajoles his actors to elicit more authentic performances. Perhaps Eddie manipulates Sarah onscreen because he's ashamed of having bedded his "very L.A." star just minutes before his wife and son arrived early for a weekend visit. Eddie soon finds the existential dilemmas of his film seeping into his own life, forcing him to question the compulsive adultery he practices. One of the first movies overseen by the film arm of Maverick, the record label and media company Madonna founded in the early '90s, Dangerous Game was produced by the singer's longtime manager, Freddy de Mann, alongside Mary E. Kane, who produced several earlier Ferrara efforts. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

Hypnotic regression prompts a pair of sisters to recognize that they've been abducted by aliens. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

Screenwriter/electrician Abbe Wool makes her directorial debut with the offbeat road movie Roadside Prophets. Brooding factory worker Joe (X front man John Doe) takes a road trip in order to scatter the ashes of his co-worker Dave Coleman (David Anthony Marshall). Riding his vintage Harley Davidson, Joe leaves Los Angeles and heads for a small Nevada town called El Dorado to fulfill Dave's final wish. His journey is complicated by a small fry named Sam (the Beastie Boys' Adam Horovitz), a wannabe biker who continually lights off fireworks and nurtures an odd obsession with Motel 9. Joe also has to cope with making daily phone calls to Angie (voice of Sonna Chavez), his co-worker back in L.A. who is giving him sick days in exchange for the promise of a hot date. While traveling through the desert, Joe and Sam meet various eccentric characters played by the likes of David Carradine, John Cusack, Timothy Leary, and Arlo Guthrie. They eventually end up at their destination, which turns out to be a washed-up gambling town called Jackpot. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

Answering a distress signal from the Federation planet Galorndon Core, Geordi is trapped in a deep pit. Likewise imprisoned is an injured Romulan warrior (John Snyder), the sole survivor of a starship crash. Though neither man trusts the other, Geordi and the warrior are forced to work together to save themselves from their plight. First telecast November 11, 1989, "The Enemy" was cowritten by David Kemper and Michael Pillar. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Norman Mailer wrote and directed this demented film noir, which takes place in a Provincetown of perpetual twilight. Most of the tale, based on his best-selling novel, is told in flashback as Dougy Madden (Lawrence Tierney) pays a visit to his son Tim (Ryan O'Neal). Dougy, a tough ex-bartender, is ravaged by cancer and decides to see Tim one last time in order. But Tim is suffering both from writer's block and from the effects of too many years of drink, drugs, and sex. His sexy wife Patty Lariene (Debra Sandlund) has recently left him and disappeared. Even worse, one morning he awakens from his stupor to find the front seat of his car covered with blood and a severed head inside his drug stash. He tries to rekindle a relationship with his ex-wife Madeleine (Isabella Rossellini), now married to the psychotic Provincetown police chief, Alvin Luther Regency (Wings Hauser), and he re-acquaints himself with old prep school friend Wardley Meeks III (John Bedford Lloyd), who was also married to the missing Patty Lareine. As the murders pile up and Tim's psyche takes a beating, Dougy decides to help Tim put an end to this chaotic mess of murders. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

High-powered gangsters move this crime drama along at a fast pace. When two cops, Eddie Jillette (Richard Gere) and Joe Collins (Gary Basaraba), hear about a contract out on local crime boss Losado (Jeroen Krabbe), they go undercover posing as hitmen, and the result is murder. Collins and the man who hired them, Paul Deveneux (Terry Kinney) are killed, and Jillette goes looking for the assassin. He ends up in New Orleans where he locates Michel Duval (Kim Basinger), the girlfriend of Deveneux now virtually held a prisoner by Losado. Jillette has his work cut out for him. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Exposed is the film in which concert violinist Rudolf Nureyev grabs his bow and "plays" the lissome body of Nastassja Kinski. This may well stand as the silliest bit of erotica in screen history, but in the context of the film it's a model of restraint. We're asked to believe that Kinski is Elizabeth Carlson, a Wisconsin girl who has come to the big city to make it as a pianist or model. We're also supposed to be convinced that Nureyev is part-time espionage agent Daniel Jelline, who is determined to bring terrorist Rivas (Harvey Keitel) to justice. Much of the film takes place in Paris, where at least the scenery is lovely. The various plotlines and characters never quite congeal. Despite the fact that director James Toback is given sole screenplay credit, the film seems more like a "committee" project. To its credit, Exposed is never dull; with that cast, how could anyone fall asleep? ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Walter Hill's hip, super-stylized action film unfurls in a dystopian near-future, when various gangs control New York City. Each gang sports a unique moniker ('The Warriors,' 'The Baseball Furies,' 'The Rogues'), with a costume underscoring its "theme"; each, in turn, is also responsible for one geographic area. Hill sets up the landscape as a massive, violent playground - replete with bridges, vacant subway tunnels, parks, abandoned buildings and the like, all ripe for exploration and adventure. As the tale opens, the titular Coney Island has traveled to the Bronx to attend a city-wide meeting of all gangs; at that event, however, the psychotic leader of a rival gang, The Rogues (David Patrick Kelly of Dreamscape) assassinates the head of the city's foremost gang, but The Warriors are pegged as culpable. This sends the gang fleeing through the labyrinthine city. With every thug in Manhattan in vicious, homicidal pursuit, they must also overcome all obstacles in their way. Throughout, Hill keeps the onscreen violence absurd, exaggerated and unrealistic, downplaying death to an extreme degree; despite this fact, the film sparked a massive amount of controversy and an ugly backlash for allegedly inciting violence and destruction in several theaters where it initially played. James Remar, Michael Beck and Deborah Van Valkenburgh lead the ensemble cast. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi