Susan Blommaert Movies

A rock singer dies of an apparent drug overdose. The detectives and lawyers determined that what appears to be an accident is actually murder, possibly perpetrated by a disenchanted cohort of the deceased. Further complicating the case is the omnipresence of detective-turned-bestselling novelist Mike Foster (Tony Lo Bianco), who is hard at work on a tell-all book about the dead woman's former husband. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Traces of blood found in an apartment belonging to a separated couple (Tessa Ghylin, Michael C. Williams) suggest that the couple's missing baby may have met with foul play. The investigation is stymied when each parent claims that the other has the infant. The D.A.'s office takes over when the police find the body of the child, who has apparently starved to death. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Although DrugCo employee Lewis (Ryan Stiles) tries to safely dispose of an experimental "sex drug", by a circuitous route the mixture is accidentally dumped into the green dye being prepared for Buzz Beer's St. Patrick's Day promotion. At the same time, Drew (Drew Carey) is summoned to testify on Mr. Wick's behalf in the sexual-harrassment trial spearheaded by Mimi (Kathy Kinney). Unfortunately, just prior to his appearance before the judge, Drew partakes heavily of the potent green-tinted beer, leading to a wild coutroom climax--and that last word is used advisedly! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Amazingly, Season Eight of Law & Order begins with the cast from Season Seven intact, with no additions or deletions. The case at hand: the murder of a pizza delivery man, which the detectives believe was deliberate and not a random shooting. As it turns out, the dead man was the victim of a thrill killing committed by a pair of teenagers (Rob McElhenney, Michael Marrona). Complications: Each teen blames the other for the murder, an eyewitness saw only one of the boys pulling the trigger, and the key clue is the recording of a Confessional -- which cannot be admitted as evidence. In the course of events, detective Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) receives some bad news. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A janitor is found murdered in a college science laboratory. The prime suspect is a student employee (Mark Bateman) with a troubled past. In a spectacular, suspenseful, and emotional climax, the D.A.'s office goes after a college scientist (John Bedford Lloyd) indulging in experimental drug research -- a prosecution which hinges upon a suppressed medical report. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A 12-year-old Harlem youth is killed in a hit-and-run. The driver, an elderly Jewish man named Joshua Berger (Michael Constantine), is not indicted. This is all it takes for outspoken (and blatantly bigoted) black activist Reverend Ott (Tony Todd) to foment racial tensions that explode in violence. The scenes involving Assistant D.A. Stone (Michael Moriarty) and black defense lawyer Shambala Green (Lorraine Toussaint) are among the most powerful ever seen on Law & Order; small wonder that "Sanctuary" was cited by TV Guide as one of television's best individual series episodes. As a bonus, actor J. K. Simmons, who later became a series semiregular in the role of police psychologist Dr. Emil Skoda, is here seen in an entirely different characterization. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Paul (Paul Reiser) makes a vivid impression when he reveals a secret about a bride to her father on the girl's wedding day. In time-honored "Truth or Dare" fashion, Jamie (Helen Hunt) is required to reveal a secret from her past -- and oh, does she ever. (Incidentally, who is Stan Franklin and what is he doing in London?) This episode marks the first series appearance of John Pankow as Paul's cousin Ira. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The ongoing debate over parental rights in medical procedures comes to the forefront when a five-year-old girl dies from a relatively minor throat infection. The child's parents, Ted and Nancy Driscoll (Byron Jennings, Kaiulani Lee) are arrested, whereupon they argue that their religious beliefs compelled them to deny medical treatment for their daughter. Incidentally, the unfortunate youngster is played by an uncredited Michelle Trachtenberg, who later co-starred on the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This paranoid thriller begins as Eric Roberts' girlfriend (Janine Turner) is taken away in an ambulance and he can't find her. She's been taken prisoner by Eric Braeden, a crazed doctor who kidnaps people and sells their bodies for spare parts. Roberts hooks up with pretty cop Megan Gallagher to solve the mystery. A campy, action-packed thriller from cult director Larry Cohen (It's Alive), The Ambulance features a cameo by Marvel Comics prez Stan Lee and lots of tongue-in-cheek humor. It's as quirky as Cohen's other genre forays, and is entertaining enough for a rainy day rental, with clever photography by Jacques Haitkin and a tense score by Jay Chattaway. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

Alfred Kinsey was an entomologist who taught at Indiana University and had a keen interest in an area of human behavior that had seen little scholarly research -- human sexuality. While the courtship and reproductive patterns of animals had been carefully documented, Kinsey believed that most "established facts" about human sexual behavior were a matter of conjecture rather than research and that what most people said about their sex lives was not born out by the evidence (a subject that had personal resonance for him given the troubles he and his wife Clara Kinsey had in the early days of their marriage). After introducing a course in "Marriage" at Indiana University which offered frank and factual information on sex to students, Kinsey began an exhaustive series of interviews with a wide variety of people from all walks of life in order to find out the truth about sex practices in America. When he published Sexual Behavior and the Human Male in 1948, his findings were wildly controversial, indicating that most men had a wider variety of sexual experiences than most people imagined, including a number of practices commonly thought to be dangerous or perverted (including pre-marital sex, same-sex contacts, and masturbation). An even greater outcry greeted Kinsey's next volume, Sexual Behavior and the Human Female, which contradicted common notions than most women went into marriage sexually inexperienced. Kinsey is a film biography written and directed by Bill Condon which examines Kinsey's life and work from his strict childhood until his death in 1956. Liam Neeson plays Alfred Kinsey, and Laura Linney co-stars as Kinsey's wife and colleague Clara. John Lithgow highlights the supporting cast as Kinsey's repressed and moralistic father, while Chris O'Donnell, Peter Sarsgaard, and Timothy Hutton play members of Kinsey's research team and Tim Curry appears as an IU faculty member at odds with Kinsey's teachings. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this screen adaptation of his acclaimed one-man show, actor, writer, and performance artist Danny Hoch explores the lives of a culturally diverse group of New Yorkers, often seen through the influence of hip-hop music. Hoch's characters include a kid in a wheelchair explaining the toll his mother's cocaine addiction has taken on him; a street vendor in the Bronx whose face-off with a cop is complicated when the policeman can't tell what race he is; an elderly Jewish woman who fears for the safety of her grandson, a social worker in an African-American community; a rap star discussing the shifting trends of hip-hop music; a Cuban man convinced that being on crutches hasn't hurt his dancing abilities; and Hoch as himself, explaining how he came to be cast on an episode of Seinfeld and why he walked off the show. One of the characters in Hoch's original show, a white kid from Iowa named Flip who wants to be a gangsta rapper, became the basis for the film Whiteboys, which Hoch starred in and wrote. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A doctor dabbles in magical resurrection with horrific consequences in this supernatural thriller adapted from the novel by Stephen King. When Dr. Louis Creed (Dale Midkiff) and his family move from Chicago to an old farmhouse in rural Maine, their only concern is the busy highway that flanks their new home. Louis' family -- wife Rachel (Denise Crosby), daughter Ellie (Blaze Berdahl), and toddler Gage (Miko Hughes) -- soon meet kindly old duffer Jud Crandall (Fred Gwynne), who introduces them all to the local attractions, including a pet cemetary built on the remains of a Native American burial ground. When Rachel and the kids head off to visit Louis' in-laws, Ellie's cat gets flattened by a truck. Jud counsels Louis to bury it in the old Indian portion of the cemetary; the next day, it returns from the dead, carrying with it the stink of the earth and a decidedly bad attitude. Shortly thereafter, Louis is tempted to use the cemetary's magical powers again when his son suffers a tragic accident. A snarling kitty, it turns out, is nothing compared to the horror of a little boy with no soul and a taste for scalpels. In addition to adapting his own novel for the screen, writer King appeared in a brief cameo as the minister presiding over Gage's funeral. Director Mary Lambert would return with Pet Sematary Two. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide