Jon Tenney Movies

When a teenage boy (Penn Badgley) begins to suspect that his new stepfather (Dylan Walsh) is a notorious serial killer who preys on broken families, he races to gather the evidence that will back up his radical claim before it's too late. The 1987 thriller that shot Lost star Terry O'Quinn to cult stardom serves as inspiration for this remake penned by J.S. Cardone and directed by Nelson McCormick. Sela Ward, Jon Tenney, and Amber Heard co-star in a Screen Gems release. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Comic and filmmaker Albert Brooks serves his country while struggling to get some laughs in this offbeat satiric comedy. Brooks plays himself, a comedic filmmaker whose most recent success was providing the voice of a fish for an animated feature and who has just been passed by as director for a remake of Harvey. As Brooks wonders what's going to happen next with his career, his wife (Amy Ryan), and his daughter, he's approached by government representatives who want him for a special assignment. The State Department, eager to better understand the cultural gap between the United States and the Middle East, have been directed by the president to make a study of what makes Muslims laugh. Brooks is asked to fly to India and Pakistan and bring back a 500-page report on Muslim humor; told the Medal of Freedom may be his if he comes through, Brooks accepts. With a pair of State Department officials in tow, Stuart (John Carroll Lynch) and Mark (Jon Tenney), and some help from a local assistant, Maya (Sheetal Sheth), Brooks sets out to find the funny bone of India's and Pakistan's Muslim communities, though it doesn't take long to find out what they don't find funny -- his standup act. Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World was originally set for release in the United States by Sony Pictures Classics, but when they became nervous over the film's title, they dropped the project and it was picked up for distribution by Warner Independent Pictures. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

No sooner has transplanted Atlantan Brenda Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) arrived in Los Angeles to assume her duties as deputy police chief of the LAPD's Priority Homicide Division that she is plunged into a bizarre murder case--which, like all those that will follow, is embarrassingly high-profile. Season One of The Closer also establishes that there is no love lost between the abrasive, temperamental Brenda and her coworkers, who don't so much resent her for being a woman than for the infuriating fact that her brash behavior and unorthodox methods always yield results. The season's remaining twelve episodes include "About Face", in which the murder of a supermodel brings Brenda literally face-to-face with the Hollywood scene, phony tinsel and all. In "The Big Picture", the victim is a Russian call girl with a list of celebrity clients. Latino gang members are apparently being picked off one by one by a well-trained military sniper in "Show Yourself". "Flashpoint" involves a murder motived by corporate intrigue in the pharamaceutical industry, but Brenda finds that media scrutiny of her checkered past is more troublesome than the case at hand. In "Fantasy Date", Brenda's team embarks upon an odyssey into the seamy underworld of S&M to find the rapist-killer of a congressman's daughter. The only witness to the murder of a much-despised judge is the victim's autistic son in "Batter Up". In "The Butler Did It", Brenda faces the double whammy of a wealthy and fatally dysfunctional family, and an apparent deliberately freeze-out by her own superiors. In "Good Housekeeping", Brenda's zeal to bring a murderer to justice threatens to cost her her job, while I "LA Woman", Brenda's romance with FBI agent Fritz (Jon Tenney) is jeopardized when they both probe the deaTH of an Iranian businessman. The plot complications "Fatal Retraction" include the premature release of a convicted murderer, a victim whose identity is a mystery, and the possibility of evidence tampering within Brenda's own department. And finally, in "Standards and Practices", an unknown antagonist sabotages Brenda's career as she tracks down clues in the murder of a film producer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After five years of dating, David (Jerry O'Connell) gets what he feels is an ultimatum from his girlfriend, Sarah (Bridgette Wilson). She thinks they should get married. When his old buddy, Tyler (Ron Livingston of Swingers), a legendary womanizer, calls to announce his wedding plans, it only increases the pressure on David. When Sarah leaves town on a business trip, David has a chance to explore his options. He turns to his friends, Jonesey (Bill Bellamy), and the unrepentant lothario Michael (Ryan Reynolds, who also starred in director Walt Becker's National Lampoon's Van Wilder) for advice. Jonesey half-heartedly encourages David to marry Sarah. Michael, who treats women shabbily, tries to talk David out of it. David tells his friends about an epiphany that he had many years earlier, when he saw beautiful blond Julie (Erinn Bartlett) in an airport, and was instantly smitten. He knew she was the one. He courageously handed the strange girl his phone number, and a brief romantic correspondence ensued, but it ended disastrously. Uncertain about his destiny with Sarah, David spots another woman at a Mexican restaurant, and has the same feeling he had with Julie. He spends a lot of time and effort trying to track this mystery woman down, while Sarah, frustrated by their lack of progress, considers ending their relationship. Michael, meanwhile, has a real identity crisis, when he wakes up in a strange bed after a night of drinking, drugs, and debauchery, only to find a gay man in the bedroom with him. Buying the Cow also stars Alyssa Milano, Annabeth Gish, and Jon Tenney. The film was co-written by director Becker and Peter W. Nelson. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

A filmmaker tries to sort out the scattered emotional baggage of his love life in Entropy. Jake Walsh (Stephen Dorff) is a film director who attends a fashion show with some friends and meets a French model named Stella (Judith Godreche). The attraction between the two is immediate, and after a brief courtship they're living together. However, between his career in film and her career as a model, they don't spend as much time together as they'd like, and they begin to drift apart; when Stella one day announces she's pregnant, Jake displays no particular enthusiasm for the idea of raising a child, and Stella ends up having an abortion. Eventually, the two break up and Jake finds himself married to a woman he barely knows, not quite sure what happened. As he muddles through his romantic problems, Jake also has to deal with the often puzzling hierarchy and the bizarre office politics of Hollywood. A rare independent effort from Phil Joanou, who previously directed State of Grace, Final Analysis and a wealth of popular music videos, Entropy was the opening night attraction at the 1999 Los Angeles Independent Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

What do you do when you've loved someone literally all their life? As Music From Another Room opens, five-year-old Danny is with his father, a U.S. Army doctor, when Dad is faced with an emergency. It seems Grace Swan (Brenda Blethyn), an old friend of the family, is in the last stages of labor and there's no time to get her to the hospital. Danny ends up helping his father deliver the infant, and moments after birth, Danny is holding the baby in his arms, convinced this is the girl he will marry someday. 20 years later, Danny (played as an adult by Jude Law), now an artist educated in England after the death of his father, is back in the States to help restore a church, and he meets Anna Swan (Gretchen Mol), the girl he helped deliver now all grown up and very beautiful. However, she's also become cold and cynical, and has a fiance to boot, so while Danny's attraction to her hasn't dimmed in two decades, it's clear winning her heart will be an uphill battle. The increasingly eccentric Swan family isn't much help either, including sweet but dizzy Grace, eggheaded father Richard (Bruce Jarchow), angry feminist Karen (Martha Plimpton), shy and blind Nina (Jennifer Tilly) and self-centered lout of a doctor Billy (Jeremy Piven). Screenwriter Charlie Peters steps up to the directors chair for this romantic comedy with a superb supporting cast. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Life among insecure, middle-aged character actors, former New Yorkers in L.A., is the main plot focus of this Philip Frank Messina comedy about four friends who want the same role in the next Martin Scorsese gangster flick. Balding Johnny DiMartino (Robert Costanzo) is so excited by the news of a possible part as Al Capone in a Scorsese film that he informs ladies' man Dorian Masstandrea (Jon Tenney), who cheats on his wife Samantha (Elle Macpherson). Dorian immediately makes moves to get his own audition. Johnny goes to Armand (David Strathairn) for coaching in Sicilian characteristics, and he worries that his look-alike, Rudy Ptak (Jon Polito) will get the part. Steve Hersh (Adam Arkin) tries to get through to Scorsese, although his wife Joanne (Laura San Giacomo) is convinced he doesn't have a chance. Cameos by Bill Murray and Scorsese (portraying himself at the audition). Shown at the 1998 Santa Barbara Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Two relative strangers try to turn a one night stand into a marriage in this romantic comedy. Alex Whitman (Matthew Perry) is a designer from New York City who is sent to Las Vegas to supervise the construction of a nightclub that his firm has been hired to build. Alex is a straight-laced WASP-ish type who, while enjoying a night on the town, meets Isabel Fuentes (Salma Hayek), a free-spirited Mexican-American photographer. Alex and Isabel are overtaken by lust at first sight and end up spending the night together; however, their immediate attraction doesn't last in the cold light of day, and they don't see each other for another three months. When they do meet again, it's because Isabel has some interesting news for Alex: she's pregnant with his child. Alex and Isabel decide that they should do the right thing and quickly get married (with an Elvis impersonator serving as witness), but after Isabel meets Alex's mom (Jill Clayburgh), and Alex is confronted by Isabel's father (Tomas Milian), both start to wonder if "doing the right thing" was just that, especially as Alex tries to balance his career in New York with Isabel's desire to continue working in Nevada. Fools Rush In gave Matthew Perry his first big-screen starring role following his success on the TV series Friends. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A group of twenty-something graduate students play an on-going game of musical chairs with their love lives in this romantic comedy-drama. Danny (Matthew Letscher) is a self-styled professional student who is involved in an on-again, off-again relationship with Zoey (Saffron Burrows), a struggling writer. However, Danny's close friend Amy (Carlo Gugino) happens to be secretly in love with him, and she is waiting for the romance to finally collapse so she can move in. Meanwhile, Alan (Jon Tenney) is teaching a class on writing and has fallen in love with the ditsy Molly (Sherilyn Fenn), who unfortunately has her eyes on one of her other writing professors, the older Bruce (Bruce Davison). In the meantime, Tim (Peter Krause) waits on the sidelines, wondering when his opportunity for romantic triumph and/or disappointment will arise. Lovelife was written and directed by Jon Harmon Feldman, who has worked in television as a producer on such series as The Wonder Years and Dawson's Creek. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Two unlikely friends -- a boy and a killer whale -- are reunited under potentially dangerous circumstances in this sequel to the successful family adventure Free Willy. Jesse (Jason James Richter) has finally found stability and contentment with his foster parents Glen and Annie Greenwood (Michael Madsen and Jayne Atkinson), but he is confronted with a new emotional challenge when his birth mother (a drug addict who abandoned him when he was young) dies, and his troubled half brother Elvis (Francis Capra) comes to live with the Greenwoods. Jesse also deals with new feelings when he develops a serious crush on Nadine (Mary Kate Schellhardt), the goddaughter of Randolph (August Schellenberg), an animal trainer at the theme park where Jesse helps out. But a much bigger problem is on the horizon when the safety of Willy, the killer whale he befriended and helped return to the wild, is threatened. An oil spill spoils the ocean environment where Willy and his family now live, and an unscrupulous owner of an oceanarium, Wilcox (M. Emmet Walsh), attempts to capture Willie and put him back into captivity as a performing attraction. While Free Willy featured Keiko, a trained whale who (ironically) was living in captivity when the film was shot, Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home instead utilized mechanical models and digital animation to bring "Willy" to life. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The story of an intelligent, heroic collie and his young owner, previously featured in numerous films and a successful 1950s television series, was updated for the 1990s in this family feature. This time, Lassie is determined to help a cynical city boy named Matt (Thomas Guiry), who turns even more resentful when his family relocates to a small town in rural Virginia. Soon after this move, a bright collie enters the family's life and winds up with the name Lassie because of the television show, which Matt's younger sister (Brittany Boyd) watches passionately. Lassie sets out to cheer Matt up and introduce him to the wonders of nature, while also helping the family stand its ground against rich, unpleasant neighbors. There are also run-ins with vicious wild animals and a daring rescue over river rapids, but the main focus remains on the emotional relationship between Matt and the dog, a story that will seem old-fashioned and charming to some viewers while familiar and sentimental to others. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide