Sheila Tousey Movies

Executive produced by Steven Spielberg, the sprawling six-part, 12-hour TV miniseries Into the West covers 65 years of American history, from the first major migration westward in the mid-1820s to the massacre at Wounded Knee in the early 1890s. The story is largely seen through the eyes of two protagonists (and their families): Jacob Wheeler (Matthew Settle), a wheelwright who leaves his Virginia hometown and his family's business in 1827 to seek his destiny in the company of legendary mountain man Jedediah Smith (Josh Brolin); and Loved by the Buffalo (George Leach), a Lakota Sioux holy man who spends a lifetime seeking the answers to his profound and disturbing images about the future of his country -- and his people. Eschewing the usual "old-age makeup" route often pursued in epic tales of this nature, the main characters are played by progressively older actors in the course of the story: for example, Loved by the Buffalo is portrayed by no fewer than four different performers! In a more traditionalist How the West Was Won vein, the miniseries is festooned with major stars, some cast in very brief roles: among these are Josh Brolin, Keri Russell, Matthew Modine, Beau Bridges, Gary Busey, Tom Berenger, and Judge Reinhold. Nor is How the West Was Won the only inspiration for the multi-plotted storyline: other films echoed and emulated throughout the saga include The Iron Horse, The Big Trail, Westward the Women, The Searchers, and Dances With Wolves. As mentioned, the story is divided into six parts: "Wheel to the Stars," in which the fates of Jacob Wheeler and Loved by the Buffalo become forever intertwined; "Manifest Destiny," chronicling the first major trek to California; "Dreams & Schemes," wherein the Lakota lands are despoiled by Gold Fever and war breaks out between the North and South; "Hell on Wheels," chronicling the postwar chaos and the coming of the railroad; "Casualties of War," wherein the conflict between Native Americans and the white man results in wholesale bloodshed -- and, surprisingly, a "counter-revolution" of compassion and understanding; and "Ghost Dance," the last great stand of the Lakota, which brings the story full circle. Largely filmed in the Canadian Rockies over a six-month period, and utilizing the talents of six directors, Into the West premiered June 10, 2005, on the TNT cable network. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Clearly inspired by the FCC crackdown after Janet Jackson's controversial "wardrobe malfunction", this episode focuses on two publicity-hungry public figures: Carolyn Spencer (Dana Delany), the head of an anti-smut campaign targeted at "dirty" TV shows, and BJ Cameron (Lewis Black), a trash-talking shock jock. The SVU detectives are determined to find out who was responsible for the rape of teenage celebrity Jesse Dawning, who as the star of the controversial TV show "Girl Undercover" has been subjected to venomous attacks by both Spencer and Cameron. Ultimately, Spencer's own son Danny (Ricky Ullman) is arrested for the crime--but did he assault Jesse on orders from his zealous mother, or was he inspired by Cameron's rabid rantings? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In 2000, director Michael Almereyda brought his film crew to San Francisco to document the rehearsal process for the Magic Theater's production of Sam Shepard's play The Late Henry Moss, as directed by the playwright himself. The resulting film, This So-Called Disaster, is partly a study of the magic of theater, as well as a study of the fascinating Shepard, who is nearly universally considered one of the most influential American dramatists of the past century. Shepard and Almereyda's first collaboration came via the former's adaptation of Hamlet, in which Shepard played the part of the Ghost of Hamlet's father. Shepard, in turn, invited Almereyda to film the rehearsal process for his latest play, The Late Henry Moss, a 16-year labor of love for Shepard that relates a fictional recounting of the playwright's own relationship with his late father. Following the cast -- which includes such luminaries as Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Cheech Marin, and Woody Harrelson -- and the crew until the production's opening night, Almereyda observes the minutiae involved in leading up to the first curtain, as well as some private moments with Shepard as he recounts some of his personal history as related to The Late Henry Moss. This So-Called Disaster was included in the programs for the 2003 Rotterdam International Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide

This adaptation of Tony Hillerman's A Thief of Time keeps that book's original storyline. The protagonists Joe Leaphorn (Wes Studi) and Jim Chee (Adam Beach) are a pair of Navajo police officers whose beat is their reservation. They must investigate why some important historical artifacts have gone missing. This film was directed by Chris Eyre and produced by Robert Redford. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Adapted from Tony Hillerman's best-selling novel by James Redford (stepson of Robert Redford), Skinwalkers was the vanguard of the proposed PBS anthology American Mystery. Returning to the Navajo reservation of his birth after many years, police detective Joe Leaphorn (Wes Studi) investigates a series of bizarre murders. Though Leaphorn has no doubt that the killer is a human being, his young FBI-trained partner, Jim Chee (Adam Beach), has an entirely different theory. A medicine man-in-training, Chee believes that the murders have been committed by a mystical figure called the Skinwalker, who according to Navajo legend is an amalgam of all murdered Native Americans. Symbolic clues left at the scene of each murder -- some written in paint, some in blood -- confirm Chee's conclusion that the shapeshifting Skinwalker is seeking revenge on the modern-day despoilers of the Navajo's sacred land. Skinwalkers was filmed on location in Utah and Arizona by Native American director Chris Eyre, of Smoke Signals fame. ~ All Movie Guide

During the early 1900s, Edward S. Curtis spent 30 years at great financial and personal cost doggedly photographing 80 different Indian tribes just as their customs and culture were being eroded by the prevalence of white culture, eventually resulting in the ethnographic landmark 20-volume work The North American Indian. Anne Makepeace directs this poignant, sensitive documentary about one man willing to risk his family and fortune for this one Herculean effort. A successful society photographer in Seattle in the 1890s, Curtis became entranced by Native American culture during a trip to Alaska and was inspired to photograph them in their traditional garb where they live. In 1900, he garnered notice when he managed to photograph the heretofore forbidden Peigan sun dance, and managed to get financial backing from Theodore Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan to start his life's work. Spending long months away from his wife and children in Seattle, Curtis journeyed to remote corners of the country with literally a ton of equipment in tow and to New York to over see the printing of his books. He had only published eight volumes of his work when Morgan's money ceased coming in -- and due to WWI and a shift in national tastes, financial support was difficult to find. At the same time, Curtis' wife divorced him, cleaning him out of most of his assets. By the 1920s, Curtis found work in Hollywood as a still photographer, working on the set of Cecil B. De Mille's The Ten Commandments. Alarmed by the degree to which Indian culture was disappearing, he quit his movie industry gig and went out into the field one final time in 1927. Three years later, Curtis published the final volume of his work. Edward S. Curtis died anonymous and impoverished in 1952 in L.A. This film was nominated for the Grand Jury prize at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

It has been 20 years since Federal agent Dane Corvin (Richard Chamberlain) left his home town of Raven Island -- and also 20 years since Dane's fiancée Helen (Karen Allen), a talented sculptor, bitterly broke off their engagement when he was forced to arrest her brother for poaching. Now Corvin has returned, hoping to somehow, some way win back Helen's love. As it turns out, however, Helen herself is harboring a secret that Dane may not be able to forgive. Some lovely location footage of the Pacific Northwest makes this adaptation of Evan Maxwell's novel seem more compelling that it truly is. All the Winters That Have Been originally aired over CBS on September 21, 1997, posting the eighth highest rating of its broadcast week. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An autistic youth dies while in custody, leading Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Logan (Chris Noth) to investigate the clinic where the victim was being treated. The clinic's head, Dr. Alan Colter (Lawrence Pressman), has been known to use radical and possibly illegal therapies on his patients, most of these "treatments" involving electric shock. The D.A. office's efforts to tie Colter together with the victim's death are complicated by the lack of cooperation from the parents of Colter's patients. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Playwright Sam Shepard wrote and directed this bizarre combination of western film revisionism and Greek tragedy. Silent Tongue (Tantoo Cardinal) is a mute Kiowa who is raped by Eamon McCree (Alan Bates), the owner of the Kickapoo Traveling Medicine Show. Eamon attempts to make up for his crime by marrying her, hoping for forgiveness. Instead, Silent Tongue enacts a bitter retribution through her two daughters, Awbonnie (Sheila Tousey) and Velada (Jeri Arredondo). Awbonnie, as the film begins, has already died, but her grieving husband Talbot (River Phoenix) refuses to let her go, dragging around her corpse. To assuage Talbot, his father Prescott (Richard Harris) sets out to purchase Velada from Eamon, thinking that only Awbonnie's sister can replace her in Talbot's eyes. But Velada's half-brother Reeves (Dermot Mulroney) protests the attempted transaction. As a result, Prescott kidnaps Velada and flees, with not only Reeves and Eamon chasing him, but also Awbonnie's ghost. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Actor Robert De Niro started a production company to make films just like this one: stories which were unpopular with the establishment and which are unlikely to make a big splash at the box-office. Even so, this is a first-class production, and the filmmakers were the first to receive permission to film on the Pine Ridge (Sioux) Reservation in South Dakota, likely due to director Michael Apted's having previously made an accurate and sensitive documentary about Indian political prisoner Leonard Peltier's case, Incident at Oglala. The film did exactly as well as expected at the box-office but has since assumed greater importance as one of the tiny number of "mainstream" movies which faithfully and respectfully illuminate Native American issues. In the story, loosely based on the earlier documentary, Ray Levoi (Val Kilmer) is an ambitious up-and-coming FBI agent in the 1970s with great career prospects. The one thing he will not tolerate is any reference to his half-Indian heritage. As far as he is concerned, his loyalties and culture identify him with the government and his white mother. He is extremely touchy about anything to do with his father, who was an alcoholic full-blooded Sioux. However, the FBI wants to take advantage of his half-Indian blood to mend fences in a politically sensitive murder investigation, and it sends him exactly where he doesn't want to go. Further, he is widely advertised as being Indian, though he knows virtually nothing about his heritage and has renounced it to the best of his ability. Once on the reservation, he becomes deeply involved in a truly messy state of affairs and is drawn into situations where he is forced to confront his background, native spirituality, and the duplicity of the government and its allies within the tribe. Despite his consistent prickliness about his heritage, his heart is in the right place, and the reservation's sheriff (Graham Greene) and a wise spiritual elder (Chief Ted Thin Elk) patiently lead their unwilling FBI pupil on a soul-wrenching wild goose chase which paradoxically takes him straight to the heart of the matter. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide