Lou Wagner Movies

A 13-year-old boy (Spencer Breslin) suffering from premature male-pattern baldness does his best to adjust to life in a new high school despite becoming the hapless target of every bully and cruel-minded teenager in town. While he's got the high-school janitor (Cuba Gooding Jr.) on his side, the follicly challenged Harold must still endure the merciless teasing of his unsympathetic peers. Rachel Dratch, Fred Willard, and Nikki Blonsky co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

As the California sun shines down from an azure Los Angeles sky, the lives of three unique individuals are about to collide in the most unexpected ways imaginable. Lyle is a psychotic serial killer who has formed a dangerous fixation on single mother and expert car thief Tess. As Lyle prepares to make his deadly move, widowed Greek Restaurant owner Shandor finds himself forced to take matters into his own hands when the law fails to protect and serve as promised. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Just in time for the 1992 Christmas season, Next Generation offered the first installment of this two part episode. The story gets under way during a breakdown in the hostile relationship between the Federation and the Cardassians. In order to participate in a dangerous commando raid on a Cardassian stronghold, Picard resigns his command, leaving the Enterprise in the hands of autocratic, no-nonsense Captain Edward Jellico (Ronny Cox). During his mission, Picard is captured and threatened with torture, while back on the Enterprise, Jellico's callous behavior not only angers the crew but threatens to spark an all-out war. Originally telecast December 19, 1992, part one of "Chain of Command" was scripted by Ronald D. Moore from a story by Frank Abatemarco. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The fourth Planet of the Apes film is set in 1991, 20 years since the assassination of talking, time-traveling apes Cornelius and Zira at the end of Escape From the Planet of the Apes. The couple's infant son, Caesar (Roddy McDowall), has grown to adulthood in the care of kindly circus owner Armando (Ricardo Montalban). Meanwhile, a plague has wiped all dogs and cats from the face of the Earth; speechless primitive apes have therefore been domesticated and turned into first pets, then servants of humankind. Caesar becomes outraged at the treatment of these simian slaves and accidentally reveals his powers of speech in front of the militaristic authorities, who kill Armando when he tries to protect his friend's identity. His cover blown, Caesar kick-starts a revolution that pits chimps against humans, paving the way for eventual ape ascendency. Caesar was the second of McDowall's three Planet of the Apes characters; he also portrayed Cornelius in the first and third films and Galen in the short-lived 1974 television series. After taking over the franchise with this picture, Hollywood veteran J. Lee Thompson would become the only director to helm two Planet of the Apes films when he returned for the fifth and final installment. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Airport had enough plot and enough star power in its cast for three feature films, and it only encompassed about half of the complexity or characters found in Arthur Hailey's best-selling potboiler. Essentially built around 12 harrowing hours at a major Midwestern airport, the film had everything an audience of the period could have wanted -- suspense, romance, drama, and comedy -- all spread across a vast canvas. Mel Bakersfeld (Burt Lancaster) is the manager of Lincoln Airport, facing a night beset by the worst blizzard in a decade, a wife (Dana Wynter) who announces she wants a divorce, a primary runway blocked by an airliner stuck in a snowdrift, and a governing board ready to fire him. Bakersfeld's cynical, smooth-talking brother-in-law, Vernon Demerest (Dean Martin), won't let up on his criticism of the management at Lincoln, but he has his own problems as well, mostly in the form of a young stewardess, Gwen Meighen (Jacqueline Bisset), who is pregnant by him and whom he finds he genuinely loves. Add to that the presence of an old lady stowaway (Helen Hayes) and a mentally disturbed passenger (Van Heflin) carrying a bomb, and there's more than enough plot to keep viewers engrossed for two hours plus. Airport became one of the top-grossing movies of its era, racking up seven-digit box-office numbers and spawning an entire film genre -- the disaster movie. With Jean Seberg, George Kennedy, Lloyd Nolan, Barry Nelson, and Maureen Stapleton filling out the rest of the leading roles, there was something for almost everyone in this film. The movie still has a lot to offer if only as a prime example of Hollywood at its most successfully glitzy, but, if possible, viewers should try and see the letterboxed version of Airport on DVD (released May 2001). ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Sometime after the events of the first Planet of the Apes, the climax of which is repeated frame for frame at the beginning of this sequel, another set of astronauts arrives on the far-future Earth that is the titular planet. This time it's Brent (James Franciscus) who survives the crash landing and learns that evolved simians have taken over the world, post-apocalypse. After hooking up with Nova (Linda Harrison), the mute, fur bikini-clad beauty who spent the first film being squired by astronaut Taylor (Charlton Heston), Brent confers with Zira (Kim Hunter) and Cornelius (David Watson, giving Roddy McDowall his only break during the five-film series), the ape scientists whose adherence to scientific principles makes them friendly to the possibility of intelligent human life. Something of a military coup has taken place among the apes, who dispatch an army to the desolate "Forbidden Zone" where Taylor has coincidentally disappeared. With the apes and the humans both rooting about in the ruins of 20th century civilization, it's only a matter of time before they all find out what happened to the other survivors of the nuclear holocaust. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Originally intended as a project for Blake Edwards, the film version of Pierre Boule's semisatiric sci-fi novel came to the screen in 1968 under the directorial guidance of Franklin J. Schaffner. Charlton Heston is George Taylor, one of several astronauts on a long, long space mission whose spaceship crash-lands on a remote planet, seemingly devoid of intelligent life. Soon the astronaut learns that this planet is ruled by a race of talking, thinking, reasoning apes who hold court over a complex, multilayered civilization. In this topsy-turvy society, the human beings are grunting, inarticulate primates, penned-up like animals. When ape leader Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans) discovers that the captive Taylor has the power of speech, he reacts in horror and insists that the astronaut be killed. But sympathetic ape scientists Cornelius (Roddy McDowell) and Dr. Zira (Kim Hunter) risk their lives to protect Taylor -- and to discover the secret of their planet's history that Dr. Zaius and his minions guard so jealously. In the end, it is Taylor who stumbles on the truth about the Planet of the Apes: "Damn you! Damn you! Goddamn you all to hell!" Scripted by Rod Serling and Michael Wilson (a former blacklistee who previously adapted another Pierre Boule novel, Bridge on the River Kwai), Planet of the Apes has gone on to be an all-time sci-fi (and/or camp) classic. It won a special Academy Award for John Chambers's convincing (and, from all accounts, excruciatingly uncomfortable) simian makeup. It spawned four successful sequels, as well as two TV series, one live-action and one animated. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide