Dennis Boutsikaris Movies

Based on a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, this made-for-television drama tells the tale of a college student, a mysterious young woman and a strangely beautiful garden. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Never released theatrically, this sex comedy is set in an apartment in Moscow with one bathroom, one kitchen and 31 inhabitants. While this may make the rent affordable for everyone, it's no help when filming inside such a set. A few of the major characters are Vera (Lee Taylor Allen), whose mother Galina (Shelley Winters) is trying to match her up with her alcoholic boss Kiril (Paul Sorvino). Meanwhile, Vera is pretending to carry on a lesbian affair with a neighbor for no reason other than to drive their local gossips up the wall. The lack of privacy and overwrought slapstick make this a hard pill to swallow. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy are among the impoverished residents of a slum tenement threatened with demolition by evil land developers. Only a miracle can save Cronyn, Tandy, and their friends -- and that miracle manifests itself in the form of a "family" of extraterrestrial flying saucers, who need the electricity provided by the tenement to survive. The grateful humanized spaceships repay their earthbound hosts by doing battle with the villains' henchmen. When the building is engulfed in flames, all seems lost, but the aliens have a few more tricks up their metallic sleeves. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An evil drug baron rears his ugly head in this sequel to the blockbuster Crocodile Dundee, kidnapping Sue so that Dundee will butt out of the Baron's affairs. Using outback strategy, Dundee attempts to rescue his girlfriend. Reversing the procedure of the first film, the story later takes the hero and heroine from America back to Australia, making Sue the fish out of water. In the interim between the two films, stars Paul Hogan and Linda Kozlowski became husband and wife. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, two brave policemen use their powerful, highly-specialized boat to take on drug smugglers in the Gulf of Mexico. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The then-contemporary "Preppie Murder" case was the obvious inspiration for this 1990 episode of Law & Order. A wealthy and well-connected young man is charged with the murder of his girlfriend. The efforts of Stone (Michael Moriarty) and Robinette (Richard Brooks) to prosecute the case are stymied by a huge publicity blitz, and by the Defense's strategy of putting the dead woman's character on trial. "Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die" was originally telecast October 11, 1990, as a last-minute replacement for the scheduled episode "Poison Ivy" (which was moved up to November 20). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Contrary to expectations, The Hit Man is not about a mob torpedo but instead deals with a Spielberg-style moviemaker, played by Dennis Boutsikaris. The villain is a loan shark (Nick Pryor) who's been reducing honest folks to penury. Utilizing the special-effects trickery at his disposal, Boutsikaris arranges a major sting to thwart the bad guy (F/X, anyone?) The Hit Man's crew is a lovable polyglot of misfits, the sort that would make excellent "regulars" were this TV movie a weekly series. Could this have been what the producers of Hit Man had in mind? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A 17-year-old suffers a fatal heart attack which results in a major traffic accident. This tragedy leads to a morass of legal complications involving the sale of faulty pacemakers. Assistant D.A.'s Stone (Michael Moriarty) and Robinette (Richard Brooks) must determine who, at the end of the day, is truly to blame: the dead youth's doctor, the pacemaker salesman, or the manufacturer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The tragic and true story of a family dealing with AIDS is re-told in this heart-wrenching made-for-cable drama. Amy Madigan and Dennis Boutsikaris star as Roxy and Vinnie Ventola, a successful television screenwriting couple. After struggling to become pregnant and finally conceiving a child, the couple learns that their newborn has AIDS. Soon afterward, the two parents are also diagnosed with the fatal virus. The film follows the family as they struggle to deal with the social, spiritual and physical tolls that the disease exacts on its sufferers. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide

Tragedy strikes the publishing industry when Jessica Fletcher's editor Edward Graham (Robert Desiderio), a man known for his extreme mood swings, falls out of his Manhattan office window to his death. The police are content to rule Graham's demise as a suicide, but Jessica doesn't buy this. She is convinced that Graham was murdered--and possibly by someone very, very close to him. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Dennis Boutsikaris, a past master at portraying unlovable louts, appears in this episode as radio "shock jock" Marty Crane. Upset over the nasty jokes made at her expense by the irrespressible Crane, Murphy (Candice Bergen) is even more offended when Marty wins a date with her by pledging $10,000 at a charity auction. In the course of the evening, Marty changes his opinion of "ice princess" Murphy, and promises to say only nice things about her on the air--but alas, Mr. Crane has a curious notion of the definition of "nice". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Produced especially for the Lifetime Cable Network, this emotionally charged and painfully realistic drama looks at the prevalence of heroin addiction in the middle class as it tells the story of one single mother's struggle to overcome her addiction and reassemble her shattered life. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This unusual biography of the renowned Spanish artist Pablo Picasso is a Merchant-Ivory film. The team of director James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant, and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has been responsible for many period dramas, including A Room with a View and Howard's End. The story of Picasso's remarkable misanthropy is told as experienced by his mistress Francoise Gilot (Natasha McElhone). Francoise was Picasso's lover from 1944 to 1954, and they had two children together, Claude and Paloma. The film shows Picasso (Anthony Hopkins) as a notorious womanizer, with flashbacks revealing his relationships with his wife Olga (Jane Lapotaire), the artist Dora Marr (Julianne Moore), and Marie-Therese Walter (Susannah Harker), an earthy type who sees the artist only on Sundays. Hopkins powerfully portrays Picasso as an artistic genius with an appalling habit of using and abusing women. He not only cheats on his wife but two-times his mistresses. Francoise has survived an abusive relationship with her father (Bob Peck), and she is 40 years younger than Picasso when they become lovers. The film was supposed to be based on Gilot's book Life with Picasso, but the filmmakers were unable to get the rights to it, so they settled for basing the film on Arianna Huffington's Picasso: Creator and Destroyer. The movie also uses imitations rather than Picasso's real paintings. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide