Sean Daniel Movies

This remake of Lewis Gilbert's 1966 film of the same name features Jude Law filling the shoes Michael Caine once wore in the title role of Alfie. As with the original, Law occasionally speaks directly to the camera while his character talks of the opposite sex. Under the direction of Charles Shyer, Alfie follows a charming, if morally lacking, womanizer from one bed to the next. While his actions arise more from nonchalance than malice, Alfie nonetheless faces a moral dilemma when considering that he's impregnated one of his latest girlfriends. Alfie also includes performances from Marisa Tomei, Susan Sarandon, and Nia Long. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Attila the Hun, fabled leader of a band of nomadic warriors who fearlessly took on the might of the Roman Empire, has his life story brought to the screen in this two-part miniseries. Attila (Gerard Butler) raised an army from the people of Caspia, and in time created a fighting force so strong that they received an annual tribute from the leaders of Rome as an inducement not to attack. Not all Romans were happy with this situation, and in time it was decided that General Aetius (Powers Boothe), a brave yet unscrupulous leader who attempted to usurp the rule of Empress Placidia (Alice Krige), was the only man who could confront Attila on his own terms. Aetius recognized Attila's skills as a leader, and decided the best way to prevent him from invading Rome was to lead him into an alliance, as Rome and the Huns joined forces against a third nation. But despite their mutual respect, it soon became apparent that only one man could be the undisputed leader in a meeting between Rome and the Huns. Attila also features Tim Curry as Theodosius, Simmone Jade MacKinnon as N'Kara, and Reg Rogers as Valentinian. Attila was first aired on the USA Cable Network on January 30 and 31, 2001.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A cop's personal code of justice begins to change after a number of incidents lead his city to a tragic wave of violence in this police drama. Eldon Perry (Kurt Russell) is a veteran cop with the LAPD's Special Investigations unit, a man who isn't above bending the law if it means putting people behind bars who deserve the treatment. As Los Angeles waits on the verdict in the Rodney King police beating trial, Perry is presenting testimony to Assistant Chief of Police Arthur Holland (Ving Rhames), who is well aware of the corruption in the SIS unit and wants to stop it. Perry, however, twists some facts as he speaks in the defense of his new partner, Bobby Keough (Scott Speedman), who is being investigated for inappropriate use of deadly force. For lack of honest testimony, Keough is let off the hook, and soon he and Perry have a new case to investigate -- a robbery at a liquor store than turned into a quadruple homicide. Perry and Keough quickly track down two likely suspects, Orchard (Kurupt) and Sidwell (Dash Mihok), but Perry is surprised when the head of SIS, Van Meter (Brendan Gleeson), tells him to let Orchard and Sidwell go, and instead points the finger at two ex-cons who should be taken off the street, even though they're innocent of this crime. Perry follows Van Meter's orders, despite Keough's misgivings, but in the wake of the L.A. riots, Perry has a change of heart, and decides to start working with Holland against Van Meter's corrupt methods. In the midst of it all, Perry is trying to hold together his troubled marriage to Sally (Lolita Davidovich), while Keough finds himself romancing a fellow officer, Beth (Michael Michele). Dark Blue was adapted from an original screenplay by noted crime novelist James Ellroy; originally set against the backdrop of the 1965 Watts riots, the story was later updated to 1992. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Like George Lucas' American Graffiti, Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused is an affectionate look at the youth culture of a bygone era. While Lucas took aim at the conservative 1950's, Linklater jumps ahead a generation to the bicentennial year of 1976 to celebrate the joys of beer blasts, pot smoking and Frampton Comes Alive. Set on the last day of the academic year, the film follows the random activities of a sprawling group of Texas high schoolers as they celebrate the arrival of summer, their paths variously intersecting at a freshmen hazing, a local pool parlor and finally at a keg party. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Independent filmmaker Jim McKay (Girls Town) writes and directs the ensemble film Everyday People, produced in part by HBO Films. The story revolves around a neighborhood eatery in Brooklyn called Raskins, a Jewish-owned-and-operated restaurant with an almost exclusively black clientele. After years of faithful service, owner Ira (Jordan Gelber) contemplates selling out to a corporation as part of the city's urban renewal. Everyday People premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 as part of the American Spectrum competition. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

John Woo's first Hollywood feature stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as Chance Boudreaux, a down-and-out Cajun merchant seaman, who, after saving a young woman, Natasha Binder (Yancy Butler), from a gang of thugs on the streets of New Orleans, agrees to help her search for her father (Chuck Pfarrer), a homeless Vietnam vet. They locate local businessman Randall Poe (Elliott Keener), for whom the vet had been working, and learn that her father has become a victim of wealthy sportsman Emil Fouchon (Lance Henriksen), who, along with his cronies, hunts homeless men as a form of recreation. After Fouchon finds out that the girl is investigating the murder of her father, he arranges for she and Chance to be ambushed, but they manage to escape into the backwoods of Louisiana -- his stomping grounds. Realizing he needs to regroup, Fouchon assembles a private army to invade the bayous. They track the pair to the rustic cabin of Chance's Uncle Douvee (Wilford Brimley), and the real fireworks begin. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide

Joel and Ethan Coen take on the classic battle-of-the-sexes screwball comedy with Intolerable Cruelty. George Clooney plays Miles Massey, a high-powered Los Angeles divorce lawyer nearing a midlife crisis . While representing wealthy client Rex Rexroth (Edward Herrmann), Miles meets his match in Rex's gold-digging wife, Marilyn Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones). He's impressed by her similarly heartless ways of using marriage to fuel an expensive lifestyle, but he still defeats her in court. With Marilyn looking to get her revenge and Miles finding himself attracted to her, the two engage in a ruthless romantic pursuit to out-swindle each other. Billy Bob Thornton shows up in a small role as Texas oil tycoon Howard Doyle. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

While lots of people dream of winning the lottery, one man hatches a more ambitious plan than just buying a ticket and hoping for the best in this satiric comedy. Russ Richards (John Travolta), a weatherman on a local TV station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, sells snowmobiles on the side, but both careers are in a rut thanks to an unusually warm winter. Russ's girlfriend Crystal (Lisa Kudrow) appears on the State Lottery's weekly televised drawing, pulling the numbered balls out of the rotating bin. With the help of a few of his less scrupulous friends - among them sleazy strip joint proprietor Gig (Tim Roth), small time hood Dale The Thug (Michael Rappaport), and Crystal's sleazy cousin Walter (Michael Moore) - Russ figures out a way to rig the drawing and have Crystal pull numbers that they happen to own. However, Russ discovers that making the scheme work and keeping everyone quiet about it is more trouble than it's worth. The supporting cast includes Chris Kattan, Ed O'Neill, and Bill Pullman; Nora Ephron, who previously worked with Travolta on the comedy hit Michael, directed. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

There are angels among us, and they like lots of sugar in their coffee, in writer-director Nora Ephron's comic fantasy Michael. Vartan Malt (Bob Hoskins) is the editor of a tabloid called the National Mirror that specializes in unlikely stories about celebrities and frankly unbelievable tales about ordinary folks. When Malt gets word that a woman is supposedly harboring an angel in a small town in Iowa, he figures that this might be right up the Mirror's alley, so he sends out three people to get the story -- Frank Quinlan (William Hurt), a reporter whose career has hit the skids; Huey Discoll (Robert Pastorelli), a photographer on the verge of losing his job (even though he owns the Mirror's mascot, Sparky The Wonder Dog); and Dorothy Winters (Andie MacDowell), a self-styled "angel expert." They arrive at the rooming house of Patsy Millband (Jean Stapleton), who informs them that she does indeed have an angel for a tenant, and introduces them to Michael (John Travolta). Michael has wings like an angel, but the resemblance ends there; Michael loves cigarettes, has an uncontrollable sweet tooth (and a pot belly to match), tends to use a large number of non-angelic phrases, is not much on personal hygiene, and likes to hang out with the ladies. Michael informs his visitors that in Heaven, an angel is allowed a certain number of "vacations" on Earth, and he's in the midst of one now; trouble is, this is the last one he's entitled to, and he wants to make the most of it. Frank and Huey then stumble on a great story idea -- if Michael wants to have some fun, why not take him to Chicago, where he can really kick up his heels? Michael was written in part by Jim Quinlan, himself a one-time reporter, though with a much more respectable tabloid than the Mirror -- he wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This comic spoof is spun off from a character that first appeared on The Chris Rock Show, and is written and directed by Louis C.K., one of that show's producers. Lance Crouther stars as Pootie Tang, a crime fighting superhero and recording artist who speaks in an unintelligible gibberish that seems to be a combination of Ebonics and street slang. Despite his communication problem, Pootie is a hero to children, whom he attempts to protect from the evil Dick Lecter (Robert Vaughn), a corporate fat cat out to corrupt America's youth with alcohol, tobacco, and junk food. Pootie also runs up against an artistic imitator (David Cross) and a sleazy recording executive (Andy Richter) Pootie Tang co-stars Chris Rock, Dave Attell, and Bob Costas and Conan O'Brien as themselves. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

A very loose remake of the classic multi-star comedy It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), this madcap comedy is directed by Jerry Zucker, one third of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker comedy team and director of Ghost (1990). John Cleese stars as an eccentric casino owner who devises a contest pitting six teams against each other in a race to claim two million dollars from a locker in New Mexico. The competitors are Owen (Cuba Gooding Jr., who ends up driving a bus full of Lucille Ball imitators, a foreigner (Rowan Atkinson) who hitches a ride in an organ donor vehicle, and a recently reunited mother and daughter (Whoopi Goldberg and Lanei Chapman) who anger a "squirrel lady" (Kathy Bates) -- much to their regret. There are also two con artist brothers (Seth Green and Vince Vieluf), the upright Nick (Breckin Meyer), who gets a lift from cute but psychotic pilot Tracy (Amy Smart), and the eccentric Pear family, headed up by Jon Lovitz. Rat Race also stars Dave Thomas, Kathy Najimy, Wayne Knight, Dean Cain, and Paul Rodriguez. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Director John Landis helmed this Cold War farce starring Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase as Austin Millbarge and Emmett Fitz-Hume -- two loser misfits who dwell in the lower ranks of the Central Intelligence Agency. Convinced despite much evidence to the contrary that they're prime secret agent material, both men keep taking service exams in an effort to win promotion. Caught cheating on their latest round of tests, Austin and Emmett expect to be fired but are instead made full field agents and ushered into intense training. Little do they know that it's all a ruse and that they're about to be dumped in Pakistan to throw Russian spies off the scent of two real agents with an important clandestine assignment. A spoof of the "road" pictures popularized by Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, the film features a cameo by the latter as his golf-playing self. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Exploitation film vixen Claudia Jennings stars with Jocelyn Jones in this all-trash rip-off of Bonnie and Clyde with Jennings and Morgan playing a pair of sexy bank robbers who blast their way into countryside banks with a carload of fresh dynamite. The story literally begins with a bang as Candy Morgan (Claudia Jennings) dynamites her way out of jail and proceeds to blow up a bank where Ellie-Jo Turner (Jocelyn Jones) has just lost her job. Candy and Ellie-Jo team up and go on a bank-robbing crime spree. When Ellie-Jo is detained for shoplifting, the outlaw girls take Slim (Johnny Crawford) as a hostage. Slim and Ellie-Jo become lovers and Slim joins the merry band, playing the role of hostage during the gals' bank robberies. However, the law is slowly closing in on them. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide