David Dwyer Movies

A true story of tragedy, hope, and resilience comes to the screen in this sports drama. Huntington, WV, is home to Marshall University, a school where college football is a way of life. Huntington is also a town that learned to deal with tragedy in the fall of 1970 when Marshall's "Thundering Herd" boarded an airliner to return home after a football game in North Carolina. The jet crashed into a hill due to bad weather, and 75 members of Marshall's football squad and athletic staff died that night. The accident dealt a crippling blow to the city of Huntington, as well as Marshall's faculty and student body, and university president Donald Dedmon (David Strathairn) considered abandoning the school's football program. But instead Coach Jack Lengyel (Matthew McConaughey) was recruited from Ohio's College of Wooster to rebuild Marshall's football program. Lengyel was not naïve about the task ahead of him, and working beside Red Dawson (Matthew Fox), an assistant coach who narrowly missed the doomed flight and was one of the program's only survivors, he came to understand his job was not just to put a team on the field, but help a college and a community heal their wounds from the tragic accident. Together Lengyel and Dawson turned a handful of rookies and second-string players into a competitive team who in 1971 showed the world what they could do in a legendary game against Marshall's rivals, Xavier University. Produced with the cooperation of Marshall University and filmed in part on their campus, We Are Marshall also stars Ian McShane, Anthony Mackie, and January Jones. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Made for television, A Christmas Memory is adapted from the wistful short story by Truman Capote, previously filmed in 1967 as a one-hour episode of ABC Stage 67. Capote himself narrated the original version, in which he recalled his lonely childhood and the strong bond between himself and his simple-minded older cousin Sook, a role brilliantly essayed in 1967 by Geraldine Page. The remake stars Patty Duke as Sook, with whom young Buddy (Eric Lloyd) (the Capote character) lives during one memorable Depression Christmas while his divorced (and detached) mother and father are otherwise occupied. Looked after by her unmarried sisters Jennie (Piper Laurie) and Callie (Anita Gillette), the warm, unfailingly cheerful Sook busies herself with preparing Christmas fruitcakes for everyone she can think of--including President Roosevelt and Jean Harlow!--and, with the innocence of the eternal child, she allows the impressionable Buddy into her own private world. When the time comes for Sook and Buddy to be separated, he prefers to remain with her. . .a decision, alas, that is not his to make. Bereft of Capote's eloquent narration, and including several subplot intrigues not to be found in the original short story, A Christmas Memory is a game effort, but in the end falls short of the 1967 classic. The remake aired December 21, 1997 on CBS. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Waris Hussein delivers another made-for-television drama, this one based on the popular young-adult book by Caroline B. Cooney. The movie stars Kellie Martin as Janie, a teen who one day sees her own face on the back of a milk carton in an ad for missing children. The movie follows Janie as she unravels the mystery of her true family. When she finds out that she has been separated from her birth parents for many years, Janie struggles with questions about the family she thought was her own, and the identity of her long-lost biological parents. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide

Steve Martin produced, wrote, and starred in this modernized adaptation of the George Eliot novel Silas Marner. Martin is miserly small-town hermit Michael McCann, who hoards his wealth in the form of a rare coin collection. When his coins are stolen, McCann is ruined, but then he discovers an abandoned baby girl on his doorstep. Although he doesn't know it, the girl, whom McCann names Mathilda, is the illegitimate daughter of a prominent local politician, John Newland (Gabriel Byrne). Raising Mathilda has a profound effect on McCann, who emerges from his self-imposed exile and becomes an excellent, creative father. Mathilda grows up to be an intelligent, attractive girl, friendly with Newland and his wife (Laura Linney). When the Newlands learn that they cannot have children, John confesses his secret and embarks on a custody battle with McCann to regain guardianship of his daughter. The location of McCann's long-lost coins has a powerful impact on the proceedings, however. A rather dour and downbeat film, A Simple Twist of Fate lacked the charm and whimsy of Martin's earlier literary adaptation, Roxanne, and did not enjoy that film's box office success. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Blue Sky was the last film directed by Tony Richardson (Tom Jones) before his death in 1991 and one of the last releases from once-thriving Orion Films, whose bankruptcy kept the picture on the shelf for several years. It also features two career-high performances by Tommy Lee Jones and Jessica Lange, who won the Best Actress Oscar for this role, as Hank and Carly Marshall, a military couple whose marriage unravels under the pressure of his job and her mental instability. Hank is an Army captain at odds with his superiors over the wisdom of nuclear testing. Carly is a free spirit spiralling into a dangerous depression after the family's move from Hawaii to a nowhere base in Alabama alarms the couple's older daughter (Amy Locane) and sends Carly into an affair with the base commander (Powers Boothe). ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

This taut, gritty made-for-TV drama is based on an off-Broadway play by Marsha Norman and follows the struggle of a female ex-con to reform despite the destructive influence of her terrible mother. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this drama, based on the best-selling novel by John Grisham, Mitch McDeer (Tom Cruise) is a young man from a poor Southern family who has struggled through Harvard Law School to graduate fifth in his class. Mitch is entertaining offers from major firms in New York and Chicago, but when Memphis-based Bendini, Lambert, & Locke offer him a 20 percent higher salary than the best offer he's received, in addition to an enticing variety of perks and fringe benefits, he decides to sign on and remain in the South. Mitch's wife, Abby (Jeanne Tripplehorn), warns him that the deal sounds almost too good to be true, but it's not until after several weeks of working with Avery Tolar (Gene Hackman) that Mitch discovers that the vast majority of BL&L's business is tied to organized crime, with crime boss Joey Morolto (Paul Sorvino) using the firm to launder Mafia money. FBI agents Wayne Tarrance (Ed Harris) and F. Denton Voyles (Steven Hill) try to blackmail Mitch into helping them make a case against the firm, while BL&L's "security director" William Devasher (Wilford Brimley) is blackmailing him to do as he's told after Mitch foolishly allows himself to be seduced by a prostitute hired by the firm. The Firm was adapted for the screen by acclaimed playwright David Rabe and features performances by Hal Holbrook, Holly Hunter, and Gary Busey. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A made for TV, two-part series, this is the story of a Southern attorney who suddenly finds himself embroiled in politics, a particularly controversial murder trial and a public battle with a vindictive journalist -- all at the same time. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

In this fact-based drama, a real estate agent is horrified to learn that a home buyer is the one who killed her policeman husband. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

When it comes to love, Paul Matthews and Diane Farrow, two highly educated and talented scientists don't know a thing. Looking at their geeky demeanor's it's easy to see why. Despite the fact that both are neighbors, share the same interests and both are psychobiologists who study primates, neither is really aware of the other romantically until Paul, who is terribly shy around women, goes to gypsy Madame Ruth in desperation and asks for help. She reads his palm and tells him that he needs a woman; she then hands him Love Potion No. 8 which will attract women like flies to honey. This romantic comedy chronicles what happens to him (and Diane) when, after experimenting on animals, they decide to try it on themselves. Though the changes only last four hours per dose, they are truly remarkable and the two agree to separate for three weeks and then come back together to compare results. The time passes quickly and wonderfully for them and when they finally reunite both have changed for the better. Just for fun, they decide to go out with each other. They do not drink the potion, but still have a wonderful and passionate night. This leads Paul to propose to Diane. Unfortunately, she thinks she loves another, a man who is really more interested in exploiting the potion for money than he is in her. He ends up buying up all of Madame Ruth's latest batch. Paul goes back to her and explains his problem and that is when Ruth hands him the potent Love Potion No. 9, which can manifest true love. Quickly, he takes it and sets off to find Diane before she makes a terrible mistake. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A woman learns the value of friendship as she hears the story of two women and how their friendship shaped their lives in this warm comedy-drama. Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates) is an emotionally repressed housewife with a habit of drowning her sorrows in candy bars. Her husband Ed (Gailard Sartain) barely acknowledges her existence, and while he visits his aunt at a nursing home every week, Evelyn is not permitted to come into the room because the old women doesn't like her. One week, while waiting out Ed's visit, Evelyn meets Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy), a frail but feisty old woman who lives at the same nursing home and loves to tell stories. Over the span of several weeks, she spins a whopper about one of her relatives, Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson). Back in the 1920s, Idgie was a sweet but fiercely independent woman with her own way of doing things who ran the town diner in Whistle Stop, Alabama. Idgie was very close to her brother Buddy (Chris O'Donnell), and when he died, she wouldn't talk to anyone except Buddy's girl, Ruth Jamison (Mary-Louise Parker). Idgie gave Ruth a job at the cafe after she left her abusive husband, Frank Bennett (Nick Searcy). Between her habit of standing up for herself, standing up to Frank, and serving food to Black people out the back of the diner, Idgie raised the ire of the less tolerant citizens of Whistle Stop, and when Frank mysteriously disappeared, many locals suspected that Idgie, Ruth, and their friends may have been responsible. Evelyn finds herself looking forward to her weekly visits with Ninny, and is inspired by her story to take a new pride in herself and assert her independence from Ed. Fried Green Tomatoes was based on the novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by actress-turned-author Fannie Flagg, who makes a cameo appearance as the leader of a self-help group. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story, Disney's family film Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken follows the adventures of a 1920s teenager named Sonora Webster (Gabrielle Anwar), who runs away from her foster home to join a carnival. At the carnival, she gets a job as a stunt rider who leaps with her horse into a tank of water 40 feet below. Along the way, she has plenty of adventures, eventually falling in love with the son of one of the show's cowboys. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide