Sandy Gallin Movies

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Joss Whedon's first cult-favorite horror-comedy drama, used its supernatural trappings as the breeding ground for countless metaphors about adolescence, young adulthood, and female empowerment. But Angel, its spin-off and Whedon's second successful outing for the youth-oriented WB network, uses the mysterious demon realm to literalize the nebulous grey areas -- moral and ethical, professional and romantic -- that suddenly leap out at young adults once they've left the nest. A detective comedy-cum-supernatural soap opera with a conscience-stricken immortal as its ambiguous hero, Angel follows the adventures of the titular vampire and an ever-expanding group of sidekicks as they seek to "help the helpless" in the glamorous shadows of Los Angeles. If the cheap math for Buffy is Wonder Woman plus The Munsters times Beverly Hills 90210, then Angel is more like Dark Shadows meets Melrose Place with a dash of L.A. Law.

David Boreanaz leads the cast as Angel, a handsome, brooding hunk who, like many Angelenos, doesn't look his age. Born nearly 250 years ago to a stern Irish father and christened Liam, he spent his youth as a dissolute and drunken lecher. Then he met Darla, an American beauty. She promised to show him the world, and she did -- after making him, like her, an immortal, soulless fiend. As Angelus, Liam terrorized Europe for a century before a gypsy curse restored his human spirit to his demon-animated body. With the knowledge of his vampiric sins burning a hole through his newfound soul, Angel spent most of the 20th century a useless wreck. Then, as chronicled on Buffy, he was recruited by the mysterious Powers That Be to serve as a champion in the fight between good and evil. Buffy fans are no doubt aware that Angel's gypsy curse has a loophole that strips him of his soul the instant he achieves a moment of true happiness -- say, for instance, a night of passion with a certain previously chaste vampire slayer. It was this conceit that allowed Angel to serve as both ally and nemesis to Buffy, and, by precluding any real future for their epic romance, set the stage for his decision to seek atonement in L.A. The quest for redemption, then, is Angel's carrot; the possibility of sliding back into atrocity is his stick.

For the show's first four seasons, fellow Buffy veteran Charisma Carpenter served as Boreanaz's comedic and sometimes romantic foil. As the show slowly morphed from a tongue-in-cheek comedy-adventure to an action-packed metaphysical melodrama, Carpenter's Cordelia Chase developed from the spoiled brat of the Buffy years to the kooky girl Friday of Angel Investigations to a champion in her own right. Some longtime fans were therefore outraged when the popular star was written out of the regular cast at the end of the fourth season. Others, however, were relieved that Angel survived a close brush with cancellation to return for a fifth season with an addition to the cast: James Marsters, reprising his Buffy the Vampire Slayer role as Spike, Angel's romantic rival, longtime antagonist, and fellow vampire-with-a-soul. Other recurring and regular cast members have included the late Glenn Quinn as the half-human, half-demon Doyle; Buffy refugee Alexis Denisof as Wesley Wyndham-Price, a bumbling "rogue demon hunter" who eventually becomes truly roguish; J. August Richards as Charles Gunn, a street-smart vampire hunter with hidden depths; Amy Acker as Winifred "Fred" Burkle, a damsel-in-distress turned super-scientist; Andy Hallett as Lorne, a horned, green-skinned demon who can read your future, but only if you sing karaoke for him; future Law & Order babe Elisabeth Rohm as a Scully-esque police detective; Julie Benz as Darla, Angel's oft-resurrected vampire paramour; Vincent Kartheiser as Connor, Darla and Angel's rebellious (and human) teenaged son; and Christian Kane and Stephanie Romanov as a pair of lawyers at Wolfram & Hart, the evil law firm that Angel fights for four seasons and eventually takes over. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Inspired by a true story, Fly Away Home is a family drama about Amy Alden (Anna Paquin), a 13-year-old girl who, after the tragic death of her mother, is sent to live with her father Thomas (Jeff Daniels), a sculptor. Amy misses her mother and has never enjoyed a very warm relationship with her father, so the first few months in her new home are very difficult for her. However, one day Amy finds a nest full of eggs, which was tossed away by land developers clearing a wooded area. Amy brings the eggs home and builds a makeshift incubator; a few weeks later, a flock of tiny Canadian Geese are hatched. While caring for her new pets makes Amy happier, a problem soon presents itself -- young geese "imprint" on the first creature they see after hatching and follow it, as if it's their mother. Without a mother to show them how to fly south for the winter, how will they learn normal migratory patterns? Thomas comes up with a solution to the problem: as a hobby, he flies Ultralights, lightweight aircraft that look like gliders with engines. If he puts Amy in an Ultralight and has her fly the migratory route to the South, perhaps the birds will follow her and learn the route their mother would normally teach them. Amy's adventures help her learn about independence as she tries to teach it to the birds, bringing her closer to her father. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Inspired by the advent of Seattle's grunge music sound and popular films such as Slacker (1991) and Singles (1992), the Generation X comedy-drama was born. Typified by characters in their early twenties sharing an abundance of education, a lack of career direction, stunted romantic aspirations and an obsession with popular culture, one of the better examples of the genre was Kicking and Screaming. Josh Hamilton stars as Grover, a recent college graduate and aspiring writer depressed over the departure of his girlfriend Jane (Olivia d'Abo) for a fellowship in Prague. Josh's best friends are in a similar predicament. Skippy (Jason Wiles) is a classic slacker couch potato still attending classes despite having graduated, while the philosophical Max (Chris Eigeman) and Otis (Carlos Jacott), a mechanical engineer, both remain unemployed. Tenth-year student Chet (Eric Stoltz), who works at a local bar and has still not finished his education, serves as a cautionary tale for the four unmotivated pals. Kicking and Screaming was the debut of writer and director Noah Baumbach and the first of several cinematic collaborations between him and actors Eigeman and Stoltz. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Legendary scientist Albert Einstein (played here by Walter Matthau) takes a break from theoretical physics to try to set up his intellectual niece with a handsome auto mechanic in this romantic comedy. The movie's central conceit is that Einstein's brilliance extends to matters of the heart, allowing him to immediately sense that Ed Walters (Tim Robbins), a bright, lower-class mechanic obsessed with Popular Science Magazine, would be perfect for his niece Catherine (Meg Ryan). Unfortunately, Catherine is already engaged to a stiff Princeton man. In order to defeat Catherine's resistance, Uncle Albert decides to help Ed pretend to be a revolutionary scientist, a charade that inevitably leads to much farcical confusion. Einstein's scientist pals are portrayed as a Greek chorus of Catskills-style kibitzers, featuring such notable perfomers as Lou Jacobi as Kurt Godel and director Gene Saks as Boris Podolsky. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Kewpie-doll voiced Melanie Griffith does a sexed-up Nancy Drew turn in David Seltzer's adaptation of Susan Issacs' novel Shining Through. Set during World war II, Griffith plays Linda Voss, a spunky New York girl who applies for a job with international lawyer Ed Leland (Michael Douglas). Ed hires her immediately when he finds out that she speaks German fluently. The reason Ed is so interested in Linda's language skills is because Ed is an undercover OSS officer who needs a German translator. Their business relationship translates into love, but when America enters the war, Ed abandons his law practice to become a full-time spy. Utilizing Linda's charms, she travels to Berlin and infiltrates the Nazis as a domestic to try to discover information about "a bomb that can fly by itself." But Linda has personal as well as patriotic motives for agreeing to go undercover, since she has Jewish relatives in Berlin and wants to find out their whereabouts. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Dolly Parton and James Woods as the screen's hottest new romantic team? That's only one of several casting surprises in this romantic comedy. Shirlee Kenyon (Dolly Parton) has had enough of life in her small Arkansas town, not to mention her small-minded Arkansas boyfriend Steve (Michael Madsen). So she decides to head for the big city of Chicago, where she applies for a job as a receptionist at a talk radio station. However, she arrives at the studios just as the staff are frantically searching for the psychiatrist hired to host a call-in show for people seeking advice with their personal problems. Shirlee is put on the air by mistake, and, while she lacks a degree in psychology, she has common sense to spare, and her no-nonsense advice makes the show a hit. Soon "Doctor Shirlee" is the talk of the town, but reporter Jack Russell (James Woods) senses that she might not be all she's supposed to be. Jack does some investigating and finds out the truth about Shirlee, but by this time the two have met and he's fallen in love with her. Will Jack obey his responsibilities as a journalist, or follow his heart? Straight Talk's supporting cast includes filmmaker John Sayles, monologist Spalding Gray, actor and producer Griffin Dunne, and future Lois Lane Teri Hatcher. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Steve Martin stars in this remake of the 1950 Vincente Minnelli classic as shoe executive George Banks, whose happily married existence hits a bump when he greets his daughter Annie (Kimberly Williams), home from a semester studying in Europe. She tells her father that she is engaged to be married. When the shocked George asks to whom, she says his name is Bryan (George Newbern) and that he is an "independent communications consultant." George is even more shocked when he finds out what the wedding will cost (when George goes through the card file for invited wedding guests and is told someone is deceased, George chirps, "He died? That's great!"). As George is ignored during the mad preparations for the wedding, he wistfully looks back to all the good times he has had with Annie and sadly looks forward to the time when he loses his little girl. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

This little-known Robert DeNiro film is set several years after the war in Vietnam. DeNiro plays an unpredictably explosive war veteran, while Ed Harris co-stars as his army buddy, who's trying his best to forget his Vietnamese experiences by crawling into a bottle. While visiting Harris and Harris' sister Kathy Baker, DeNiro frightens both with his neurotic ramblings. Still, Baker is grateful that DeNiro's presence seems to be lifting Harris out of his deep funk. She encourages DeNiro to stay on for a while, thereby setting the stage for a blossoming romance. Baker has no way of knowing that Harris' depression has been brought about by the death of a wartime pal--a death he blames on DeNiro. Violence threatens to erupt at every turn in Jacknife, but the film refuses to play down to its audience by wallowing in the obvious. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After a big-time country singer (Dolly Parton) brags that she can turn anybody in to a country-singin' star, she's out to prove she can live up to her talk when she recruits a cab-driver (Sylvester Stallone) as a country singer. He's scheduled to sing at a big-time NYC country night club and Dolly puts her ample powers to work in preparing her protege. ~ All Movie Guide

In a casting twist, this remake of Arthur Penn's The Miracle Worker casts Patty Duke, who won an Oscar for her work as Helen Keller in the original, as Annie Sullivan, the woman who taught the deaf and blind Keller sign language. (In Penn's original, Sullivan was portrayed by Anne Bancroft.) The story, however remains the same; through perseverance and a bit of luck, Sullivan teaches Keller first to dress herself, then the sign-language alphabet, then finally the means of communication. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide