Jordan Kerner Movies

This historical drama, based on a true story, is set in Georgia in the mid-1800s. David Dickson (Sam Waterston) owns a large plantation, as well as a number of slaves who do the labor required to run it. Dickson finds himself attracted to one of his new slaves, a bright and willful teenager named Julia (Lisa Gay Hamilton); Dickson rapes Julia, and nine months later she gives birth to a daughter, Amanda. Amanda is fair-skinned and can pass for white, so Dickson raises her as his daughter without acknowledging Julia as the mother, fabricating a story that Amanda's mother died in childbirth. After Amanda (now played by Jennifer Beals) has grown to adulthood, Dickson dies, leaving his entire estate to her. However, Henry (Ron White), Dickson's younger brother, knows the truth about Amanda's heritage and questions the will in court; a high-minded lawyer named Charles Dubose (Tim Daly) agrees to represent Amanda in court as the sordid secrets of the Dickson family air in a public courtroom. Sam Waterston served as co-producer as well as male lead for A House Divided, which was produced for (and first aired by) the Showtime premium cable network. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Breaking Point is a TV remake of the 1965 theatrical feature 36 Hours. Corbin Bernsen plays a wartime US intelligence officer, who carries within him secrets of the upcoming D-Day invasion. Captured by the Germans, Bernsen refuses to buckle under torture, and passes out. He wakes up in an American Army Hospital, where he is told that he's been in a coma for seven years; it's 1951, and the Allies have won the war. So why not reveal those D-Day secrets he so fiercely protected back in 1944? Bernsen suspects that something is amiss, as indeed there is: It is still June of 1944, and this "American Army hospital" is smack-dab in the middle of Nazi Germany. Polish actress Joanna Pacula co-stars as an enigmatic nurse, who may turn out to be Bernsen's staunchest ally--or his executioner. Breaking Point first aired over the TNT cable service on August 18, 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this sequel to the kid-friendly sports comedy The Mighty Ducks, Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez) takes one more shot at a career as a professional hockey player, but a severe knee injury sidelines him for good. However, his success coaching a rag-tag pee-wee hockey team in Minneapolis (as chronicled in the first film) has attracted the attention of a major sportswear firm, which hires him to coach the United States team for the Junior Goodwill Games. Gordon reassembles most of the Mighty Ducks along with several new players, including a huge bully who is great on defense (if low on social skills), a figure skater who knows how to move on the ice, and a hotshot goalie who happens to be a girl. However, the excitement of a trip to Los Angeles and a large dose of overconfidence puts the team at a severe disadvantage when they're pitted against the top-ranked Icelandic team. D2: The Mighty Ducks features cameo appearances from hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, champion figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, whose athletic career has never involved ice skating. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Do You Know the Muffin Man? was the first of a brace of TV movies about day-care abuse (see also Unspeakable Acts). Pam Dawber and John Shea play the parents of a preschool child who comes home one day with horrible stories about the staff of his day care center. The owners of the center are two highly respected social pillars, who automatically deny all charges and accuse the parents of fabricating the whole thing. Despite the looming spectres of public ridicule and financial ruin, Dawber and Shea hire lawyers and pursue the case. Once the story switches to the courtroom, the emphasis shifts from the adult litigants to the prosecution's difficulties in coaxing the children to testify without inducing further damage. Do You Know the Muffin Man? is handled with care and discretion, though dramatically it covers more legal and emotional ground than its two-hour length can hold. ~ Hal Erickson, 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

Jay Ward's fondly-remembered cartoon series about a klutzy king of the jungle gets the big-screen, live-action treatment in this comedy from Walt Disney Pictures. A young boy named George becomes lost in the jungles of the African nation of Bukuvu following a plane crash, where he's rescued and raised to manhood by an articulate ape called Ape (voice of John Cleese). George grows to become a strapping adult (played by Brendan Fraser) who is cheerful and good-hearted but not terribly bright, not to mention his nasty habit of running into trees while swinging on vines from one part of the jungle to another. Ursula Stanhope (Leslie Mann), an heiress from San Francisco, travels to Bukuvu for a safari, both to satisfy her thirst for adventure and because she's trying to get away from the snooty Lyle Van Der Groot (Thomas Haden Church), whom she is engaged to marry even though she doesn't like him very much. Lyle follows Ursula to Bukuvu, hoping to catch up with her and locate the legendary White Ape of the Jungle; when Ursula becomes stranded and is rescued by George, Lyle is determined to rescue her from the savage ape man, even though George is a greater threat to himself than anyone else. George finds himself infatuated with the lovely Ursula, and he hopes to win her heart, even though he's a bit rusty on the particulars of the human courtship ritual (Ape tries to help by lending him a copy of "Coffee, Tea, or Me?"). We also get to meet George's faithful pet Shep, an elephant who seems to have gotten the idea that he's a Cocker Spaniel. Blaxploitation legend Richard Roundtree also appears as Bukuvu dignitary Kwame. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Set during the Watts riots of the mid-'60s, the made-for-cable Heat Wave follows the story of Los Angeles Times reporter Robert Richardson (Blair Underwood), who was the only journalist on staff able to cover the story, since White reporters were unable to gain access to the area and the rioters. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

This drama about affluent Los Angeles teens is taken from the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Clay (Andrew McCarthy) is a college freshman who returns home during Christmas break. Clay's old flame Blair (Jamie Gertz) is now more interested in her new beau Julian (Robert Downey, Jr.), the fun-loving party boy with a penchant for drugs. While Clay tries to rekindle a thing with Blair, Julian becomes addicted to cocaine and starts freebasing. Julian's friends try halfheartedly to intervene, with no success. Soon he is so far in debt to drug dealer Rip (James Spader) that Julian becomes a male prostitute, whoring for enough money for his next fix. Michael Bowen co-stars with Tony Bill and Nicholas Pryor in this trip into the seamy world of darkness in sunny California. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Diagnosed with terminal cancer, Chicago attorney Susan Morton (Nancy Travis) returns to her home town of California to wait out her final months. She also brings along her 11-year-old daughter Carson (Jamie Renee Smith), in hopes of finding a good home for the girl when the time comes. Unexpectedly, Susan falls in love with Michael Blake (Scott Bairstow), a much-younger busboy; alas, faced with the prospect of "instant" fatherhood, Michael breaks off the engagement. With nowhere else to turn, Susan entrusts Carson's future with her own elderly parents (James Karen, Holland Taylor)...and then Michael returns. Orginally telecast by ABC on January 25, 1999, My Last Love has since been rerun on the Lifetime cable channel as To Live For. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

For this TV movie, Bob Rafelson directed James Caan as famous shamus Philip Marlowe. The novel Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) was writing during the year of his death remained unfinished until it was completed 30 years later by Spenser author Robert Parker. The British-based, Czech-born screenwriter/playwright Tom Stoppard scripted this telefilm adaptation. In 1963, the middle-aged Marlowe has put on a few pounds and gained a new wife, wealthy heiress Laura (Dina Meyer). In Poodle Springs, California, on the Nevada border, the couple lives in a house given them by P.J. Parker (Joe Don Baker), Laura's father. Framed for murder, Marlowe is bailed out by Laura, and he's soon hired to locate a gambler who owes $100,000. Investigating lowlife photographer Larry Victor (David Keith), Marlowe learns of a blackmail plot involving stripper Lola (La Joy Farr); he follows a trail that leads to a land scheme, while corpses begin to litter the landscape. This was James Caan's first TV role since Brian's Song (1971, later released theatrically), and the whodunit premiered July 25, 1998 on HBO. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Three giants of early television--Milton Berle, Sid Caesar and Danny Thomas--combine their talents in the made-for-TV Side by Side. Berle and Caesar play a couple of 65-year-olds who've just been forcibly retired; Thomas portrays a widower, who's been aimless and lethargic since the death of his wife. The trio gains a new lease on life when they team up to manufacture a line of clothing exclusively designed for senior citizens. Their zeal intensifies when Berle's old boss Richard Klein spitefully develops a rival wardrobe line. Marjorie Lord, who'd played Danny Thomas' wife on TV in the late 1950s and early 1960s, is here cast as Sid Caesar's spouse. Side By Side first aired on March 6, 1988. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Two Oscar-winning actors add a family-oriented comedy to their resumes with this Disney-produced arctic adventure. Snow Dogs stars Cuba Gooding Jr. as Ted Brooks, a Florida-dwelling dentist with a successful chain of offices and a comfy, poolside lifestyle. All this changes, however, when he finds out that he was actually adopted as a child, and that his birth mother has died and left him an inheritance in her home state of Alaska, of all places. After arriving in the snow-bound clime, Ted learns that he has been willed a pack of cutely named sled dogs: Demon, Diesel, Dutchess, Nana, Mack, Scooper, Sniff, and Yodel. Problem is, the town's premiere sled-dogger, Thunder Jack (James Coburn), wants the pack for himself, and encourages Ted to go back to his tropical environs. But with a major sled-dog race looming, Ted's inspired to learn the ropes, as it were, and prove himself worthy of his birth mother's inheritance -- any way he can. Snow Dogs was directed by Jingle All the Way's Brian Levant and features some animatronic dog effects by Jim Henson's Creature Shop; the script was very loosely adapted from popular author Gary Paulsen's nonfiction book Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

This fill-in-the-blanks children's comedy from Disney was such a success that it spawned a number of fill-in-the-blanks sequels -- along with a real-life professional hockey team. The basic story -- outcast coach handles a team of outcast kids and turns them from losers into winners -- has been told in a number of films, including Wildcats, The Bad News Bears, Hoosiers, and Youngblood. Here the sport is hockey. Emilio Estevez is Gordon Bombay, a high-powered lawyer haunted by an incident from his past: while playing pee-wee league hockey as a child, young Gordon missed a crucial shot in the state finals game, invoking the wrath of his coach, Mr. Reilly (Lane Smith). When Gordon is arrested for drunk driving, the judge orders him to take a leave of absence and coach a hockey team of misfit kids. At first, Gordon treats the coaching job with contempt. But when his team loses to a team led by his old coach Reilly, the fire under Gordon is lit. Inspired, he leads his team on a mission to succeed. The team begins to win games and soon they are ready to face Reilly's team for the big championship game. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide