Kirk Cameron Movies

One of the most famous of all ABC Afterschool Specials, The Woman Who Willed a Miracle is the true story of two remarkable people. Cloris Leachman stars as middle-aged Wisconsin nurse May Lemke, who adopts a six-month-old boy named Leslie and brings him into her family. Abandoned as an infant, Leslie is blind, severely retarded, and suffers from cerebral palsy. Against all odds, May raises Leslie in as "normal" a manner as possible, teaching him to dress and feed himself. Unfortunately, she is unable to get him to speak or respond to intellectual stimuli -- until, at age 16, Leslie (played as a teenager by Leif Green) listens to a televised classical-music concert, sits down at the family piano, and replays the entire concert from memory, every note to perfection! Remaining sightless, mentally challenged, and essentially nonverbal, Leslie gains worldwide fame as the quintessential "savant," flawlessly playing complicated piano compositions and singing along as he goes...with the recorded works of his musical idol Liberace as his primary inspiration. The winner of several Emmys and innumerable other industry awards, The Woman Who Willed a Miracle was executive produced by Dick Clark. ~ All Movie Guide

Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer: More Than Murder was first telecast January 26, 1984, two days before the premiere of the Mike Hammer series proper. Stacy Keach stars as Spillane's bare-knuckled, chain-smoking private eye, with Lindsay Bloom costarring as his curvaceous secretary Velda. In More Than Murder, Mike's longtime friendly enemy, police captain Chambers (Don Stroud), is wounded during a drug-bust at a poker game. Circumstantial evidence suggests that Chambers himself was in cahoots with the dope dealers. It's up to Mike Hammer to get his longtime antagonist off the hook. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Small-town banker Robin Williams has never been able to live down the fact that he dropped an important pass during a crucial high-school football game. Likewise tainted for life is the team's star quarterback Kurt Russell, now a garage owner. Fed up with living his life under a cloud, Williams hits upon a brilliant idea: he will stage a rematch-13 years after the fact--with the members of the rival team. Trouble beckons when Williams' father-in-law announces that he's rooting for the opposition. Williams is determined to win, and in pursuit of that goal he pushes his former teammates to hitherto untapped brilliance. Directed by Roger Spottiswood, The Best of Times was written by Ron Shelton, future writer/director of such delightful sports films as Bull Durham, White Men Can't Jump and Tin Cup; it was Shelton, in fact, who directed most of Best of Times' climactic football game. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Laid-back psychiatrist Jason Seaver (Alan Thicke) is still conducting his business from his Long Island home as Growing Pains launches its second season, but Jason's wife Maggie undergoes a radical change of scenery when she leaves her job at the "Long Island Herald" behind to accept a post as TV reporter for local outlet Channel 19 -- appearing under her maiden name, Maggie Malone. The season opens with what must have once been a carved-in-stone requirement on TV sitcoms: a family vacation to Hawaii (taped on location on the island of Maui), which of course is plagued with all sorts of farcical misfortunes. In another standard-issue TV comedy device, the later two-part episode "The Obscure Objects of Our Desire" uses a spring-housecleaning session as an excuse for an economical "clip show," featuring highlights from seasons one and two. And still another two-parter "How the West Was Won," serves as a springboard for Growing Pains recurring character Coach Lubbock's (Bill Kirchenbauer) new spin-off sitcom Just the Ten of Us, introducing several of that series' future regulars. On the "Look who that is!" guest-star scene this season, Heather Graham shows up as Cindy, one of Mike Seaver's (Kirk Cameron) fellow students; Brad Pitt plays transfer student Jeffrey, for whom Mike's sister Carol (Tracey Gold) briefly ditches her erstwhile boyfriend Bobby (Kevin Gerard Wixted). And Gilligan's Island alumnus Alan Hale Jr. is seen as a mysterious cabdriver in a fantasy episode wherein youngest Seaver kid Ben (Jeremy Miller) imagines that he has been replaced in his own home by another Ben Seaver. Season three concludes with Mike graduating from high school -- and a disgruntled Carol losing a long-standing bet that he'd never make it! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The number of children in the Seaver family increases from three to four in season four of Growing Pains, as mom Maggie (Joanna Kerns) takes a brief leave from her TV reporting job to deliver a baby daughter named Chrissy (played by twin infants Kirsten and Kelsey Dohring). While Maggie's hubby Jason (Alan Thicke) and older children Mike (Kirk Cameron) and Carol (Tracey Gold) are delighted with this new arrival, youngest son Ben (Jeremy Miller) is put out that Chrissy had the bad timing to arrive on his own birthday. Elsewhere this season, Mike begins attending junior college, in the process moving out of the Seaver house -- and into the apartment just above the family's garage. He has good reason to stick around -- his parents have hired pretty 19-year-old Julie Costello (Julie McCullough) as Chrissy's nanny. Another character introduced this season is Jason's widowed mother, Irma (Jane Powell), who has become engaged to a guy named Wally (Robert Rockwell) -- a fact that Jason takes some time getting used to, especially since his father has been dead for only a year. Later on, the vivacious Irma has a memorable run-in with Maggie's more conservative parents Ed (Gordon Jump) and Kate (Betty McGuire). Guest stars during season four include Kirk Cameron's real-life sister Candace Cameron, somewhat ironically cast as Ben's party date; Jenny Lewis, as another of Ben's female acquaintance; Matthew Perry as a good-looking high-schooler whom Carol briefly falls for -- and who is ultimately involved in a tragic drunk driving accident; and Brad Pitt, who'd guested as another student a few seasons earlier, this time playing Ben's rock star idol Jonathan Keith in the appropriately titled episode "Feet of Clay." Closing the season is the two-parter "The Looove Boat," wherein the family attends Irma and Wally's marriage on an ocean cruise, an event that ends with a considerable amount of chaos -- and on a more upbeat note, with Mike proposing to Julie Costello. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A college debate team heads to Washington to argue the abortion issue in front of the Supreme Court. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Happy Birthday, Bugs: 50 Looney Years is a television special celebrating 50 years of Bugs Bunny cartoons, complete with testimonials from various celebrities and a terrific end-piece "50 Years of Bugs in 3 Minutes," which features a manic collection of highlights compiled by Academy Award-winner Chuck Workman (he won for his animated short, Precious Images). ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

A new production staff is at the helm as Growing Pains launches its seventh and final season. The most significant development this year occurs when aspiring actor Mike Seaver (Kirk Cameron) returns to his family's Long Island home accompanied by 15-year-old homeless youngster Luke Brower, played by none other than Leonardo DiCaprio). Mike had met Luke while temporarily teaching at the inner-city Community Health Center, and felt that the boy could benefit by living in a loving and supportive family situation. Luke does his best to fit in with the Seavers, but he has serious honesty and behavior issues to deal with -- not to mention the unexpected return of his irresponsible father, George (Gary Grubbs). Mike himself has managed to land a role on the daytime soap opera "Big City Secrets," somewhat justifying his decision to pursue a show-business career to his doubting parents Jason (Alan Thicke and Maggie (Joanna Kerns) -- even though his TV character, "Strong Waverly," spends most of his time in a coma with no lines to speak. As for the other Seaver youngsters, 7-year-old Chrissy (Ashley Johnson) is now regularly attending school, making an effort to follow the rather dubious social and academic advice dispensed by her 16-year-old brother Ben (Jeremy Miller). Meanwhile, oldest daughter Carol takes leave of Columbia University to study abroad in London. This plot development was necessitated by the ongoing serious health problems of actress Tracey Gold, whose battle with anorexia had forced her to drop out of the series. Both Carol and Gold's absence were touchingly acknowledged in an episode wherein Ben cheers up his absent sister by sending her a family video that he has filmed. Of the season's guest stars, special attention should be paid to the actress playing the haughty Sasha Serotsky in the episode "Menage a Luke." Yes, it is Hilary Swank, long before either one of her two Oscar-winning film performances. The series ends with the two-part "The Last Picture Show," as the Seaver family prepares to move to Washington so that Maggie can accept a job as media-relations director for a prominent senator -- and in what is almost an afterthought, Mike finally proposes to his erstwhile girlfriend Kate Malone. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Christmas-oriented TV-movie centers upon two teenaged orphans, Will (Kirk Cameron) and Violet Jenny Robertson. Both would like a family of their own, so Will abducts neglected or abused children in the dark of night. When they awaken, Will tells them they've died and gone to heaven. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Kirk Cameron stars in this made-for-television remake of the 1970 movie. Cameron stars as Dexter Riley, an under-average college student whose brain gets filled with the information from a super computer. He uses his newly found wisdom to sweep some college quiz tournaments, much to the chagrin of his suspicious competitors. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide

In the Holy Bible, the Book of Revelations speaks of an event called "The Rapture," in which it is believed God will call those who have been saved to Heaven, while those who have not repented their sins will remain on Earth. Authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins have written a series of novels based upon the premise of how the Rapture would affect ordinary people in the modern world, and Left Behind is the first feature film to be adapted from their work. Rayford Steele (Brad Johnson) is an airline pilot whose relationship with his wife has gone sour; she responds by devoting more of her time and energy to the church, while he ponders having an affair with an attractive flight attendant, Hattie Durham (Chelsea Noble). In the midst of a flight to London, a number of their passengers mysteriously disappear, and chaos takes hold as a number of vehicles on the ground and in the air are suddenly unmanned. Meanwhile, Buck Williams (Kirk Cameron), a television journalist, is pondering the rash of sudden disappearances as he works on a report about Dr. Chaim Rosenzweig (Colin Fox), an Israeli scientist who has devised a formula that would make any soil on earth easy to cultivate. However, Cameron wonders if there's more to Rosenzweig than he first imagined when he discovers the doctor is in cahoots with two multi-millionaires who plan to broker the invention to promote their own agenda of international domination. Produced by Cloud Ten Productions, a Christian filmmaking concern, Left Behind was released with an unusual marketing strategy -- the film was made available on home video in October 2000, with a theatrical release scheduled to follow in February 2001. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide