Barry Corbin Movies
Actor Barry Corbin may be best remembered for portraying Maurice Minnifield, the blustery but good-hearted ex-astronaut and entrepreneurial owner of Cicely, Alaska, in the popular TV show Northern Exposure (1990-95). Prior to that, he worked steadily on stage, screen and television since the mid '70s. With his stocky build and big voice, the Texas native is noted for his portrayals of policemen, soldiers, and father figures. He received formal training in theater at Texas Tech, and, after spending two years in the Marines, Corbin returned home and began acting in regional theater. He later went to New York where he worked on and off Broadway. He moved to L.A. in 1977 where he began writing radio plays for National Public Radio. In 1980 Corbin began his feature-film career, appearing in three popular films: Any Which Way You Can, Stir Crazy, and Urban Cowboy. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Hell hath no fury like a football fan scorned in this sport-oriented comedy. The city of Quimby Falls is already going downhill when the owner of the local professional football team, the Buzzards, decides to bail out of the sinking ship and move the franchise elsewhere. But the team's most loyal fan, Charlie Atwater (Edward Asner) -- who even led a marching band to play at the Buzzards' home games -- refuses to take this lying down. After patiently waiting for seven years for the team to return, he decides that it's time to take drastic action. Charlie and his buddies decide to kidnap the team's owner (Barry Corbin) in order for force him to bring the Buzzards back to Quimby Falls. The kidnapping proves disastrous, so they decide to take a slightly different approach and instead abduct the team's quarterback, Fly Walker (Mark Curry). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1998
This TV sitcom series centers around Denver advertising man Jack McLaren (Tom Selleck), such a powerhouse that he's nicknamed "The Legend." In the opening episode, his agency's biggest client is the U.S. Army, but after Jack beats the President of the United States on the golf course, he's out of a job the same week he's being divorced by his wife (Joanna Kerns). Turning down a competitor's offer, Jack snaps back into action with his own agency, assembling his team of veteran creative director Carl Dobson (Ed Asner), geeky copywriter Bruno (David Krumholtz), sharp-talking secretary Beverly (Suzy Nakamura), and Ivy League accountant Erica (Penelope Ann Miller). Meanwhile, he has to deal with his daughter Alex (Hedy Burress), who wants to drop out of college. Filmed in Burbank, the series began February 23, 1998 on CBS. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Selleck, Ed Asner, (more)
- 1998
Drew (Drew Carey) plans to make his proposal to Nicki official when he meets her parents (Barry Corbin, Anne Francis); unfortunately, Nicki is unable to show up. A bad situation proceeds to get worse when the parents blame Drew for Nicki's enormous weight gain--then begin sniping at each other for the failures in their own marriage! Meanwhile, a neurotic Lewis (Ryan Stiles) creates a roadblock in the romance between Kate (Christa Miller) and Oswald (Diedrich Bader). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1998
Drew (Drew Carey) astonishes his friends when he accepts a wedding invitation from his ex-girl friend Nicki (Kate Fifer), who is slated to be married on a boat in the middle of Lake Erie. To prove that he has gotten over Nicki (which he hasn't), Drew impulsively invites a video-store clerk named Margaret (Jana Marie Hupp) as his guest, then makes an elaborate display of indifference towards Nicki's nuptuals, saying in effect that "time and beer heal all wounds." Inevitably, Drew makes a complete jackass out of himself during the ceremony, with a climactic emergency helicopter trip capping his humiliation. And back on dry land, Oswald (Diedrich Bader) and Lewis (Ryan Stiles) come to the conclusion that offering Buzz Beer in little parafin bottles was not the brightest promotional stunt ever hatched. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Rural Wyoming is the setting for this made-for-cable romantic drama with ribald comic overtones. It has been two years since the husband of young Dr. Garnet Hadley (Penelope Ann Miller) was killed by a wild bull, but Garnet is still in love with her deceased soulmate and has no intention of remarrying. This doesn't stop Garnet's overbearing father-in-law Mike (Barry Corbin) from trying to match her up with every eligible bachelor in the county--most of whom are textbook examples of the word "loser." Finally, Mike resorts to extortion, using financial pressure to force Garnet to attend an upcoming country centennial fair with a male escort. Aided and abetted by her best friend Jill (Barbara Gates), Garnet tries to pull the wool over Mike's eyes by hiring Jill's brother, aspiring composer Bryan (Brett Cullen), to pose as her lover--even going so far as to stage a bedroom scene to convince Mike to mind his own business (nothing really happens, of course, but it sure looks convincing!) The fun really begins when Jenny (Allison Hossack), the long-distance girlfriend of Brett, shows up at the fair, just as Brett has begun to fall in love with his cardboard sweetie. Originally pitched as a theatrical feature (undoubtedly with bigger "names" in the cast), The Hired Heart made its Lifetime network bow on October 13, 1997. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1996
In this low-budget screwball-mystery, the death of an L.A. woman leads to a surreal murder investigation on the outer fringes of la-la land. When Molly McMannis (Justine Bateman) turns up dead, still impaled with the murder weapon -- a carrot -- the police launch a probe into the colorful world Molly inhabited. The suspects range from her ex-con brother to her roommate to her high-strung friend (Heather Graham). But a more likely culprit lurks among the ranks of a therapy group full of off-the-wall serial killers and the shrinks who coddle them. The fetishistic police detectives -- including sadistic interrogator Angela Pierce (Jill Hennessy) -- prove as disturbing as the people they're investigating. In fact, their unorthodox procedures leave the door open for the killer to strike again. Written, produced, and directed by Jordan Alan, who previously helmed the similarly offbeat Love and Happiness, Kiss and Tell features a who's who of obscure and indie Hollywood talent, including veteran actor Lewis Arquette and his three famous sons. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Howitt, Daniel Craig, (more)
In this dark comedy, a woman fascinated with crime has an unexpected brush with a famous murderer's handiwork. Gabriela (Angela Jones) is a Colombian immigrant living in Miami who has been fascinated with violent death since she saw a falling corpse pass by her window as a child. Today she works for a cleaning service that specializes in mopping up the blood, gore, and bone fragments left behind at crime scenes, and she is tickled to discover one day that she's cleaning up after an execution by her favorite at-large serial murderer, The Blue Blood Killer (William Baldwin), so named because his victims are all wealthy women. But Gabriela doesn't know that the killer is still in the building; he managed to lock himself in the wine cellar while trying to escape, and he is slowly trying to remove the bolts from its lock while Gabriela makes the place livable again. However, while cleaning, she discovers a piece of evidence that could confirm the identity of the killer, just as he's about to emerge from the cellar. Curdled is an expanded version of a short film that director Reb Braddock made in 1991; the short inspired one of the episodes in Quentin Tarantino's film Pulp Fiction, and Tarantino in turn helped produce this feature-length remake, as well as making a cameo appearance. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Baldwin, Angela Jones, (more)
The American military-industrial complex has a blueprint for the perfect mechanical soldier. Unfortunately, the prototype, Solo (Mario Van Peebles), has responded appropriately to his programming (which requires him to reason things out on his own), with results that the designers didn't anticipate and don't like. For one thing, he objects to killing innocent bystanders. Already one of their covert operations has been ruined by his scruples. The manufacturers have given orders that he is to be taken back to the lab and reprogrammed. Now on the run from his makers, he comes to a village of oppressed peasants and teaches them how to fight back successfully in a sequence which harkens to the classic The Seven Samurai.
~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mario Van Peebles, Barry Corbin, (more)
- 1996
The life of teenager Eric Sutter (Nick Stahl) is forever changed for the worse when he is arrested for attacking a neighbor woman with a knife--the case being "sealed" when the victim positively I.D.s the hapless Eric, who has harbored a crush on the woman for months. Anxious for a conviction, the police use only the evidence that will bolster their case in prosecuting Eric, while the media has a field day stirring up public resentment against the boy. Too, Eric's surly, rebellious attitude seems calculated to tighten the noose around his neck. Only Eric's mother Margaret (Marilu Henner)and her loyal boyfriend David (Matt McCoy) believe in the boy's innocence, and together they tirelessly fight for justice against all odds. Originally broadcast by ABC, the fact-based My Son is Innocent first aired May 6, 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1995
In order to coerce Murphy (Candice Bergen) into working on a searing expose of a powerful software CEO, weaselly Andrew Lansing (Paul Reubens) leaks some "hot" information about the subject of the expose to Frank (Joe Regalbuto). Thus, though Murphy had originally resisted participating in the story, she now demands the opportunity. There's only one problem: The aforementioned software mogul has just purchased the network! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Millstone is the all-too-appropriate name of the Texas hometown of sophisticated career woman Martha (Loni Anderson). No sooner has Martha returned home after a 15-year absence than she witnesses a murder. Relating this information to her sisters, Martha is confused by their reaction. Only when it is nearly too late does the truth come out: The killer is Martha's own brother-in-law Eddie (Greg Evigan). This shock from the present only serves to dredge up long-buried secrets from the heroine's past--hence the title of this made-for-TV melodrama. First telecast by NBC on December 14, 1995, Deadly Family Secrets was based on Franklin Coen's novel Vinegar Hill--and also bears eerie echoes of the 1951 Ginger Rogers theatrical-movie vehicle Storm Warning. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The sixth and final season of Northern Exposure opens with the typically self-reflective "Dinner at Seven-Thirsty," in which Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow), New York-born doctor of the Alaskan village of Cicely, envisions what life might have been like had he never left home. In a similar inward-looking vein, "The Letter" allows local mail pilot Maggie O'Donnell (Janine Turner) to contrast the dreams and desires that she'd had at age 15 with the realities of her early thirties. And just when you think that things can't get any funkier, Satan himself shows up in the guise of a whirlpool salesman (Charles Martin Smith) in the episode "The Robe," and "Zarya" finds the regular cast members assuming the roles of certain people living Russia at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution. Of special importance is the fact that, after six years of verbal sparring, Joel and Maggie have finally realized that they love each other. In fact, they briefly move in together, but when Maggie registers a protest about Joel's obsessive-compulsive traits, the temperamental doctor leaves Cicely and is assimilated into a nearby Eskimo tribe. At this point, Rob Morrow is no longer a series regular, and Cicely's premier entrepreneur, Maurice Minnifield (Barry Corbin), is compelled to send for a New town doctor, Dr. Philip Capra (Paul Provenza), who sets up camp in town in the company of his journalist wife, Michelle (Teri Polo). Joel Fleischman makes his final appearance in yet another "cosmic" episode, in which he and Maggie take a journey of the mind to the strange land of Keewaa Anni (which looks curiously familiar to both Joel and the audience!). As the series approaches its finale, Maggie is elected mayor of Cicely, and Maurice finally pops the question to his female counterpart, tough-talking Officer Barbara Semanski (Diane Delano). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rob Morrow, Janine Turner, (more)
This made-for-TV thriller was based on Robin Cook's bestseller Outbreak, but had to be retitled to avoid conflict with a similarly plotted theatrical feature of the same name (which in fact had been conceived long after Cook's novel hit the stands in 1987). Somewhere, somehow, someone has released a rare and deadly African ebola virus into the United States, apparently for the purpose of devastating major cities with death and disease. In her efforts to track down the root cause of this virus, fearless female medical researcher Marissa Blumenthal (Nicollette Sheridan) uncovers a sinister conspiracy that may involve her own colleagues--and in so doing, all but signs her own death warrant. First aired by NBC on May 8, 1995, Robin Cook's Virus has since been rebroadcast on cable TV under the title Robin Cook's Formula for Death, thereby distancing itself even farther from Outbreak (but not from another Cook novel called Coma, vestiges of which can be discerned in the plotline of this film!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nicollette Sheridan, William Devane, (more)
The opening episode of Northern Exposure's fifth season is even more surrealistic than usual, which is saying quite a lot considering the quirky goings on in the Alaskan village of Cicely. Said opener is "Three Doctors," in which the town's New York-bred doctor, Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow), aspiring Native American filmmaker Ed Chigliak (Darren E. Burrows), and newlywed Shelly Tambo-Vincoeur (Cynthia Geary) find themselves enmeshed in a cosmic game of hide and seek. Other memorable season five episodes include "Jaws of Life," in which everyone's nerves are on edge in anticipation of the annual visit by the dentist (Jay O. Sanders); "A River Doesn't Run Through It," wherein sexy 31-year-old mail pilot Maggie O'Donnell (Janine Turner) is asked to be the local high school's homecoming queen (and as a bonus, one of the students is played by Jack Black!); "Rosebud," featuring director Peter Bogdanovich in a story built around Cicely's first film festival; and "A Cup of Joe," in which Shelly's husband, Holling (John Cullum), and storekeeper Ruth-Anne (Peg Phillips) discover that one of their grandparents ate the other one during the "Blizzard of '97." And there's more! The town's resident gay couple, Ron (Doug Ballard) and Erick (Don R. McManus) decide to get married; Shelly gives birth to a daughter named Miranda, who is promptly designated Cicely's 844th citizen; the whole town conspires to cure the redoubtable Walt Kupfer (Moultrie Patten) of his galloping depression; and in the season finale, "Lovers and Madmen," eternal outsider Joel finally resigns himself to the fact that he is a true Son of Cicely. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rob Morrow, Janine Turner, (more)
Season four of Northern Exposure dawns on the tiny Alaskan village of Cicely and the eccentric residents living therein -- not to mention New York-born doctor Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow), still reluctantly working off his student loans as Cicely's general practitioner. The season opener, "Northwest Passages," finds local mail pilot Maggie O'Connell (Janine Turner) commiserating with the ghosts of her six deceased boyfriends, all of whom have met with bizarre but grimly amusing deaths. This episode is but a prologue for the season's main plot development: the introduction of Maggie's newest beau, former lawyer Mike Monroe (Anthony Edwards), who suffers from so many toxic allergies that he must live in a plastic biosphere, and can emerge from his cocoon only when wearing a secondhand astronaut suit. Viewers are, of course, prepared for Mike to become the latest victim of "Maggie's curse" -- but surprise of surprises, he is cured of his immunodeficiencies by Joel late in the season. Alas, it is at this point that Mike must leave Maggie for even greener pastures -- but not before delivering a curtain speech that gives us an indication of what The Grapes of Wrath might have sounded like had it been written by Al Gore! In other developments, Adam Ant essentially plays himself in the episode "Heroes"; Bob the Flying Man (Bill Irwin) takes another crack at winning the heart of Joel's taciturn Eskimo receptionist, Marilyn (Elaine Miles), in "On Your Own"; twentysomething Shelly Tambo (Cynthia Geary) finally marries sixtysomething tavern owner Holling Vincoeur (John Cullum), but not before a nasty run-in with Holling's obnoxious daughter, Jackie (Valerie Perrine), in "The Bad Seed"; "Crime and Punishment" finds local radio DJ Chris Danforth (John Corbett) being extradited to West Virginia for violating parole; in "Revelations," the friendship between town entrepreneur Maurice Minnifield (Barry Corbin) and shopkeeper Ruth-Anne Miller (Peg Phillips) nearly comes to an end after she finally pays off the mortgage on her store; "Grosse Point, 48230" finds Joel being bribed into posing as Maggie's boyfriend during her visit to her family in Michigan; and in "Ill Wind," Joel and Maggie end all the suspense by "getting it together" under some very unusual circumstances. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rob Morrow, Janine Turner, (more)
- 1992
Northern Exposure was an unusually intelligent and witty hour-long comedy-drama set in a fictional Alaskan town that is filled with a quirky ensemble of residents. In this memorable episode, independent-minded but neurotic pilot Maggie O'Connell, who seems to be romantically cursed to have all of her lovers each die in a bizarre way, is freaked out about her upcoming 30th birthday. Her dead lovers weigh heavily upon her mind and she decides that the best way to deal with it is to head out into the wilderness and celebrate with a ritual. Meanwhile, back in town, laid-back, taciturn Marilyn, the Native American receptionist of Dr. Fleischman, wants to learn to drive. Loquacious, pseudo-intellectual deejay Chris decides to teach her, while pompous town autocrat and former astronaut Maurice drives everyone crazy trying to write his memoirs. Displaced New Yorker Doctor Fleischman gets involved when he figures out that part of the reason that Maggie has been so upset has to do with an appendicitis. Sure enough, out in the wilderness, she succumbs, and in her delirium has a strange picnic with all her dead amores, including Rick who died when a satellite fell upon his head. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
John Hughes strip-mines familiar terrain -- in this case his own past successes -- in this comedy that Hughes produced and scripted, directed by Bryan Gordon. Frank Whaley stars as Jim Dodge, a 21-year-old con-man who goes from job to job but likes to put on a facade of success. As Career Opportunities begins, he has just been fired from another job and has been hired by the local Target store manager (played by an un-credited John Candy) as the night cleanup boy. After the manager locks Jim in the store overnight, he goes on a binge -- playing with the skates, eating candy, watching television, and blasting the stereos. But then Jim discovers that he is not the only person in the store. Also there is rich girl Josie McClellan (Jennifer Connelly) who is spending the night in the store to get her father worried about her. Although Jim knew Josie in high school, when Josie wouldn't even give him the time of day, here they click like two castanets and they romp around the store aisles to a pounding rock score. But just at the moment when Jim and Josie plan to run away together with the $52,000 Josie holds in her purse, two low-rent comic thieves -- Nestor Pyle (Dermot Mulroney) and Gil Kinney (Kieran Mulroney) -- break into the store and Jim and Josie decide to stick it out, saving the store from the bumbling crooks. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Whaley, Jennifer Connelly, (more)
After what amounted to a brace of "trial runs," the quirky seriocomic series Northern Exposure entered its third year on CBS with a full season's worth of episodes -- more than enough to thoroughly explore the mystical eccentricities of the citizens of Cicely, AK, and the constant bafflement of the town's premier "outsider," New York-bred doctor Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow). As season three begins, local mail pilot Maggie O'Connell (Janine Turner) is struggling to overcome the demise of her boyfriend Rick Pederson, the most recent victim of "Maggie's curse," whereby all of Ms. O'Connell's beaux meet bizarre and perversely amusing deaths. Elsewhere, Joel is kidnapped by mercurial hermit Adam (Adam Arkin) and his hypochondriac live-in girlfriend, Eve (Valerie Mahaffey) -- a crime that the rest of Cicely seems willing to overlook, inasmuch as Adam is a brilliant gourmet chef (later in the season, Adam and Eve are wed, and their nonplussed former "victim" Joel is among the guests). Also, Joel's taciturn Eskimo receptionist, Marilyn (Elaine Miles), falls in love with a traveling carnival mime (Bill Erwin), in an episode built around the talents of the amazing Cirque du Soleil troupe; Joel's now-widowed former fiancée (Jessica Lundy) pays a memorable visit; Maggie's slightly addled mom (Bibi Besch) drops in on her daughter -- and promptly burns down her house; and Bernard Stevens (Richard Cummings Jr.), enigmatic "doppelganger" of local radio DJ Chris Danforth (John Corbett), unexpectedly returns. Among the season's best episodes are "Jules et Joel," with Rob Morrow in a dual role; the multiple Emmy winner "Cicely," with virtually everyone in the cast playing their 1909 counterparts (who'd a thunk that Joel Fleischman might have been Frank Kafka in a previous life?); and the unforgettable "The Body in Question," in which the town gets all worked up over the discovery of an 18th century Frenchman whose corpse has been encased in ice for two centuries (yes, this is the "Frozen Pierre" story...remember?). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rob Morrow, Janine Turner, (more)
This well-wrought made-for-cable television western is faithfully adapted from a Louis L'Amour novel and centers on the budding relationship between brave but lonely widow (Katharine Ross) who runs a remote stagecoach way station and the handsome cowpoke (Sam Elliot) who comes to help her out. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sam Elliott, Katharine Ross, (more)
- 1991
This exciting chase-film originally aired on television and tells the true tale of the high-speed pursuit of a fleeing bank robber by a determined Denver policeman, and of the courageous local television news crew who captured it all on film and managed to play a big part in bringing the crook to justice. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
The overwhelmingly positive response (including a handful of Emmy nominations) to the first limited season of Northern Exposure in the summer of 1990 prompted CBS to commission seven more episodes, which were seen in the spring of 1991. In the eight months between the first batch of episodes and this new manifest, New York-born doctor Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow) had become accustomed to his enforced four-year stay in the miniscule Alaskan village of Cicely, though he still yearned to chuck it all and return to the Big Apple. In the course of season two, local air-transport pilot Maggie O'Connell endured the loss of another boyfriend to "Maggie's curse," whereby all of her past sweethearts had met with bizarre but mildly chucklesome deaths. In this instance, poor Rick Pederson (Grant Goodeve) was killed by a falling satellite. Tavern owner Holling Vicoeur (John Cullum) continued to postpone his promised wedding to his teenaged sweetie Shelly Tambo (Cynthia Geary), though he did reluctantly acquiesce to Shelly's insistence that he be circumcised. Maurice Minnifield (Barry Corbin), the ex-astronaut who owned Cicely, felt that his manhood was threatened when a gay couple, Ron Bantz (Doug Ballard) and Erick Hillman (Don R. McManus), purchased one of his choice real-estate lots; eventually, however, Maurice warmed up to his new tenants, especially when he discovered that he had much in common with them (except their sexual preferences, of course). And as quirky KBHR DJ Chris Danforth (John Corbett) persisted in trying to unravel the mysteries of his own past, Maurice's Native American assistant Ed Chigliak (Darren E. Burrows) contemplated what the future held for him. In addition to the aforementioned Doug Ballard and Don R. McManus, another semi-regular was added to the series: William J. White as Sam, the largely non-speaking cook at Holling's establishment. Still another, more prominent recurring character was introduced during season two: Diane Delano as brusque, officious state trooper Barbara Semanski, to whom Maurice was irresistibly attracted. Gathering an even bigger audience for its second complement of seven episodes than during its eight-week tryout in 1990, Northern Exposure was finally picked up by CBS for a full-season run that kicked off in the fall of 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rob Morrow, Janine Turner, (more)
