Deran Sarafian Movies

Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) assigns House (Hugh Laurie) to treat John Kelley (Marc Blucas), an Iraq war veteran who may or may not be suffering from Gulf War Syndrome--and who happens to be the nephew of one of the clinic's biggest donors. This proves to be a major freak-out for House: He's been having a recurring nightmare in which the principal character is a Marine who looks just like Kelley! As if this wasn't enough for him to worry about, House's leg pains are getting worse by the hour. Meanwhile, Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) and Chase (Jesse Spencer) are caught in the act while engaging in "uncomplicated sex". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Using and abusing his power as a police detective, Tritter (David Morse) continues harrassing the clinic staffers in his efforts to nail House (Hugh Laurie) on drug charges. In Tritter's latest strategy, he offers to cut a deal for the first person who rats on House--and it looks like Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) may take the bait. Despite his own legal woes, House takes a divorced couple to court to force them to approve treatment for their 6-year-old daughter Alice (Alyssa Shafer), who is suffering from pancreitis. Having had his Vicodin supply radically curtailed by Dr. Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein), House is fiendishly delighted when the court remands Alice to Cuddy's custody! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the conclusion of a two-part story, Foreman (Omar Epps) has begun suffering the same symptoms as wounded police officer Joe Lauria (Scott Michael Campbell), who after being seized by uncontrollable laughter suddenly went blind. . .and just as suddenly died. As Foreman's condition worsens, a desperate House (Hugh Laurie) must rely upon his pet rat to find the source of Joe's fatal euphoria by rummaging through the dead cop's filthy apartment. In the midst of this crisis, Foreman's father Rodney (guest star Charles S. Dutton) shows up to be with his son in his final moments--leading to a bitter quarrel over religious values, even as Foreman is on the brink of death! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Season three of House begins eight weeks after Dr. Greg House (Hugh Laurie) was shot down by the disgruntled husband of a clinic patient. Fresh out of rehab, House no longer needs the cane which has propped him up since the beginning of the series, and thanks to his new Ketamine medication he no longer suffers any pain at all--as proven when we see him jogging to the clinic, where he willingly takes charge of a mute, quadrapegic cancer victim (Edward Edwards) who has driven his wheelchair into a swimming pool. This is not the House we are accustomed to: Where's his anger, his resentment of his patients, his arrogant disdain of his fellow workers? And how long will it be before the pain resumes and House reverts to his usual nasty self? As these questions linger in the air, the clinic staff tends to another victim of paralysis (Claire Kramer), who may have incurred spinal damage in a yoga mishap! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

At the height of a meningitis outbreak, House (Hugh Laurie) must figure out how to properly treat a 12-year-old girl (Skye McCole Bartusiak) who has all the symptoms of the disease, but not the disease itself. Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) insists that House has no time for individual treatment of any patient, but that doesn't stop him from taking stabs at several diagnoses--each one more inaccurate than the last, and all because the girl won't tell him the whole truth. Meanwhile, Cuddy seeks a replacement for the departed Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), but the prospects are a pathetic lot indeed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The third entry in executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer's "CSI" (Crime Scene Investigation) franchise, CSI: NY was introduced as "MIA/NYC," the May 17, 2004, episode of CSI: Miami. Making its formal weekly CBS debut on September 22 of that same year, the new series starred Gary Sinise as Mac Taylor, head of the New York City crime lab, whose job it was to use the skimpiest of forensic evidence to track down murderers. A Chicago native, Mac had gotten his police job as the result of his bravery under fire as a U.S. Marine; and like most of major CSI characters, he harbored quite a few personal demons, most of them stemming from the death of his wife in the Twin Towers on 9/11. Taylor's team of forensic specialists included Stella Bonasera (Melina Kanakaredes), an outspoken female cop who'd pulled herself up from a murky background (she'd been an orphan raised by strangers) and was the most caustic and outspoken of the CSIers; Don Flack (Eddie Cahill), Yonkers-born scion of a family of cops, who effectively bridged the gap between traditional and modern police methods and wasn't above bending the rules; Mac's protégé Danny Messer (Carmine Giovinazzo), who grew up in Staten Island as part of a suspected (and constantly under-surveillance) crime family, but who'd decided to operate on the right side of the law -- albeit on his own terms; Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Sheldon Hawkes (Hill Harper), a Harlem native who'd graduated from college at 18 and became a licensed surgeon at 24, but who felt out of place in the rarefied world of commercial medicine and opted for police work instead; and flirtatious, streetwise forensic analyst Aidan Burn (Vanessa Ferlito). The theme music for CSI: NY was that old favorite by The Who, "Baba O'Reilly." The series was created by Anthony Zuiker, Ann Donahoue, and Carol Mendelsohn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A chartered bus transporting a group of female convicts turns out to have another "passenger" when a severed arm flies out from under the vehicle. In the ensuing investigation, the mangled body of a woman is found tied to the undercarriage of the bus. At first, it appears that the woman was the victim of a bungled escape attempt, but the CSI members are soon led down a different trail of evidence. Elsewhere, a gambler finds himself on the business end of a knife, suffering one fatal wound in the front of his body, four in his back -- and all from the exact same angle of attack. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this made-for-cable action-drama, Oliver Sloan (Parker Stevenson) is the son of a Las Vegas resort magnate whose showplace hotel has just been given its grand re-opening. However, Sloan's board of directors is not happy with the hotel's profitability, and he knows he's about to be replaced. One evening, a fire breaks out on the 20th floor of the hotel; it soon becomes evident that the sprinkler systems in the hotel are not working, and Sloan begins to suspect that the fire did not happen by accident. Meanwhile, a number of guests are trapped as the fire rages out of control, including Jim (Meat Loaf), an engineer working for the hotel who tries to figure out a route to safety for himself and the guests, and Evans (William McNamara), a TV reporter who begins broadcasting live from the burning building. Trapped also features Callum Keith Rennie and Suki Kaiser. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Unable to slay a bad case of the flu, Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is admitted to the hospital. While sleeping, she has a dream about a tall dark creature with a young boy. The next day she discovers the same boy is a patient in the children's ward. He says the creature is Death and has killed many children. A more obvious culprit is the unorthodox Dr. Backer, but Buffy finds him dead. Meanwhile, Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) suspects that Jenny's (Robia La Morte) death might be causing Buffy to fabricate a creature to fight, but he soon uncovers the creature's identity as Der Kindestod, or "child death." Buffy reinfects herself with her fever to battle the monster because he can only be seen by those in the feverish state. It is also revealed that Buffy first encountered Der Kindestod as an eight-year-old when her cousin died in a hospital. ~ All Movie Guide

This film opens with a big fat close-up of a sweaty prisoner with a fly (on a string) crawling on his face. The prisoner quickly pops the fly in his mouth and spits it out. Then he leeringly laughs about it to the prisoner next door. Nope. This is not a bad undiscovered Sergio Leone spaghetti western. Rather it is the opening shot Deran Sarafin's Gunmen -- a brainless action film without an original thought in its head. Christopher Lambert is the fly-eater, a man named Dani Servigo, the brother of a dead smuggler and a prisoner in a South American jail, who holds the secret to the whereabouts of $400,000 in stolen drug money. The walls of the prison explode, and Cole Parker (Mario Van Pebbles) makes his entrance. Cole is a mercenary working with the DEA who is in this South American hellhole to mop up the drug traders and to avenge his father's death at the hands of the drug traders. He wants Dani to lead him to the gold. In this love-hate buddy film, the two thrown-together friends/enemies race through the Amazon jungle with ruthless assassins in pursuit, as they all gravitate towards the secret stash of money. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Party-hard skydiving teacher Ditch Brodie (Charlie Sheen) has a knack for getting himself into trouble, but his booze-babes-and-planes shenanigans hardly prepare him for an international plot that pits Brodie and a mysterious KGB agent against a post-Cold War Russian villain called Kerr (Chris McDonald) and an American heavy named Ben Pinkwater (James Gandolfini). Aerial set pieces alternate with tongue-in-cheek flirtation and conspiracy-theory suspense as Brodie meets a beautiful new student, Chris Morrow (Nastassja Kinski), then must try to explain to the authorities how he allowed her to fall out of a plane to her death. Soon Brodie -- on the run from both Kerr and the police -- begins to realize that in espionage, as in romance, often nothing is as it seems. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Canadian Mountie Louis Burke (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is assigned to a bizarre case where prison inmates are being murdered. Sent to the jail to investigate while undercover as a prisoner, Burke is hot on the trail until one of his former busts, the Sandman (Patrick Kilpatrick), is transferred to the same prison. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide