John Stockwell Movies

A seventeen year old screw up enters into a profitable partnership with a serious minded girl whose fiscally irresponsible mother may have just destroyed her chances of becoming a doctor in this romantic comedy starring Anton Yelchin, Eva Amurri, and Susan Sarandon. Dorian (Yelchin) is a rebellious teen from a wealthy background. Tired of bailing their son out of trouble time and again, Dorian's parents have finally decided to ship him off to live with his uncle for the summer. Once there, Dorian lands a job at a local water park and strikes up a friendship with the slightly older Grace (Amurri). The complete opposite of Dorian in everyway imaginable, Grace is a straight-A student who aspires to become a doctor, and who's spent the majority of the past six years looking after her little sister Taylor (Willa Holland) following their father's suicide. Grace's mother Rhonda (Sarandon) is a haggard force of nature who sees herself as a martyr for the sacrifices she's made to keep her family together after an earth-shaking tragedy, though in reality may have just cost Grace a future in medicine by taking out credit cards in the young girl's name and neglecting to make payments. In order to go to college Grace will need financial aid, but with numerous maxed out credit cards to her name that's next to impossible. Upon learning that she'll need to raise $12,000 in twelve weeks in order to cover tuition, Grace prepares to kiss her dreams for the future goodbye. Fate soon intervenes, however, when Dorian informs Grace that he's decided to deal pot in order to become financially independent from his parents. In order to turn a profit Dorian needs to expand his territory, and in order to expand his territory he'll need a car: Enter Grace. Realizing that she'll never make $12,000 in twelve weeks by working at the water park, Grace agrees to enter into a temporary partnership with Dorian. But while their business endeavor proves wildly profitable at first, things quickly start to unravel for the ambitious pot-dealers when Grace and Taylor discover a secret about their father's suicide, and Dorian summons the courage to tie up some loose ends from his distant past. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

While Bette faces the fact that Jodi may be moving out east, Tasha finds her military career and sexual identity clashing. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

Greed turns an idyllic vacation into a nightmare in this action drama. Jared Cole (Paul Walker) makes his living salvaging wreckage from ships off the coast of the Bahamas. He shares a rattle-trap trailer home with his girlfriend, Samantha "Sam" Nicholson (Jessica Alba), a shark expert who works at a nearby resort. While both are happy with their lives in the islands, Jared dreams of finding a major score and living the high life. One day, Jared and Sam are paid a visit by Bryce Dunn (Scott Caan), a childhood friend of Sam's who is now doing very well as a lawyer. Bryce and his girlfriend, Amanda (Ashley Scott), have come to the Bahamas for a few days of diving and fun, and Sam and Jared show them the waters while making use of his yacht. While diving with Sam, Bryce, and Amanda, Jared discovers the wreckage of a plane used to smuggle drugs, and thinks he may have found the big score he's always dreamed of. While Sam persuades Jared that the cargo is too risky to move, Bryce and Amanda think there's a fast buck to be made, and team up with Primo (Tyson Beckford), a local underground entrepreneur, to fence the contents of the plane. However, Bryce and Amanda have underestimated just how dangerous Primo and his henchmen can be, and now Sam and Jared must come to their rescue. Into the Blue was directed by John Stockwell, who previously took filmgoers to the seashore with the surfing drama Blue Crush. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The Romeo and Juliet story has been modernized to a high school setting previously, but this romance from director John Stockwell turns the tale inside out. Jay Hernandez stars as Carlos Nunez, a poor but athletically gifted Latino teenager who endures a two-hour bus ride every day from East L.A. to attend the posh, wealthy Pacific Palisades High School in Los Angeles on a football scholarship. A straight-A student, Carlos is focused and driven, but his future is cast in doubt when he becomes the flirtation target of spoiled, self-destructive bad girl Nicole Oakley (Kirsten Dunst), who's the daughter of a prominent congressman (Bruce Davison). When his friends, family, and even Nicole's own father oppose the romance for Carlos' sake, he chooses to ignore their advice and stubbornly pursues his relationship with Nicole, whose feelings grow from simple physical attraction to something much deeper. Crazy/beautiful is directed by writer, actor, and director John Stockwell, who also penned the same year's Rock Star. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Moral hypocrisy and the woes of America's public schools and educational system are the focus of Cheaters, which is based on a real-life 1995 cheating scandal at a Chicago high school. In a working class area of the city, teacher Dr. Gerald Plecki (Jeff Daniels) is desperate for his students to triumph at an upcoming academic decathlon against students of a more affluent high school across town. His desperation causes him to cast a blind eye when one of his students gets hold of a copy of the decathlon test -- and, thanks to their combined dedication to cheating -- the team wins the competition with the highest total score in state history. Of course, the score leads to suspicion on the part of Illinois officials, and the resulting scandal is accompanied by a media frenzy of monolithic proportions. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

This docudrama recaps the history of silicone breast implants, beginning in 1962 when idealistic Houston medical resident Kevin Saunders (David Schwimmer) gets an idea after seeing how women pad their bras. After he shares his notion with cosmetic pro Dr. William Larson (Chris Cooper), the two create a prosthetic breast from Dow-Corning's silicone gel. Approaching women on the street fails to bring volunteers, but a classified newspaper ad does the trick. As breast sizes increase, so do the doctors' bank accounts. However, physical problems emerge, followed by lawsuits, and the high life soon turns sour and grim. Filmed in LA, and Texas (Galveston, Houston), this TV movie premiered December 13, 1997 on HBO. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Oliver Stone, the most outspokenly political American filmmaker of the 1980s and '90s, directs this epic-length biography of Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the U.S., who was re-elected by a landslide in 1972, only to resign in disgrace two years later. Taking a non-linear approach, Nixon jumps back and forth between many different periods and events, from Nixon's strict upbringing at the hands of his Quaker mother, through the many peaks and valleys of his political career, to his downfall in the wake of the Watergate scandal. The facts of his life are blended with supposition and speculation to create a portrait that is often critical of the man's policies but displays an unexpected compassion toward his failings as a human being. Anthony Hopkins stars as Nixon, Joan Allen plays his long-suffering wife Pat, Mary Steenburgen portrays his mother Hannah, Bob Hoskins is cast as J. Edgar Hoover, Powers Boothe plays Alexander Haig, Paul Sorvino portrays Henry Kisinger, and Ed Harris plays E. Howard Hunt. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

TV star John Stamos makes a game transition to the big screen in Born to Ride. Stamos plays a motorcycle whiz, who in 1939 is assigned to motorize a US cavalry troop. His irreverence and slovenliness makes Stamos a pariah to his superior officer John Stockwell -- and just to complicate matters, both men are rivals for the affections of Teri Polo. All is forgiven during a desperate (and highly unlikely) mission to Spain, wherein Stamos uses his cycle skills to rescue a defecting Nazi scientist. As history, Born to Ride is a bust; as a vehicle for John Stamos, it has its points. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When a police officer is killed while investigating the drug trade at a South Carolina high school, his partner, Sheffield (David Neidorf), decides to get even. With the help of officers La Rue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Sgt. Irwin Lee (Barry Corbin), Sheffield goes undercover to discover the source of the deadly drugs. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

This comedy is set 15 years after the final nuclear holocaust and centers upon two fellows who have been stuck in their fathers' elaborate bomb shelter since the bombs began to fall. They had plenty of food, clothing (from the 1940s), and necessities, but their only entertainment was a huge set of pulp mystery novels by such writers as Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler. By the time the two young men, Phillip and Marlowe finally emerge from the shelter in 2010, they have become "hard-boiled" detectives. They manage to find an old car and head off down the ruined roads looking for action. Along the way, they see beautiful, but hard-as-nails blonde Miles Archer and pick her up. She ends up robbing them and abandoning them. In her haste, she drops a set of keys--the keys to the last nuclear warhead. Whoever holds them, holds the world in their hands and suddenly the young men find themselves pursued by assorted weirdos, including man-eating hippies, looking for the ultimate power. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Devil-may-care navy pilot Pete Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is sent to Miramar Naval Air Station for advanced training. Here he vies with Tom Kasansky (Val Kilmer) for the coveted "Top Gun" award. When not so occupied, Mitchell carries on a romance with civilian consultant Charlotte Blackwood (Kelly McGillis). Shaken up by the death of a friend, Mitchell loses the Top Gun honor to Kasansky. Worried that he may have lost his nerve, Mitchell is given a chance to redeem himself during a tense international crisis involving a crippled US vessel and a flock of predatory enemy planes. The story wasn't new in 1986, but Top Gun scored with audiences on the strength of its visuals, especially the vertigo-inducing aerial sequences. The film made more money than any other film in 1986 and even spawned a 1989 takeoff, Hot Shots. An Academy Award went to the Giogio Moroder-Tom Whitlock song "Take My Breath Away." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This bleak post-apocalyptic science fiction actioner substitutes a plague instead of a bomb as the reason for civilization's demise but the result is the same -- grizzly motorcycle gangs with a ton of gasoline to burn. In City Limits the older generation has been wiped out by the plague, and the younger generation lives in a state of anarchy in a world controlled by biker gangs. The gangs live by rules discovered in pre-apocalyptic comic books. Two rival biker gangs, the Clippers and the DAs, have taken to dividing up a city amongst themselves and live under a fragile truce. Utilizing a comic-strip version of medieval times, a code has been established for violations of the pact between the gangs -- competitive jousting or acts of reciprocal retaliation. When a person dies, like a post-Holocaust Viking funeral, he is cremated along with his motorcycle. But this shaky peace between the bike gangs is threatened when the fascistic Sunya Corporation attempts to take over the city with the cooperation of the DA bike gang. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

This second program of a three-part series closely examines the American Central Intelligence Agency's alleged attempts to gain control over foreign government. It reviews evidence that the CIA has taken part in assassination attempts, with special attention paid to the problems in Iran and various Central American countries. Since America publicly maintains that it never uses extreme tactics like assassination attempts, these charges leveled against the CIA will always remain highly controversial. The program is enhanced by scholars and government officials from around the world who continue to study this evidence in order to hold the U.S. accountable for all of its activities abroad. ~ Elizabeth Smith, All Movie Guide