Cathy Moriarty Movies

Cathy Moriarty guest stars as Denise Eldridge, who demands that the SVU file statutory rape charges against Justin Sharp (Jon Foster), the 21-year-old boyfriend of Denise's 15-year-old daughter Carrie (Danielle Pannabaker). It soon becomes obvious that Denise is a neurotic control freak who will do anything to keep her daughter under her thumb--even if it means falsifying evidence to frame Justin. At the precise moment when the both the SVU and the audience are sick and tired of Denise, the woman turns up murdered. Having sided with Carrie because of her miserable experiences with her own overbearing mother, Benson (Mariska Hargitay) must now face the probability that the girl (or her boyfriend) is a murderer. Glenne Headley appears in a pivotal role as a prominent children's-rights attorney. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Disney's 1955 classic Lady and the Tramp is revisited in this new animated family video. The story finds Lady and Tramp the proud parents of a litter of pups that includes three well-behaved girls and one rambunctious boy puppy named Scamp (voiced by Scott Wolf). In search of adventure and a "real" dog life, Scamp strays far from home and meets the cute Angel (voiced by Alyssa Milano), Buster (voiced by Chazz Palminteri), and Buster's gang of Junkyard Dogs. Although he found the adventure he was looking for, Scamp finds his thoughts returning to home and the loved ones he left behind. ~ Jessica Frost, Rovi

In this crime thriller, Jason Chandler (Patrick Muldoon) is an FBI agent who is trying to hunt down a serial killer nicknamed "The Silencer" for his habit of cutting out the tongues of his victims. As Chandler tries to uncover the trail of "The Silencer," he is recruited for an elite FBI unit called the "Red Team," which is devoted solely to hunting down serial killers; however, the more Chandler studies their methods, the more he finds himself thinking the Red Team may be doing more harm than good. Chandler also finds himself developing a very non-professional relationship with his new partner, Stephanie Dobson (Cathy Moriarty). As Jason and Stephanie do research on The Silencer, they discover evidence that there's another unusual killer on the loose -- a multiple murderer who is targeting serial killers. Red Team was also released under the title The Crimson Code. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A child discovers a whole new world when he runs away from home in the family drama Prince Of Central Park. JJ (played by Frankie Nasso) is a boy living in New York with his foster mother (Cathy Moriarty). To say they don't get along is an understatement; one day JJ decides he's so tired of her abuse and tirades that he leaves his home for good, determined to make a home for himself in Central Park. JJ soon meets another resident of the park, an eccentric who calls himself the Guardian (Harvey Keitel); while the Guardian seems frightening at first, he soon proves to be a true friend to JJ. JJ also makes friends with Rebecca and Noah (Kathleen Turner and Danny Aiello), a couple who never entirely recovered from the death of their son several years ago. Rebecca and Noah take JJ under their wings, and JJ helps them come to terms with their loss. Prince Of Central Park was the first family film from the production company of Seagal/Nasso, co-founded by stone-faced action star Steven Seagal. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In this satire, parents who are worried that their children might not be walking the straight and narrow path discover a rehabilitation camp designed to curb alternative lifestyles. Megan (Natasha Lyonne), a high school student and member of the cheerleading squad, seems like an ordinary enough teenage girl, but her habit of honestly expressing herself and lack of romantic enthusiasm for her boyfriend convince her very repressed parents, Peter (Bud Cort) and Nancy (Mink Stole), that Megan is becoming a lesbian. So Megan is shipped off to True Directions, a camp for gay and gay-leaning teens, where Mary Brown (Cathy Moriarty) attempts to deprogram kids with homosexual tendencies. The first step in the process is to get each teen to admit to their homosexuality, which Megan is loath to do, since she doesn't believe she's a lesbian -- or at least she didn't think so before she met her new friend Graham (Clea DuVall), who seems quite sure that she likes girls. Meanwhile, Mary's son Rock (Eddie Cibrian) may be exempt from the camp's activities, but he turns more than a few heads among True Directions' male inmates. Noted female impersonator RuPaul appears as a camp guide, and Julie Delpy has a cameo as a "lipstick lesbian." ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Actor Timothy Hutton's directorial debut is set in rural New Hampshire of the mid-'60s. Divorced motel owner Mrs. Frankovitz (Cathy Moriarty) has two daughters -- Gwen (Mary Stuart Masterson), who is preoccupied with various boyfriends, and troubled 10-year-old Harriet (Evan Rachel Wood). One day Harriet finds a playmate -- retarded Ricky Schroth (Kevin Bacon) -- after the car driven by his terminally ill mother Leah (Marian Seldes) breaks down while taking him to be institutionalized. When Mrs. Frankovitz dies in an auto accident, Harriet has to take orders from Gwen (revealed to be Harriet's real mother), so Harriet tries to run away from home. Shown at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

The second film from writer/director James Mangold, the corruption drama Cop Land stars Sylvester Stallone as Freddy Heflin, the much-denigrated sheriff of tiny Garrison, NJ, a community which -- thanks to a technicality -- is populated almost entirely by members of the New York City Police Department. When young cop Murray "Superboy" Babitch (Michael Rapaport) becomes embroiled in a controversial shoot-out which leaves two black youths dead, he apparently commits suicide rather than face the wrath of an official investigation. In reality, however, he flees to safety back home in Garrison. In the wake of the controversial events, NYPD Internal Affairs lieutenant Moe Tilden (Robert De Niro) arrives in Garrison to uncover the truth, attempting to enlist Freddy to help watch the watchmen, including Superboy's uncle, veteran cop Ray Donlan (Harvey Keitel); coked-out Gary Figgis (Ray Liotta); and Joey Randone (Peter Berg), the husband of the woman (Annabella Sciorra) Freddy loved and lost. A rich, complex film about redemption, Cop Land's portrayal of Freddy's struggles to prove his worth mirrors Stallone's own return to thoughtful, character-driven drama after years of vacuous action roles. Like Freddy, he faces an uphill battle, fighting for respectability in the face of a superb cast including Janeane Garofalo, Cathy Moriarty, and Paul Calderon. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

Mick (Michael Raynor) and Lex (Nick Chinlund) are a pair of brothers who grew up in Harlem under circumstances that were difficult at best. Their mother Doreen (Cathy Moriarty) was a diabetic with a drinking problem and difficulty in saying no to men. While she wasn't a prostitute, she grew dependent on the little gifts her lovers would bring by, and as kids, Mick and Lex learned to accept this as the way things were. One night, Mick and Lex were taking a walk in the park when they were accosted by a cop who molested the younger Mick. Lex, older and strong as a grown man, attacked the cop, which led to a stay in a reform school. Years later, Mick is himself a policeman; while he's tried to bury the childhood incident in his past, he still shows emotional scars and is sexually dysfunctional. Lex, however, has taken the more dramatic slide. Since his stay in reform school, Lex has been in and out of trouble; today he has a combative relationship with Debbie (Rosie Perez), his girlfriend and the mother of his child and a going-nowhere job driving a bus. He also sells drugs for local dealer Lefty Louie (John Leguizamo), but has developed enough of a habit that his sales don't begin to compensate for the amount he uses himself. Mick tries to look out for his big brother, but it might be too late to save him. A Brother's Kiss was based on a play by writer/director Seth Zvi Rosenfeld, who grew up in the same neighborhood as actor Michael Raynor; Raynor and Nick Chinlund were also friends as children. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Loosely based on the book Foxfire by Joyce Carol Oates, this film is about four high-school girls, dissimilar in every other way, who find that they are all being made to perform sexually with their biology teacher. This discovery leads them to become allies and friends. Shortly afterward, they exact revenge on their teacher at the cost of being expelled from school. Taking up residence in an abandoned house in the woods, they practice some rather sexy bonding rituals between themselves. Thanks to the efforts of their ringleader Legs to get drug rehab money for one of the girls, they find themselves on the wrong side of the law, and the chase begins. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Based on the popular cartoon character, this family-oriented "ghost story" is about a not-so-scary spirit who bonds with a little girl (Christina Ricci). The eternally irritable Ms. Carrigan (Cathy Moriarty) discovers that the only thing she's been left in her recently departed father's will is a rickety old house in New England. Naturally, the woman is furious about this, until her "close personal friend" and assistant, Dibbs (Eric Idle of Monty Python fame), discovers a secret message that a treasure may be concealed somewhere in the house. The two take off for Maine, only to learn that the house is haunted by Casper "the friendly ghost" and his three ghostly uncles Stinky, Stretch, and Fatso. After futilely recruiting an exorcist (Don Novello, more or less reviving his Father Guido Sarducci character from Saturday Night Live) and a "professional ghost exterminator" (Dan Aykroyd), she brings in a "ghost psychiatrist" (Bill Pullman) and his daughter Kat (Ricci). Innocently attracted to the young girl, Casper befriends Kat as they try to save the ghosts' home from the evil Carrigan. Eye-popping special effects highlight this magical story that touches (albeit lightly) on the theme of what lies at the heart of human desires. Clint Eastwood, Rodney Dangerfield, Mel Gibson and The Crypt Keeper (of Tales from the Crypt) all make cameos as apparitions in the mirror Bill Pullman looks into in the house. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

A dysfunctional family reunites during the Apollo XI moon landing in this drama starring real-life couple Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen. In 1969, eccentric teacher Washington Bellamy (Danson) turns the arrival of men on the moon into a science project for his son Andy (Ryan Todd). They drive across the country to Idaho's Spires of the Moon National Park, where the odometer of Washington's classic Pontiac Chief will read 238,857, the exact mileage traveled by Apollo XI. Left behind is wife and mother Katherine (Steenburgen), an agoraphobic who never recovered emotionally from a miscarriage seven years earlier. On the road, Washington and Andy encounter a Native American soldier (Eric Schweig), a flirty barfly (Cathy Moriarty) and Washington's long-lost brother (Max Gail). Back home, Katherine nervously ventures outside to follow her family. When Washington's car breaks down, he steals a new engine, bringing the authorities after him and leading to a rendezvous at the park between father, son, mother, and cops, as the astronauts simultaneously land on the moon. Pontiac Moon (1994) was a critical lemon for director Peter Medak, who enjoyed more success with his British crime dramas such as The Krays (1990) and Let Him Have It (1991). ~ Karl Williams, Rovi