General questions about movies, TV and more

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There's a film that's very similar to 2005's The Pacifier and I cannot remember what it was called. The premise was nearly the same as The Pacifier, but the kids were a bit older and one of them was asthmatic - there was a scene in it where somebody threw his inhaler away either off a bridge or next to a river and the asthmatic kid broke down into tears. I think it may be newer than The Pacifier.

Neil Jones

Chosen answer: I think it might be "The Spy Next Door (2010) " with Jackie Chan and Billy Ray Cyrus. CIA superspy Bob Ho is retiring from the business and plans to settle down with his girlfriend Gillian and her three children. His final espionage assignment - a last-ditch attempt to take down his longtime nemesis, Russian terrorist Poldark - is seriously hampered when one of Gillian's children mistakenly downloads a top-secret file on Bob's computer. Bob must now juggle his new role as stepfather to three wayward children with dodging the bullets of Russian mobsters.

Arris

Answer: Found it, the film in question was The Sitter (from 2011) and I misremembered the details: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1366344/, but thanks to Arris for your response, I saw that one as well :).

Neil Jones

Need help in knowing the name of a TV series of hauntings in America. One episode dealt with a man who back in Puritan days tried to kill his girlfriend after he returned from a voyage to discover that she was now married to somebody else, so he shoots her in the stomach and then himself in the head. She lives but he dies. Another episode has a man with a son who married a woman who also had a son. The man has a farm and while dying from a disease, he makes the woman promise that when he dies, the farm will go to his son and not hers. She promises but, when the man dies, the woman goes back on her word and gives the farm to her son. A few days later, sand begins appearing on the farm until eventually, there is so much sand that the woman and the two boys had to leave it.

I am trying to find a movie that I have one prominent scene in my head about: The main portion of the film is about a woman (I believe she is Native American) helping a guy (I think he is a cop) track someone through the desert. I vaguely remember a reference to him being called "shadow." This bad guy is constantly evading them, but will pop up at random times causing havoc. The scene I remember: the cop is climbing up some rocks trying to get to the top and just as he reaches it, the guy he is looking for is there. He grabs the cop's head in his hands and after they talk for a bit he bites a chunk out of the cop's forehead. I think this film was from the 80's or 90's.

I am trying to find the title of a film from the late 80's or early 90's. A family is having dinner and the doorbell rings. I believe a teenager opens the door and next thing you know he gets shot, then the gunman goes in the house and kills the rest of the family.

Rob Wilkins

Chosen answer: Are you sure that it's a movie? That sounds exactly like the opening of an episode of the television show The Closer. Season 5 episode 1 "Products of Discovery".

This story appeared on a "short story" type of thriller/scary show (i.e. "Night Visions" or "Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction"). A younger man is married to an older, wealthy woman. I am very sure that the woman had short hair of a red/auburn shade, but I might be wrong. The man is cheating on her with a younger woman. The man and younger woman kill his wife - I forget how - but accidents with tools or household objects cause them to end up being killed themselves. Does anyone know what show this was on?

Answer: It's from the TV show Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction. Season 3 Episode 12. The Handyman. The man is married to an elderly woman but she walks in on him with his girlfriend. The girlfriend murders the old woman but before she dies she tells them that they'll never leave. His power tools eventually activate and pin them both to a wall before another one ends up covering them both in plaster. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCqXpuUrQG4.

I need a title of a film that's very old, probably from late 80s or 90s. I can't remember the actors' names since I was very young when I first saw it, so this is going to be hard. A guy moves into (or passes through) a small town, possibly south USA, where he encounters a gorgeous young raven-haired woman, who is married to an abusive man, who turns out to be her step-father. Sometime during the movie in a climactic scene she realizes that he (her step-father) is the one who killed her own mother with an axe, and with the help of the guy from the beginning, she kills him, and then dumps his body in a car and off a cliff.

Answer: The premise sounds like the movie "U-Turn", directed by Oliver Stone and starring Jennifer Lopez, Sean Penn, and Nick Nolte. It was released in 1997.

Scott215

I remember seeing this trailer. It's not that old... Maybe 2 years ago. It's about this middle/older aged dad who has no date for his son's wedding and he just happens to meet this beautiful stranger on a bridge and randomly asks her to be his date. In the trailer you see that she agrees and she gets a dress and her hair done etc. and looks fab... And off they go! Anybody?

I am trying to identify a film that I saw on TV in the 1970s, or early 80s which ended with a woman dying in a hospital bed the same time as her husband was being killed in a war (shot in Spanish civil war?) Their ghosts walk out of the hospital window together (towards a mountain?). I think the film may have been set in the early 30s/40s/50s but I am not sure. Any help would solve a 30 year running joke with my parents and would be gratefully received. Thank you.

I'm looking for a movie about a magical circus. The main character is an old man with long beard and his daughter who might be 18 to 20 years old? And two other younger men.

Answer: While it's not strictly speaking a circus, the cast suggests this is "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus" by Terry Gilliam. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1054606/.

Ioreth

I need help in identifying a movie, please. The only scene/moment I can recall, is 2 huge things (ships, or something) one on each side of the earth. And there was some type of gravity pulse going back and forth between them. You would see a momentary rise of the buildings, rubble, etc. Into the air, then crashing back to the ground. I believe it was inevitably trying to match earth's gravity with the gravity of some other alien planet. Any thoughts?

Thairen Finley

Chosen answer: It was a scene from the movie Man of Steel which is a reboot of the Superman franchise. It was a terraforming machine called a "World Engine" that General Zod was using to destroy Earth so he could create a new Krypton.

Looking for a "time travel" movie in which the two main characters, a man and woman, communicate across time. He lives in "Aniston", while she lives in "Anne's Town." She can see the future through his eyes, but not vice versa. She is shocked/awed by seeing an airplane. Most likely a TV Movie and from the late 70s to early 80s. Thanks.

Answer: The Twilight Zone. The episode was called "A message from Charity".

Grumpy Scot

I am looking for a movie from late 80s or 90s. America. There is a girl and two brothers (maybe step-brothers). The girl is in relationship with one of the brothers. Girl lives in big house (kinda wealthy). She cheats on her boyfriend with her boyfriend's brother. I can remember some scenes: girl is dancing sensually in bar; one of the brothers goes in jail and when the girl visits him, she says "I want you inside me right now"; hotel scene at the end where the boyfriend finds out that the girl is cheating on him with his brother - there is also shooting in this scene. There are very many sex scenes in this movie. In the storyline there was some issue with the girl's family and at the end it's revealed that the girl had a plan and she played a game, and the brothers were somehow part of it. I hope somebody recognizes the movie and knows the name. Thanks.

Answer: That's "Feeling Minnesota" (1996), with Cameron Diaz, Keanu Reeves, and Vincent D'Onofrio. Diaz plays a beautiful ex-stripper who is reluctantly marrying one brother in order to pay off a mob debt, but she instantly falls in love with the other brother and runs off with him for a whirlwind affair, with the angry brother and mobsters in pursuit. The film becomes a sort of love-triangle/double-cross/crime-caper. Yes, a bundle of money is heisted, Diaz is shot and assumed dead, D'Onofrio and others are killed; but it turns out Diaz was running a double-cross, and she ends up reunited with Reeves. One of her most memorable lines in the movie was, "You wanna be inside me again, Jjaks?" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeling_Minnesota.

Charles Austin Miller

Movie about a psychiatrist that works for the police and has a patient that is crazy. His wife sleeps with one of his patients in a hotel? The patient becomes obsessed and the psychiatrist ends up killing his patient at their vacation home at the end of the movie. It's not Asylum, thanks for the help.

Crazyman24

There was a movie I saw one time. The movie was about a woman whose car had broken down. She is taken in by an old woman and her family. At first, everyone is nice to but when she joins the family for dinner, they don't approve of her dress as they deem it to provocative and ask her to remove her lipstick. Eventually, she realizes that the old woman's family intend to hold her hostage for the rest of her life. She tries to have one of the woman's relatives mail a letter for her but instead, he shows it to the old woman and she reacts by locking the woman in her room. The movie ends with her husband coming to the farm and rescuing her.

Answer: I think the movie you're describing is "Fanatic (1965)". It's also known as "Die! Die! My Darling!" Young Pat Carroll (Stefanie Powers) goes to the home of her dead fiancé to meet his beloved mother, Mrs. Trefoile (Tallulah Bankhead). There, she discovers that Mrs. Trefoile is not the loving mother she had anticipated, but rather a grieving psychopath who blames Pat for the death of her son. This movie is based on a novel by Anne Blaisdell and adapted by Richard Matheson. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059106/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanatic_ (film) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIbPwO6h9Xs.

I am looking for the name of the movie about a lady who lives on a bus. As the bus makes its rounds, the people come out and take care of her.

katysoma

Chosen answer: The movie is Lady on the Bus. Based on a true story. Starring Maggie Smith. It has played in Art House theaters for the past few months.

I doubt anyone will know, but here goes; I watched a movie years ago and all I can remember is that it was about two female friends, one of the friends is sort of jealous and even possibly in love with the other one, who works in some kind of performing arts (stage actress?). They briefly live together, but then have a falling out. All I can remember is the ending; one of the women is in a car with her male partner and drives by the other woman who is walking alone through town, then the screen goes black. I think it might have been foreign (French?) and probably mid to late 90's. That's all I can remember, please help! I think it's set in the 1940s.

This is from an early to mid-1970's movie. A woman in a sheer dress is walking along a beach with a green-colored man with green curly hair on a leash. She stops, removes her necklace that has a large diamond on it and gives it to the green man, who then walks out to a rock outcropping and looks at the sun through the diamond. Anybody have an idea as to what was the name of this film?

Scott215

Many, many TV series have episodes in which a pregnant woman goes into labor at an awkward time, and a main character(s) must deliver the baby. Is there some reason why?

Answer: This unusually common, perhaps overused convention can be used for a variety of reasons. It can create dramatic tension for a drama, when babies are delivered amidst a crisis (example: "E.R." - "Love's Labor Lost," 1995). It can create an opportunity for comedy, usually resulting from some comedic mishap (example: "All in the Family" - Elevator Story," 1972 - Archie Bunker doesn't actually deliver the baby, but is stuck in the elevator while the delivery is taking place). It can add humanity to a gruff or seemingly emotionless character who must exhibit some tenderness and support during the delivery (example, Worf delivering Keiko's baby in "Star Trek: TNG" - "Disaster," 1991). It can also bring about some macabre or supernatural result (example: "Resurrection" - "Loved in Return," 2015). There are probably other reasons or better examples that aren't coming to my mind.

Michael Albert

I watched a movie years ago about some young brothers playing (1800's) and they take a little wealthy girl for fun. They are afraid to return her so they raise her as their sister. Years later, after some of her brothers die, she's told the truth about who she is and returns home. She looks exactly like the portrait on the wall of her mother. I can't remember any more.

Answer: I believe the movie you're describing is Rose Hill, a Hallmark movie starring Jennifer Garner.

Thought the actor was Anthony Hopkins but cannot locate the movie. Wife thinks she's dying of cancer. They agree to jump off a cliff. He gets a message from the doctor saying it was all a mistake and she's not dying, but he doesn't tell her. She jumps off the cliff and he inherits lots of money. Last scene he is in big city exhibiting his art.

Rosy Gott

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