Helen Shaver
DESERT HEARTS depended on the connection between its two lead actors, Patricia Charbonneau and Helen Shaver, and on their trust in director Donna Deitch. In the following program, made by the Criterion Collection in New York in 2017, the actors and the director discuss the making of the film, the close bond they formed, and the ways it changed their lives.
Down River is the emotionally stirring story of three young women teetering on the edge between creative breakthroughs and personal breakdowns, and their connection with the older woman they rely on for guidance, support and inspiration.
Feature length sequel to the multi award-winning short film GROOM'S CAKE. A mockumentary following the three days leading up to the first birthday party of a child with two gay parents: television actor Steven James and his screenwriter husband, Daniel Ferguson. A movie about the family we are born into and the family we create.
A wedding planner looks to persuade her mother not to marry a man she's only known for a brief period of time, until an unexpected development forces her to re-examine her feelings.
Crusoe is a television adventure drama based loosely on the novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. The series' 13 episodes aired on NBC during the first half of the 2008–2009 television season. It follows the adventures of Robinson Crusoe: a man who has been shipwrecked on an island for six years and is desperate to return home to his wife and children. His lone companion is Friday, a native whom Crusoe rescued and taught English.
Hudson Milbank is a successful Hollywood screenwriter who suddenly and strangely finds himself without any emotional feelings. He tries doctor after doctor and shrink after shrink, but nothing works. The Golf Channel, lesbian exercise classes and a dizzying variety of pills get him through the day, but don't quite solve his problem. His writing partner tries everything to get him back to normal, but it's not until Hudson meets Sara that he finds a real motivation to get better and to actually start feeling again. From the writer of Deuce Bigalow, comes NUMB, a romantic comedy following an unusual man looking for strange love.
The life story of Terry Evanshen, a Canadian Football League star who fell into a coma after a fatal car accident. When he wakes up, he has no recollection of his family or anything else in his life.
When an apparently exemplary cop abducts and secretly imprisons a beautiful dancer, a deadly battle of wills between captor and captive ensues.
Based on the known events that shook the United States for 23 days in 2002. Within 24 hours six people were killed by a sniper in Maryland County. A man and his son get overlooked in all settings where shootings occur. The police, in cooperation with the FBI follows the wrong track of a white van, while the murderers act with impunity and panic seizes the population
Just Cause is an award-winning Canadian legal drama television series produced by Mind's Eye Entertainment. Filming was done in Vancouver, British Columbia but the series is set in San Francisco, California.
The movie spotlights an intelligent high school senior and National Merit Scholar (Bryant) who has never been part of the "in crowd." She teaches a high school equivalency night class, tends to the needs of her widower father, Jesse (Forster), and pretty much stays to herself. But when she meets a loner who recently moved to the town of Due East, she feels a sense of belonging for the first time in her life.
The Education of Max Bickford is a television drama that aired from 2001 to 2002 on CBS. It starred Richard Dreyfuss as the title character, a college professor of American Studies at Chadwick College, an all-women's school in New Jersey. Also starring was child actor Eric Ian Goldberg, who portrayed the young Lester Bickford, Max's son. Max's colleagues included Marcia Gay Harden as Andrea Haskell, his former student who had recently joined the faculty, and Helen Shaver as his best friend Erica, previously known as Steve before her transition. Max's daughter Nell, played by Katee Sackhoff, attended the college.
An orphaned bear cub is adopted by little Emily and her family. They name the cub Masha, raise her and release her back into the wild. Three years go by, and Emily is lost deep in the forest. Cold, frightened and alone in the darkness, she falls and is knocked unconscious. When she awakens, Emily is amazed to see that a brown bear has kept her warm and dry all night by cuddling her. It's Masha – and Emily is overjoyed to be reunited with the bear just when she needs a friend most. Together the two bravely set off on an adventure to find their way home. Bear With Me is a tale the whole family will find as exciting as it is heart-warming . . . and the magnificent forests of the Pacific Northwest lend this story of loyalty, friendship and adventure a magic all its own.
12-year-old boy and his older brother have just lost their dad. At their summer cottage, the younger boy befriends a black doctor who has to deal with local prejudice and racism.
This movie contains three short stories dealing with the theme of homosexuality. In "A Friend of Dorothy", a woman joins the Navy during the 1950's and discovers lesbianism. In "Mr. Roberts", a teacher in a 1970's classroom struggles with his closeted gay status. Finally in "Amos and Andy", a father wrestles with his own emotional acceptance of a present day wedding between his son and another man.
In this dark independent drama, Michael (Darcy Belsher) is an out of work actor who has been trying to pull himself out of a downward spiral of drug abuse that set in after the death of his mother. Michael's best friend Kris (Martin Cummins) is, if anything, in even worse shape; a gifted artist, Kris' appetite for drugs has all but silenced his muse, and his girlfriend Ryan (Francoise Robertson) has little interest in helping him control his dangerous appetites. The drug-related death of a close friend and a bizarre experience with a junkie prostitute (Helen Shaver) convinces Michael that he needs to clean up once and for all, but Kris may be too far gone to save.
When her storyteller mother (Mary Alice) dies, attorney Clara Collier (Alfre Woodard) returns to her Georgia hometown and is soon captivated by a local legend of the "Magic Man" (Blair Underwood). While looking for the source of the tale, Clara uncovers suprising family secrets. Czech filmmaker Ivan Passer directs this family drama that delves into the storytelling tradition of the Deep South. Blair Underwood and Helen Shaver co-star.
Two neighboring families in Florida, one black and one white, struggle with the problems of race, poverty, prejudice, and absent fathers, as their children become friends over the course of one summer and fall.
Based on the real-life story of American rower Tiff Wood (Colin Ferguson), an athlete determined to realize his goal of winning gold at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Wood's dream is shattered when the U.S. boycotts the games, and he must refocus his life towards making the team four years later, with the odds against him.
Poltergeist: The Legacy is a Canadian horror television series which ran from 1996 to 1999. The series tells the story of the members of a secret society known as the Legacy and their efforts to protect humankind from occult dangers. Despite bearing the Poltergeist name, there is no real connection between the show and the Poltergeist trilogy aside from the title. Poltergeist: The Legacy debuted on Showtime, and all first-run episodes of the first three seasons premiered on that network, though they were later syndicated. After the third season, Showtime cancelled the show, and the rights were purchased by Sci Fi Channel which continued the series for another season. This same pattern was followed by Stargate SG-1, which also debuted on Showtime, was also sold into syndication, and was rescued from cancellation by Sci Fi. The fourth season of Poltergeist: The Legacy featured an episode starring WWE wrestler The Undertaker as a being from Hell who collected souls, a deliberate crossover with RAW, which was also airing on the USA Network at the time and earning the network some of the highest ratings on cable TV. It was hoped that this cameo would help boost awareness of the new show, and thus generate a larger audience.
Those supersucking desert creatures are back --- and this time they're south of the border. As the creatures worm their way through the oil fields of Mexico, the only people who can wrangle them are veteran Earl Bassett and survivalist Burt Gummer. Add to that team a young punk out for cash and a fearless scientist, and the critters don't stand a chance.
Rick Heller is a juvenile delinquent who keeps getting himself into trouble. To keep him out of trouble his mother puts him to work cleaning the cage of a gorilla named Katie which she is teaching to communicate through the use of sign language. When the owner of the gorilla takes her back to become a flea market freak Rick takes it upon himself to break Katie out and take her on an adventurous journey to get her out of the country.
When Meg gets thrown out of her apartment window by a serial killer, she's determined to make him pay. But finding this criminal might be difficult considering she's suffering from amnesia. Still, it won't take Meg long to cross paths with this sociopath — because he now lives in her building. This thriller has a finale you'll never ever ever see coming!
A detective tries to track down a serial killer who is thought to be targeting the policeman's god-daughter.
Police lieutenant Frank Janek is investigating a series of murders in a building owned by a famous Broadway producer.
An ex-convict who is on parole is accused of murdering a loose woman in the town where he works.
A hometown heartthrob (Harry Hamlin) marries the local beauties and then poisons them in this true story of a real lady killer. His ex-wife suspects that he is responsible for the death of his latest wife, and enlists the help of a detective to prove her right.
On their way home from Brooklyn, psychiatrist Vic, daughter Julie and sister Stacey run short of gas. They leave the highway to search for a petrol station - but end up erring around in South Bronx. A youth gang led by the sadistic Ice stops their car and starts terrorizing them. Without fuel, the 3 women soon have to flee by foot and defend their life with all means possible.
True story of Norman Bethune, a medical doctor who fought for justice in China during Mao's rise to power.
Fact based story about a woman who after 20 years starts having memories of her own molestation by her father and the murder of one of her childhood playmates by him.
A coming-of-age story about an eleven-year-old girl who idolizes her troubled sixteen-year-old neighbor.
WIOU is an American television drama series, which aired on CBS in 1990 and 1991. The show is set in the news department of a fictional television station whose actual callsign is WNDY, but which is nicknamed WIOU by its staff because of the station's perennial financial struggles. The show stars John Shea as news director Hank Zaret. The cast also includes Mariette Hartley as executive producer Liz McVay, Harris Yulin and Helen Shaver as news anchors Neal Frazier and Kelby Robinson, Phil Morris as aggressive reporter Eddie Bock, Jayne Brook as reporter Ann Hudson, Kate McNeil as reporter Taylor Young, Dick Van Patten as aging weatherman Floyd Graham, and Wallace Langham as news intern Willis Teitelbaum. According to television researchers Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, this program received such low ratings that although 18 episodes were actually produced, five were never aired upon the program's cancellation.
A Texas Ranger has to protect his two daughters as he investigates a serial killer who is attacking cheerleaders. Meanwhile he finds himself working with a safe cracker who claims to be innocent of the charges filed against him.
Documentary about women in the film industry. Interviews with directors, producers, writers, and actors include Karen Arthur, Lizzie Borden, Joyce Chopra, Martha Coolidge, Donna Deitch, Ann Hui, Euzhan Palcy, Agnès Varda, Margarethe von Trotta, Anne Wheeler, Sandy Wilson, Mai Zetterling
An orphaned brontosaurus named Littlefoot sets off in search of the legendary Great Valley. A land of lush vegetation where the dinosaurs can thrive and live in peace. Along the way he meets four other young dinosaurs, each one a different species, and they encounter several obstacles as they learn to work together in order to survive.
The Grand Knockout Tournament (colloquially also known as It's a Royal Knockout) was a one-off charity event which was shown on British television on 19 June 1987. It followed the format of It's a Knockout (the British version of Jeux Sans Frontieres), a slapstick TV gameshow which was broadcast in the UK until 1982. The event was staged on the lakeside lawn of the Alton Towers stately home-cum-theme park. However, the event used its own specially created immersing set, meaning that the location was not very recognisable in the TV broadcast.
Mourning the accidental death of his wife and having just moved to New York with his young son, laconic police psychologist Cal Jamison is reluctantly drawn into a series of grisly, ritualistic murders involving the immolation of two youths.
Bob and his wife Linda accompany his brother Jim on a sailing cruise to Costa Rica, where Jim will start as a missionary. In a terrible storm their boat flips over. Jim believes the accident was a sign from god and throws away their distilling apparatus and food - "You shall not interfere with god's will". However nobody knows they're lost, so no one searches them for weeks.
Former pool hustler "Fast Eddie" Felson decides he wants to return to the game by taking a pupil. He meets talented but green Vincent Lauria and proposes a partnership. As they tour pool halls, Eddie teaches Vincent the tricks of scamming, but he eventually grows frustrated with Vincent's showboat antics, leading to an argument and a falling-out. Eddie takes up playing again and soon crosses paths with Vincent as an opponent.
In this satire of the I.R.S., George Segal plays an Average Joe targeted for the Audit from Hell. His bank accounts are frozen, his home and business are attached by the government, and his wife leaves him. Segal is forced to move into the house of his obnoxious brother-in-law where lot of Odd Couple-type comedy ensues. Segal then plots to turn the tables on the I.R.S., and win back his wife and life.
A Vietnam vet takes forceful control of Central Park to remember those who served and died in the Vietnam War.
The story of straight-edge literature professor Vivian who travels to Reno to get away from a relationship breakup when she falls in love with an attractive and unconventional girl named Cay.
A fictional confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union over the Strait of Hormuz, the gateway to the Persian Gulf. The narrative of the film details the events that lead up to the initial exchange of nuclear weapons from the perspective of an on-going news broadcast.
After losing an acting role and his girlfriend, Jake Scully finally catches a break: he gets offered a gig house-sitting in the Hollywood Hills. While peering through the beautiful home's telescope one night, he spies a gorgeous blonde dancing in her window. But when he witnesses the girl's murder, it leads Scully through the netherworld of the adult entertainment industry on a search for answers -- with porn actress Holly Body as his guide.
Wylie is a lazy engineer. Landry is a Sergeant specialising in Armour. They have never met but their lives become entangled when Landry must take the tank Wylie designed into combat. Wylie is waiting for his employer to go out of business when he meets another engineer who gives him a disk with the plans for a system that will save his employer. The other engineer is dead moments later leaving Wylie with the disk and credit for the design. Suddenly Wylie is no longer a hack, but the saviour of his company and finds his life is no longer the same.
The host of an investigative news show is convinced by the CIA that the friends he has invited to a weekend in the country are engaged in a conspiracy that threatens national security in this adaptation of the Robert Ludlum novel.
By the turn of the 20th century, Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, Billy the Kid and virtually all of the West's legendary outlaws are either dead or in jail pending execution. Well, all, except train robber and escape artist extraordinaire, Harry Tracy. As the last survivor of the Wild Bunch, Tracy pulls off a series of profitable robberies before making his way west to Portland, Oregon, in search of Catherine Tuttle -- a judge's daughter who has captured his heart. But on the way, Tracy is betrayed, arrested, and imprisoned. However, no jail can hold him for long and after making his escape, Tracy becomes the target of the largest manhunt in the history of North America.
Bob Frazer is a prominent attorney who compulsively tries to make amends with his younger, less polished brother Russ who runs the family business and harbors the guilt for their father's recent death.
Jessica Novak is a 1981 drama television series that aired on CBS from November 5, 1981 till December 3, 1981 and was written by Ira Steven Behr. The cast includes Helen Shaver, Kip Gilman, Erik Kilpatrick, and Lara Parker.
United States is a short-lived half-hour comedy-drama that NBC added to its Tuesday primetime schedule in March 1980. Larry Gelbart, the show's executive producer and chief writer, said the name United States was not a reference to the country but rather to "the state of being united in a relationship". Gelbart envisioned a series that would be "a situation comedy based on the real things that happen in my marriage and in the marriages of my friends". Episodes tackled such topics as marital infidelity, household debt, friends who drink too much, death within the family, and sexual misunderstandings. United States focused on Richard and Libby Chapin, an upwardly mobile couple who lived in a Los Angeles suburb. Beau Bridges played Richard, and Helen Shaver played Libby. Gelbart reverted to black-and-white script for the show's titles. He said that was to convey the mood of "a sophisticated '30s film." Gelbart also avoided use of background music and a laugh track. Scripts featured dialogue such as, "Just for once I'd like to be treated like a friend instead of a husband," and "Maybe you and Bob can go out and get yourselves one redhead with two straws." United States premiered at 10:30 p.m. on March 11, 1980. NBC pulled it from the schedule within two months, after only six of 13 episodes had aired. The remaining episodes were not broadcast until 1986, when the A&E cable channel aired United States.
George Lutz and his wife Kathleen, move into their Long Island dream house with their children only for their lives to be turned into a hellish nightmare. The legacy of a murder committed in the house gradually affects the family and a priest is brought in to try and exorcise the demonic presence from their home.
A sequel to "A Circle of Children" (1977). A teacher of "emotionally disturbed" children takes on a new student who is considered to be "untrainable" by public school authorities, psychiatrists, and medical doctors. Even the child's own mother, who is very loving, does not have the tools to reach her "hopeless" child. This is the further story of a teacher who understood what it was like to be eight years old and hurt and angry and confused; a teacher who saw these children for who they were, rather than who they seemed to be.
When a rash of targeted hijackings threatens to derail the independent trucking business, rig driver "Iron" Duke and his visiting friend Rane put the brakes on the bad guys by taking the law into their own hands. But their vigilante plan involves going toe-to-toe with powerful trucker boss King Carroll and his henchmen, who've been driving everyone out of the game.
Andras Varda grows up in a turbulent, war-torn Hungary, where he procures local girls for the occupying G.I.'s during World War II. Disappointed by girls of his age, he meets Maya, a married women in her thirties, who tutors him in the lessons of love and romance. Maya is only the first of many mature women that Andras will meet through his teenage and young adult life.
The coming-of-age of adolescent Brian O'Connal in small town Depression-era Saskatchewan is told. The son of the local pharmacist Gerald O'Connal, Brian is in many ways a typical boy, who dislikes school if only because of his run-ins with the nervous schoolteacher, Miss MacDonald, and who tries to catch gophers with his friends, Artie and Forbsie. His best friend and protector is slightly older Jonathan Ben, better known as The Young Ben (as his father is referred to as The Ben), who is highly regarded as a problem by those in town who see themselves as the moral authority if only because of The Young Ben's association to The Ben, the town still keeper and drunk. Brian's life takes a turn when his parents have to leave town temporarily, while Brian stays on his Uncle Sean's farm. That stint leads to a series of events which make Brian see life around him through slightly older and wiser eyes.
Gay hair stylist Robin Turner does a lot of work for drag queens, all the while dreaming that he'll someday find the courage to perform in drag himself. When his schizophrenic friend, Liza, turns up looking for a place to stay, he little suspects that she'll be the one to finally motivate him. But over time the two form an increasingly tight bond, Robin helping Liza through an unplanned pregnancy and Liza pushing Robin to develop a successful nightclub act.
Captain Rameses and his Legion of the Winged Serpent brigade are out to claim Earth for their dying race. Out to save Earth is an alien guard patrol located in the Bermuda Triangle, the League of Races. LOR leaders warn Rameses that he's breaking galactic treaty rules. The alien villain responds by launching an invasion which telepathically drives Earthlings to suicide. The LOR implore UFO expert Professor Duncan to help them. Eventually, the two alien forces battle. Will the Earth be saved?
When boredom, pride and a mad second of misjudgement leaves a hunter shot dead by one of five combat veterans also hunting in the Canadian hills, it is expected a police investigation will follow, but when the veterans discover the incident has not been reported, the leader of the team, Major Rex (Cliff Robertson) suspects the other party maybe plotting revenge. Convinced that he, his party, and their families will be targets themselves he decides to beat his suspected assailants at their own game, grouping together more army comrades and stocking up an arsenal of weapons for the forthcoming battle.
Two Canadian drifters (Frank Moore, Jim Henshaw) become involved in crime after meeting unsavoury characters.
Indian child grows up to seek revenge on the man that raped and murdered his parents.
"Welcome to the zoo," Samira is advised as she’s admitted to an in-patient care facility in the wake of a suicide attempt. As she slowly familiarizes herself with her fellow residents and their idiosyncratic traits, a makeshift community takes shape.
A woman is attempting to cope with her son's tragic death when her mother arrives on an ill-timed visit with her own remedies.
