Q&A with the Movie Mom

Question: I saw this movie a long time ago back between 1999-2002. It’s a drama movie that I can’t think of the name of it. It’s about a married couple and the husband lets his mother who is between 50-60 yrs. of age come to live with them after her husband passed away. The husband and wife have this big house and he hires a maintenance worker to clean around the house and do some repairs. When the mother moves in sooner or later the mother and the maintenance guy who is very young about in is 20’s start to have an affair and try to keep it away from the son. It’s a great movie, one that I’ve been trying to find so if you know this movie please let me know the name of it.
Answer: That movie is “The Mother” and the handyman is played by future James Bond Daniel Craig.
Question: I remember my mom letting me watch a romantic comedy in the mid to late 1960’s about a “career” girl in a big city somewhere. She’s dating several different guys and they are all crazy about her. She ends up pregnant and we don’t know who the father is until the very end. She may have secretly married him or else they married in the hospital corridors – I can’t remember. (I know it’s not the Doris Day/Rock Hudson movie.) I think I remember that all the boyfriends are trying to convince her to marry them. I recognized most of the boyfriends from other movies and I think most of them were popular actors at the time.
Answer: That movie is “Doctor, You’ve Got to Be Kidding” with Sandra Dee, George Hamilton, and Bill Bixby.
Question: I’ve been looking for a film. I don’t know the name of it, or any actors in it. It’s about a woman who is kidnapped by a truck driver when their car breaks down. Her husband then goes looking for her and finds her locked in a cellar in his garage.

Answer: That’s “Breakdown” with Kurt Russell — very scary!
Question: Last year I happened on a movie on satellite where the US President became confined in a diner due to a snow storm – an international conflict flared and he was having to make tough decisions without the usual support – I had to leave suddenly and never saw the second half or even the name of the movie – can you help? Thanks
Answer: I am very fond of that movie! It is “Deterrence” with Kevin Pollack. I hope you get to see the ending!
Question: I saw this movie about 2 years ago with a woman in a window of a building and can not remember the name of it. I think the woman was in some kind of prison because she couldn’t leave and there were bars on the window. I do remember that she becomes friends with a young boy who she would speak to through the window and helps him in some kind of way by teaching him some kind of life lesson. The movie was focused around the boy. When he got older he went to see the woman again who I believe had her own house. The boy was white and the woman was black. It wasn’t a recent movie. I can’t remember much else. Please help? I would appreciate it so much. =]
Answer: That movie is “House of D.” The woman is played by Erykah Badu.
Question: Hello Nell. I was hoping you could help me figuring out the title of a movie i saw a while ago. It is about an English woman in a terribly boring and consuming marriage. She has no communication with her husband, and she ends up talking to the wall. The major part of the film’s dialogue is her talking to the camera (wall). After a glimpse to her life, she decides to go to Greece (with a friend that later ditches her). She meets a man (kinda tourist guide) and goes with him on a boat to an island where they make love. I remember that the title is the name of the woman, but I cant remember it.
Thank you very much for your help.
Answer: That movie is “Shirley Valentine,” with Pauline Collins. Enjoy!

Question: Diane Lane film, late 90’s early 00’s. Diane is in a marriage back in the fifties or sixties and her family goes and stays at this camp site every summer with her mother in law. she meets a hippy type guy and she ends up sleeping with and her daughter catches her with the hippy at a wood stock type gathering. then her daughter gets her to realize that she loves her family and they stay together. i can not remember the title to this movie, please help.
Answer: That’s “A Walk on the Moon.”
Question: I saw a movie a long time ago. I can not remember the name or a whole lot about the movie. But, in the beginning I don’t remember how many people but either 5 or 6 were involved in a bus accident and are in some way tied to a 6-7yr old kid that can see them and his parents think that he just has an imaganary friend but several years down the road after he is grown they reunite and this kid is suppose to help them all in some way so that they are able to move on and there is a bus (“ghost bus”) that keeps reappearing and it is to take them to the “after life”? something along those lines. i know that its not exactly the greatest description, but im hoping that it is enough so that i can hopefully figure out the name of this movie.
Answer: That sounds like “Heart and Souls” with Robert Downey Jr. and Alfre Woodard.
Question: I’m looking for a movie from 1979 starring Linda Purl and Shaun Cassidy. I believe it was called “Living like Normal” and want to know where can i find it?
Answer: The movie is “Like Normal People,” but I am sorry to say it is not available on DVD. Your best bet is to keep watching for it to be broadcast on television and record it.
Question: I saw a movie on TCM a couple of years ago and just cannot remember the title. It was in black and white, and the plot was about two spinster sisters, one who is in love with a young, handsome man. He goes away for a while, and when he comes back he sees her dressed up to look younger, and so she carries on the farce hoping to catch his heart, with the comical aid of her spinster sister. Eventually everybody comes clean and they fall in love anyway. I was hoping to get a clue on what the title may be, I’m extremely certain the title was 2 words, one of them being ‘Street’. Thanks! Here’s hoping!
Answer: That is Katharine Hepburn’s “Quality Street.”
Question: Hi Nell, I hope you can help me identify a movie in which the actor plays the role of a professor, in one scene he is giving a class about psychoanalysis and he mentions Lacan about happiness and later Pascal. Then a young female student enters the class (she is late) and a friend shows her a note.
Answer: That is “The Life of David Gale” with Kevin Spacey.
Question: I saw a movie some 40 years ago that I have be trying to find. It made a bit of an impact on my life. I thought one of the actors was Paul Newman but being so long ago I am no longer sure. The story is about the life of a man who takes on the persona of a number of people and lives that life until he either tires of it or the law starts to catch up with him. The movie started out when the main character was a young boy and his father owned a movie house. Later he came to work in it but it closed. He never finished highschool and when the Korean war broke out (I think it was the Korean War) he tried to enlist in the military. He sat the exam for officer training but when they found out he hadn’t finished highschool they wouldn’t take him. He then took on the persona of a physician and enlisted and worked on a ship and supposedly did some amazing surgery. He was found out and because the navy had made such a big deal about the work that he did they let him resign and ‘disappear’. He later took on the role of a prison warden and changed the system while he worked in that role but again the law caught up with him. He later look on other roles and I think the story ended with him going to Canada as a teacher. I would like to find out what the movie was called and see if there is some copy of it in existence. Any assistance is much appreciated
Answer: You are thinking of “The Great Imposter” with Tony Curtis, based on the true story of Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr.
Question: Do you know what this movie is that I saw in a theater during a Saturday morning matinee in the 60’s (so could have been an older film). This was a fun Disney-type film where a family (on a picnic perhaps) were turned into bears. It may have just been the kids (brothers) who were turned into bears. They got into all kind of trouble as bears, but eventually became boys again. A comedy.
Answer: That’s a cute one! It’s “The Two Little Bears” with Jane Wyatt, Eddie Albert, and Soupy Sales.
Question: I’m looking for the name of a movie made in the early 1960’s about three
young girls working in an office looking for love. One is blonde and gets promoted, one is an actress that becomes obsessed with her playwright boyfriend and falls off a fire escape to her death and the last gets pregnant by her wealthy playboy boyfriend who ultimately tricks her into thinking they are getting married and instead forces her to get an abortion and leave her.
Answer: That movie is “The Best of Everything” with Suzy Parker and Hope Lange. Thanks for writing!
Question: There was a movie I saw on TCM that was set some where between 1950-1970. It was about a couple that met while backpacking/hitch-hiking across some part of Europe. They had a sassy relationship, but ended up falling in love. Once married they divorced and kept running into each other among high circles in Europe. It was a reflection movie in that they jumped back and forth between the past and present time. I believe the time period the movie was set in was probably when it was made. They spoke English and both characters appeared to have dark hair.
Answer: One of my favorites! “Two for the Road” with Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney.
Question: Hello I’m 28 years old and i real movie freak. i love watching movies i grew seeing. problem is there is this movie from late 70s early 80s about this guy who travels through time with this dirtbike . All I can rember he travels back to time and saves this girl, and I belive it was an action move, if you could help that would be great. Thank you.
Answer: Sounds like “Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann” with Fred Ward. Thanks for writing!