12 Movies Starring Michael Murphy

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Brewster is an owlish, intellectual boy who lives in a fallout shelter of the Houston Astrodome. He has a dream: to take flight within the confines of the stadium. Brewster tells those he trusts of his dream, but displays a unique way of treating others who do not fit within his plans. When the fateful day arrives, and he enters the dome with his fanciful construction of bird wings, Brewster is surrounded by the police. Will he be caught before he attempts to fly?

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In the early 1950s Howard Prince, who works in a restaurant, helps out a black-listed writer friend by selling a TV station a script under his own name. The money is useful in paying off gambling debts, so he takes on three more such clients. Howard is politically pretty innocent, but involvement with Florence - who quits TV in disgust over things - and friendship with the show's ex-star - now himself blacklisted - make him start to think about what is really going on.

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Erica is unmarried only temporarily in that her successful, wealthy husband of seventeen years has just left her for a girl he met while buying a shirt in Bloomingdale's. The film shows Erica coming to terms with the break-up while revising her opinions of herself, redefining that self in its own right rather than as an extension of somebody else's personality, and finally going out with another man. Erica refuses to drop everything for Saul, an abstract expressionist painter, simply out of love for him because he expects her to. It is not so much loneliness that is her problem, and the problems that men, flitting around this newly "available" woman like moths round a flame, bring to her sense of independence.

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Forty-two year old Isaac Davis has a romanticized view of his hometown, New York City, most specifically Manhattan, as channeled through the lead character in the first book he is writing, despite his own Manhattan-based life being more of a tragicomedy. He has just quit his job as a hack writer for a bad television comedy, he, beyond the ten second rush of endorphins during the actual act of quitting, now regretting the decision, especially as he isn't sure he can live off his book writing career. He is paying two alimonies, his second ex-wife, Jill Davis, a lesbian, who is writing her own tell-all book of their acrimonious split. The one somewhat positive aspect of his life is that he is dating a young woman named Tracy, although she is only seventeen and still in high school. Largely because of their differences a big part of which is due to their ages, he does not see a long term future with her. His life has the potential to be even more tragicomical when he meets journalist Mary Wilkie, the mistress of his best friend, college professor Yale Pollack. Although Isaac's first impression of Mary is that she is a pretentious intellectual, he falls for her. They do become friends with the potential of becoming more than just friends as she knows that being the "other woman" in Yale's life is not a long term role that she wants. An Isaac/Mary coupling may complicate matters even more with Yale being mutually in their lives. Regardless, Isaac may be able to rationalize events after they happen, no matter what those events are.

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Guy Hamilton is a journalist on his first job as a foreign correspondent. His apparently humdrum assignment to Indonesia soon turns hot as President Sukarno electrifies the populace and frightens foreign powers. Guy soon is the hottest reporter on the story with the help of his photographer, half- Chinese dwarf Billy Kwan, who has gone native. Guy's affair with diplomat Jill Bryant also helps. Eventually Guy must face some major moral choices and the relationship between Billy and him reaches a crisis at the same time the politics of Indonesia does.

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11-year-old Davey, whose mother is dead and whose father doesn't spend nearly enough time with him. So the boy loses himself in video games--and even has an imaginary friend, a super-resourceful secret agent. When he accidentally comes into possession of a spy group's secret plans, and winds up on the run from them, he must learn to rely on himself and his imaginary pal to save his skin. But, in the end, Dad proves to be his real hero.

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Looking Glass was the Strategic Air Command Airborne Command Post in the air 24/7 for over 40 years. It was aloft as a back up to the HQ SAC Command Post at Offutt AFB should it be rendered ineffective and inoperable...not just in case of nuclear war.

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A journalist, down on his luck in the US, drives to El Salvador to chronicle the events of the 1980 military dictatorship, including the assasination of Archbishop Oscar Romero. He forms an uneasy alliance with both guerillas in the countryside who want him to get pictures out to the US press, and the right-wing military, who want him to bring them photographs of the rebels. Meanwhile he has to find a way of protecting his Salvadorean girlfriend and getting her out of the country.

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A behind-the-scenes look at a former Michigan U.S. representative's campaign as he vies for his party's Presidential nomination.

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A murderous TV repairman, Horace Pinker is killing people in a small town left, right and center. He eventually finds the home of Lt. Parker, who is investigating his crimes, and savagely murders Parker's wife, son and daughter. His other son, Jonathan has a strange connection to Pinker through his dreams, and he directs his father to Pinker's business, where a small group of officers enter. Pinker escapes in a horrific spree, killing four officers and then targeting Jonathan's girlfriend, Alison. Another dream leads Jonathan and his dad to a residence where they catch Pinker in in the act of kidnapping. Pinker is arrested after a fight with Jonathan and sentenced to die in the electric chair. When executed, Pinker - who supposedly had given his soul to the devil in exchange for the power to come back as an energy source - takes over people's bodies and continues committing murders, until Jonathan devises a plan to bring Pinker into the real world, and then cut off his power source...

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Breaking the Surface is about the tough times Greg Louganis had on his way to becoming one of the world's top Olympic divers. Some topics discussed were Greg's childhood problems, his homosexuality, and him contracting the HIV virus.

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Robert Altman's jazz-scored film explores themes of love, crime, race, and politics in 1930s Kansas City. When Blondie O'Hara's husband, a petty thief, is captured by Seldom Seen and held at the Hey Hey Club, she launches a desperate plan to release him. She kidnaps the wife of a powerful local politician in an attempt to blackmail him into using his connections to free Johnny. Despite this being election time, he risks exposure by putting the political machine into action to free Johnny and thereby save his wife. Mrs. Stilton, meanwhile, has befriended Blondie and is impressed by her love and devotion to Johnny, especially in contrast to her own loveless marriage.