Pepe Serna Filmography

The Black Dahlia

Actors: Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Mia Kirshner

Synopsis: Director Brian De Palma returns to the helm for the first time since 2002's Femme Fatale with this stylish screen adaptation of James Ellroy's novel detailing one of the most notorious unsolved murders in Hollywood history. Elizabeth Short (Mia Kirshner) was a struggling actress looking to make a Read More

Big Dreams Little Tokyo

Actors: Dave Boyle, Jayson Watabe, Rachel Morihiro, Pepe Serna, Drew Knight

Scarface

Actors: Al Pacino, Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Robert Loggia

Synopsis: Al Pacino stars as Tony Montana, an exiled Cuban criminal who goes to work for Miami drug lord Robert Loggia. Montana rises to the top of Florida's crime chain, appropriating Loggia's cokehead mistress (Michelle Pfeiffer) in the process. Howard Hawks' "X Marks the Spot" motif in depicting the Read More

Luminarias

Crew: Associate Producer

Actors: Evelina Fernandez, Scott Bakula, Marta Du Bois, Angela Moya, Dyana Ortelli

Synopsis: Billed as a Latina Waiting to Exhale, this film details the life and loves of four Hispanic women: Sofia, a therapist; Andrea, a divorced lawyer; Irene, a flashy clothes designer; and Lilly, an artist. The women gather every week at the nightspot Luminarias to discuss jobs, family, love, and sex. Read More

Picking Up the Pieces

Actors: Woody Allen, David Schwimmer, Maria Grazia Cucinotta, Cheech Marin, Kiefer Sutherland

Synopsis: A crime of passion unwittingly leads to a "miracle" in this satirical comedy. Tex (Woody Allen) is a butcher who is married to Candy (Sharon Stone), a former exotic dancer who has no skill or enthusiasm for fidelity. Unhappy with her extramarital affairs, Tex kills Candy while performing a "sawing Read More

The PJs

Actors: Eddie Murphy, Loretta Devine, James Black, Michael Paul Chan, Ja'net DuBois

Sliders: World Killer

Synopsis: Arriving in an eerily deserted San Francisco, the Sliders come across a tattered, half-mad Quinn lookalike (played by Jerry O'Connell, of course) who holds himself responsible for the end of Mankind. Actually, Mankind is still alive, but has been transferred en masse to a parallel world--resulting Read More

Land of Milk and Honey

Synopsis: In this psychological drama, Sam has come to work on a dairy farm in Marin, California. He had been living in New York, but found himself tormented with terrible nightmares. On the farm he works closely with his friend Danny. Not long after his arrival, Sam gets in trouble with Robert, the owner. Read More

A Million to Juan

Actors: Paul Rodriguez, Polly Draper, Pepe Serna, Bert Rosario, Jonathan Hernandez

Synopsis: This comedy, set in the barrios East L.A. is loosely based upon Mark Twain's parable The Million Pound Bank Note. The new version tells the tale of Juan Lopez a nice, but uneducated hombre trying to earn enough money to support his little boy. Though Juan was born in the States, he lacks proper Read More

American Me

Actors: Edward James Olmos, William Forsythe, Pepe Serna, Danny De La Paz, Evelina Fernandez

Synopsis: Edward J. Olmos made his directorial bow with the powerhouse crime saga American Me. Olmos stars as street-gang leader Santana, who during his 18 years in Folsom Prison rules over all the drug-and-murder activities behind bars. Upon his release, Santana goes back to his old neighborhood, intending Read More

Only You

Actors: Andrew McCarthy, Kelly Preston, Helen Hunt

Synopsis: The feature film directing debut of actress Betty Thomas, this romantic farce attempts to mimic the screwball comedies of the 1930s. Andrew McCarthy stars as Cliff Godfrey, a doll house designer and perpetual loser in love who is dumped by his fiancee on the eve of their pre-nuptial vacation to Read More

Matlock: The Suspect

Actors: Nancy Stafford, Brynn Thayer, Pepe Serna, Eric Pierpoint

Synopsis: In this episode of the popular courtroom drama, Matlock's objectivity is temporarily displaced by his apparent attraction to a seductive widow. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Musica Latina: "Hot"

Synopsis: Alberto Acuna, Lorenzo Antonio, Ericka Buenfil, Veronica Castro and Click are among the Latin artists who showcase their music in this collection. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Conagher

Actors: Sam Elliott, Katharine Ross, Barry Corbin, Billy Green Bush, Ken Curtis

Synopsis: This well-wrought made-for-cable television western is faithfully adapted from a Louis L'Amour novel and centers on the budding relationship between brave but lonely widow (Katharine Ross) who runs a remote stagecoach way station and the handsome cowpoke (Sam Elliot) who comes to help her out. Read More

The Rookie

Actors: Clint Eastwood, Charlie Sheen, Raul Julia, Sonia Braga, Tom Skerritt

Synopsis: In return for Warner Bros. greenlighting his pet project White Hunter, Black Heart (1990), Clint Eastwood directed and starred in this more commercial film, an action caper about a mismatched pair of auto theft cops. Eastwood is grizzled veteran detective Nick Pulovski, who's determined to bring Read More

Postcards from the Edge

Actors: Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, Dennis Quaid, Gene Hackman, Richard Dreyfuss, Rob Reiner

Synopsis: Mike Nichols lends some comic structure to Carrie Fisher's best-selling confessional novel concerning a woman's struggles with drug addiction and mother-daughter rivalry (subjects Fisher admits to understanding all too well). Meryl Streep, in her most full-blown comic performance up to that point Read More

The Forgotten

Actors: Stacy Keach, Keith Carradine, Steve Railsback

Synopsis: The Forgotten deserves at least a small niche in TV history as the first-ever TV movie made especially for the USA cable network. Based on a story by Vietnam veteran Paul Staples, the film concerns six American Green Berets, held for 17 years in a Vietnamese POW camp. They are finally released in Read More

Bad Jim

Actors: James Brolin, Richard Roundtree, John Clark Gable, Harry Carey, Jr., Rory Calhoun

Synopsis: Veteran Hollywood screenwriter Clyde Ware handled the directing chores in Bad Jim. The film is worth noting as the cinematic debut of John Clark Gable, the son of guess who. Gable, James Brolin, and Richard Roundtree play three soft-hearted bandits who purchase a horse from Billy the Kid. They use Read More

Caddyshack II

Actors: Jackie Mason, Dyan Cannon, Robert Stack, Dina Merrill, Chevy Chase

Synopsis: This comedy returns to the exclusive but crazy country club golf course seen in the original Caddyshack. This time its the blue-bloods against the blue collars as a loud, vulgar self-made millionaire tries to join the stuffy upper-crust club after his daughter falls in love with the son of one of Read More

Break of Dawn

Actors: Oscar Chavez, María Rojo, Pepe Serna, Tony Plana, Peter Henry Schroeder

Synopsis: This bio-film profiles the life of Pedro Gonzalez, the first Mexican radio show host. Gonzalez, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1928, became a target for racism after he became an important political activist in the 1930's. He was most influential among the residents of East L.A. who began to Read More

Hunter: Renegade

Synopsis: Hunter (Fred Dryer) finds it impossible to believe that his former partner Frank Garriman (James McEachin) is mixed up with drug-dealing and murder. Actually, Frank's delinquent son Bobby (Kevin Best) was the catalyst for the man's troubles: while delivering cocaine for his street gang, Bobby was Read More

The Three Kings

Synopsis: The made-for-TV Three Kings stars Jack Warden, Lou Diamond Phillips and Stan Shaw as three patients in a Los Angeles-area mental institution. Dressed as the Three Wise Men for a Christmas pageant, the trio is suddenly struck with the delusion that they are really their Biblical counterparts. As TV Read More

Out of Bounds

Actors: Anthony Michael Hall, Jenny Wright, Jeff Kober, Glynn E. Turman, Raymond J. Barry

Synopsis: This teen thriller by Richard Tuggle involves an innocent young man being mistaken for a drug dealer and thief by both the good and the bad guys. Daryl Cage (Anthony Michael Hall) sets off to visit his brother and sister-in-law in L.A. but picks up the wrong bag at the airport baggage claim -- one Read More

The A-Team: The Theory of Revolution

Synopsis: Under orders from General Stockwell (Robert Vaughn), the A-Team tries to rescue three innocent Americans from the third world country of San Marcus. Their mission is nearly scuttled by a rebellion against the country's despotic ruler, Alexander Martien (Castulo Guerra)--and by the fact that those Read More

Silverado

Actors: Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner, Danny Glover, John Cleese

Synopsis: Lawrence Kasdan's Silverado is a fond hark back to the all-star, big-budget westerns of the 1950s and 1960s. The various plotlines converge at the town of Silverado, held in thrall by crooked sheriff Brian Dennehy and his behemoth "deputies." The four disparate heroes--Kevin Kline, Kevin Costner, Scott Glenn Read More

Streets of Justice

Synopsis: In this drama, an angry, bereaved husband decides to get his own kind of justice after the man who killed his wife and son is freed on a legal technicality. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Fandango

Actors: Kevin Costner, Judd Nelson, Sam Robards, Chuck Bush, Brian Cesak

Synopsis: The still unknown Kevin Costner carries this film that involves five college roommates on a last "fandango" before they separately face the harsh realities of an unpredictable future. It is 1971, and the Vietnam War has not yet ended. Gardner Barnes (Costner) has extended his college years by six Read More

Best Kept Secrets

Actors: Frederic Forrest

Synopsis: Patty Duke Astin plays the wife of police officer Frederic Forrest, who wants to join a special investigative unit. Forrest is denied this position on the basis of information concerning his wife. The information, which reveals a dicey extramarital affair, was culled from a department surveillance Read More

Red Dawn

Actors: Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Ron O'Neal, William Smith, Powers Boothe

Synopsis: Set at an indeterminate point in the future, this drama with an overt anti-communist message begins as an ostensible war movie: Russian and Cuban forces have invaded the U.S. and are viciously eliminating the inhabitants of a small town, when a group of teens escapes and plans a counterattack. Jed Read More

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!

Actors: Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Lloyd

Synopsis: Despite mixed reviews and a disastrous initial release that dumped the film into theaters for a week in the midst of the 1984 Summer Olympics, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eight Dimension went on to become one of the major cult films of the 1980s, developing a rabid following after Read More

White Water Rebels

Actors: Catherine Bach, James Brolin, Michael Gwynne, Pepe Serna, Kai Wulff

Synopsis: In this adventure, a luckless photographer meets a handsome kayaker and joins him in the fight to keep a wild mountain river from being exploited by self-serving developers. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Sadat

Synopsis: Louis Gossett Jr. was nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal of Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat in this two-part made-for-TV biopic. With 4 hours at its disposal, Sadat is able to trace its protagonist from his formative years fighting against the British occupiers of his country. The second part of Read More

Deal of the Century

Actors: Chevy Chase, Sigourney Weaver, Gregory Hines, Vince Edwards, William Marquez

Synopsis: The humor in this Chevy Chase comedy lies solely in the eyes of the beholder. The comic plays Eddie Muntz, an arms dealer looking to make a big sale of war planes to a South American dictator. In order to do so, his girlfriend (Sigourney Weaver) has to sleep with the dictator and his friend (Gregory Hines Read More

The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez

Actors: Edward James Olmos, Tom Bower, James Gammon, Brion James, Bruce McGill

Synopsis: There was a genuine ballad behind The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, based on a real-life character. Cortez, a San Antonio cowpoke, was arrested in 1901 because he resembled the actual criminal. Unable to speak English, Cortez fights off the authorities, inadvertently killing a sheriff in the process. Read More

Heartbreaker

Actors: Fernando Allende, Dawn Dunlap, Peter Gonzales Falcon, Miguel Ferrer, Michael D. Roberts

Synopsis: In this surprisingly chaste and some would say bland movie, car clubs in East L.A. with their low-riding, decorated, custom vehicles provide the background for gang rivalry and a blossoming romance between Beto (Fernando Allende in his first English-speaking role) and the blonde newcomer to the Read More

Seguin

Synopsis: Originally telecast on January 26, 1982, Seguin was the third presentation of PBS' American Playhouse. Though not top-billed, A Martinez plays the central role of the controversial real-life Mexican Juan Nepomuenco Seguin (1803-49). A hero in Mexico's war against the United States Read More

Vice Squad

Actors: Season Hubley, Gary Swanson, Wings Hauser, Pepe Serna, Beverly Todd

Synopsis: When pimp Ramrod (Wings Hauser) is wanted by the police for murder, an undercover detective, Tom Walsh (Gary Swanson), enlists the aid of prostitute Princess (Season Hubley), a loving mother struggling to support her kid, to help capture the fiend. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

The Monkey Mission

Synopsis: The Monkey Mission was the second of three feature-length pilot films for the never-sold Robert Blake TV series Joe Dancer. On this occasion, hard-boiled private eye Joe Dancer (Blake, of course) takes on the challenge of return a priceless European vase to its rightful owner. Stolen by Nazis Read More

Three Hundred Miles for Stephanie

Actors: Tony Orlando, Peter Graves, Gregory Sierra

Synopsis: In this drama, a policeman tries to get God to heal his brain-damaged daughter by promising to run the 320 miles between San Antonio and the Shrine of San Juan de los Lagos. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Honeysuckle Rose

Actors: Willie Nelson, Dyan Cannon, Amy Irving, Slim Pickens, Joey Floyd

Synopsis: After displaying his easygoing charm in a number of television appearances and a showy supporting role in The Electric Horseman, Willie Nelson scored his first leading role in this romantic comedy-drama in which he (appropriately enough) plays a musician. Buck Bonham (Nelson) is a country Read More

City in Fear

Actors: David Janssen, Robert Vaughn

Synopsis: In his last appearance before the cameras, David Janssen plays an alcoholic journalist desperate for a comeback. Janssen hitches his star to ruthless publisher Robert Vaughn, who is exploiting a rash of brutal murders to sell papers. The danger here is that the unknown serial killer, who preys Read More

Inside Moves

Actors: John Savage, David Morse, Diana Scarwid, Harold Russell, Amy Wright

Synopsis: Richard Donner directed this compassionate tale concerning the daily struggles of handicapped citizens. The film deals with the volatile relationship between Roary (John Savage), who has unsuccessfully tried to kill himself, and the hair-trigger Jerry (David Morse), a basketball player who has no Read More

The Jerk

Actors: Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Catlin Adams, Mabel King

Synopsis: Carl Reiner directs Steve Martin (who co-wrote the script with Carl Gottlieb) in this gag-laden comedy about an idiotic white man, raised by a poor family of black sharecroppers, who doesn't realize he's not black. Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin) is told the horrible truth when he finds himself Read More

Walk Proud

Actors: Robby Benson, Sarah Holcomb, Henry Darrow, Pepe Serna, Trinidad Silva

Synopsis: In this drama, a Chicano gang member falls in love with a beautiful, wealthy Anglo girl. She tries to get him to leave the gang, but the young man is too deeply involved in being macho to listen. Then his grandmother dies and he travels to Mexico for the funeral. There his mother decides to Read More

A Force of One

Actors: Jennifer O'Neill, Chuck Norris, Ron O'Neal, Clu Gulager, James Whitmore, Jr.

Synopsis: To say that Chuck Norris is the star of Force of One may smack of redundancy. Norris is cast as Vietnam vet Matt Logan, assigned to instruct a big-city narcotics squad in the intricacies of martial arts. His star pupil turns out to be Detective Mandy Rust (Jennifer O'Neill). Initially Read More

The Streets of L.A.

Synopsis: In this made-for-television drama, an older woman (Joanne Woodward), who fights to get by in her new career as a real estate agent, gets quiet revenge upon the street punks who slashed the tires of her car. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Kojak: The Summer of '69, Part 1

Synopsis: In the first episode of a two-part story, Kojak recalls the events leading up to his shooting of a notorious serial murderer in 1969. Though convinced at the time that he had disposed of the "Clothesline Killer", Kojak has reason to wonder if he got the right man: someone is currently embarked Read More

Kojak: The Summer of '69, Part 2

Synopsis: Kojak moved from its traditonal Sunday-night timeslot to a new Saturday evening berth for this concluding episode of a two-part story. Though suspended from the force, Kojak is determined to track down a serial murderer known as The Clothesline Killer. It's a personal crusade for the troubled Read More

Baretta: The Ninja

Actors: Robert Blake, Edward Grover, Tom Ewell, Michael D. Roberts, Chino "Fats" Williams

Synopsis: In the opening episode of Baretta's third season, undercover cop Tony Baretta (Robert Blake) searches for the thugs who killed a young Nisei girl. Complications ensue when the dead girl's father takes the traditional Japanese vow to kill everyone connected with his daughter's death. Could this Read More

Car Wash

Actors: Franklyn Ajaye, Sully Boyar, Richard Brestoff, George Carlin, Irwin Corey

Synopsis: Michael Schultz directed this kinetic, hyperventilating comedy (scripted by Joel Schumacher) concerning the crazed events that go on within a single 10-hour period at a Los Angeles car wash. The cast of colorful car-wash employees includes Lonnie (Ivan Dixon), an ex-con; Duane (Bill Duke), a Read More

The Killer Inside Me

Actors: Stacy Keach, Susan Tyrrell, Tisha Sterling, Keenan Wynn, Charles McGraw

Synopsis: Stacy Keach plays Lou Ford, a deputy sheriff whose brutal childhood experiences have left him emotionally warped. Ford is prized by his community for his no-mercy treatment of criminals. But the danger that he will snap and begin killing indiscriminately is ever-present. Based on the novel by Jim Thompson Read More

Raices De Sangre

Actors: Richard Yniguez, Ernesto Gómez Cruz, Malena Doria, Pepe Serna, Adriana Rojo

Synopsis: The factory workers in the border towns on the U.S./Mexico border in this movie have fallen between the cracks of the guidelines which apply to either nation concerning worker safety. In this story, a group of young workers attempt to organize for better conditions. They are opposed by duplicitous Read More

Adam-12: Operation Action

Synopsis: Officer Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) is held hostage by a young self-styled revolutionary. The man wants his fellow "rebel", who has been arrested for killing a pimp, released from jail immediately--and is using Pete's life as a bargaining chip. Featured in the cast as a witness to Pete's Read More

Sniper

Actors: Kurt Russell, Richard Yniguez, Ned Beatty

Synopsis: Made for television, Sniper originally aired under the title The Deadly Tower. In vivid, sweat-inducing detail, the film recreates the horror of August 4, 1966, when outwardly normal student Charles Whitman climbed to the tower of the University of Texas and began firing his rifle on the passersby Read More

Kojak: Be Careful What You Pray For

Synopsis: Hoping to someday own their own farm, three Puerto Rican street kids hijack a truck--fatally injuring a priest in the process. But this is hardly the thieves' biggest worry: in pulling off the heist, they have run afoul of a big-time hoodlum. While Kojak (Telly Savalas) tracks down the young Read More

The Day of the Locust

Actors: Donald Sutherland, Karen Black, Burgess Meredith, William Atherton, Geraldine Page

Synopsis: The Day of the Locust is anything but a cheerful, light look at Hollywood in the '30s. It recreates both the town as well as the filmmaking world around which much of the town revolved with devastating accuracy. The movie tells the twin tales of talentless wannabe actress Faye Greener (Karen Read More

Hangup

Synopsis: Set amidst the tumult and grit of the inner city, this blaxploitation outing centers on the devious exploits of drug-dealing gangsters. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Gun

Synopsis: Designed along the lines of the old multistoried film Tales of Manhattan (albeit with a tragic ending), the Richard Levinson/William Link TV-movie effort The Gun "stars" a .38 caliber revolver. Our first glimpse of the gun is as it is being assembled in the factory. From this point on, it passes Read More

The New Centurions

Actors: George C. Scott, Stacy Keach, Jane Alexander, Scott Wilson, Rosalind Cash

Synopsis: Joseph Wambaugh's best-seller about patrol-car cops in urban Los Angeles is given a competent yet antiseptic treatment by director Richard Fleischer. The film has a bad-tasting us-versus-them mentality in its depiction of patrolmen-civilian interaction, and its hopeless atmosphere carries over Read More

Red Sky at Morning

Synopsis: In this drama, based on a novel by Richard Bradford, an adolescent boy and his mother are sent to live in New Mexico after his father goes off to fight WW II. The move is hard on both mother and son. The boy, one of the few whites in the area, must deal with making friends, the strange new land Read More

Shoot Out

Actors: Gregory Peck, Dawn Lyn, Robert F. Lyons

Synopsis: This western drama from the team that made True Grit -- director Henry Hathaway, screenwriter Marguerite Roberts. and producer Hal B. Wallis -- stars Gregory Peck as a gunfighter who served a seven-year stretch in prison after his partner turned on him during a bank robbery. Shortly after his Read More

The Student Nurses

Actors: Elaine Giftos, Karen Carlson, Brioni Farrell, Barbara Leigh, Reni Santoni

Synopsis: The first in producer Roger Corman's quintet of "Nurse" movies, this exploitation outing, despite its meager $120,000 budget, is surprisingly good as it chronicles the romantic and professional travails of a group of nurses. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More