Bob Dolman

Writer-producer Bob Dolman launched his career on the small-screen in the late '70s and early '80s, with script contributions to SCTV Network and WKRP in Cincinnati. Several years later, he began an intermittent professional association with Ron Howard, which yielded two Howard-directed big-screen ventures: the 1988 Willow, scripted by Dolman from a story by George Lucas (and starring Val Kilmer), and the 1992 Far and Away, an epic period drama (starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as Irish immigrants) which Dolman produced and scripted. After that effort, Dolman kept a low profile for a decade, until 2002, when he wrote and directed The Banger Sisters, a Goldie Hawn/Susan Sarandon buddy comedy and "chick flick" from Fox Searchlight. The vehicle stars the pair as onetime rock groupies who traveled together, but who forked off in opposing directions as the years and decades passed. Vinnie (Sarandon) is a relatively conservative wife and mother under the name of Lavinia Kingsley; Suzette (Hawn) leads a slightly skanky, blue-collar life as a waitress. After years apart, Suzette barges back into Lavinia's life unannounced, happens to save Vinnie's daughter (Erika Christensen) from an overdose, and encourages her former partner in crime to "relive" the old days. The picture opened on September 20, 2002, to solid box office and a mixed critical reception; Variety's Lisa Nesselson typed it as "lightweight but thoroughly entertaining," while The New York Times' Stephen Holden brands it as a "pallid, unconvincing pipe dream." Dolman adapted his second directorial effort, the 2006 How to Eat Fried Worms, from the tried-and-true children's classic by Thomas Rockwell. Its by-now familiar story involves a fifth grader whose decision to stand up to the local tough ultimately involves accepting a dare to scarf down the invertebrates of the title. New Line and Howard's Imagine co-produced the picture, which had its U.S. release on August 25, 2006.

~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide