Kurt Cramer Movies

2000  
R  
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French director Elie Chouraqui adapts the novel of the same name into this drama, that, although set in 1991, became tragically topical in the weeks before its release due to the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Andie MacDowell stars as Sarah, a photo editor for Newsweek and the happily married wife of Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Harrison Lloyd (David Strathairn). Harrison has been reconsidering his career of covering the world's war zone "hot spots" in order to spend more time with his family, and is accused by his colleague, Kyle (Adrien Brody), of playing it too safe in his risky profession. Harrison elects to accept one more combat assignment to cover the simmering tensions in Croatia, a conflict that quickly erupts into a full-scale, genocidal Civil War. Informed that Harrison is believed to have been killed in the fighting, Sarah refuses to accept her husband's death and becomes convinced that she's seen him, alive, in a news broadcast. She travels to Croatia on a quest to find him, and is eventually aided by Kyle, as well as two of Harrison's other colleagues, Yeager (Elias Koteas) and Stevenson (Brendan Gleeson). The group, armed with cameras instead of weapons, witnesses the horrors and atrocities unfolding in the region, while tracing the elusive path of Harrison, who may well be dead already. Harrison's Flowers was distributed by Universal Focus, the art house division of Universal Pictures that previously released Mulholland Drive (2001) and Billy Elliott (2000). ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

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Starring:
Andie MacDowellDavid Strathairn, (more)
 
1989  
PG  
Four years after Toho's semi-successful re-launch of their Godzilla series with Godzilla 1985, the studio released this vastly-superior sequel. In the chaos following the Green One's rampage in the previous installment, clean-up crews discover a large quantity of sloughed-off cells from the radioactive behemoth, which become the source of some international intrigue as agents from a fictitious nation nab a quantity of the cells from American mega-corporation BioMajor. The cells fall into the hands of obsessed scientist Dr. Shiragami, who intends to cross-breed them with plant life. After his daughter is killed in a sabotage attempt by BioMajor, Shiragami determines that her spirit has occupied a special rose bush... which, naturally, the loony Doc decides to splice with Godzilla cells, producing a 30-story-tall tentacled rose-monster dubbed "Biollante." BioMajor pulls yet another stunt, setting off a bomb which releases Godzilla from his mountain prison, leading to the inevitable showdown between the two. Vastly superior effects and a more interesting Godzilla design mark this as a more confident return to form, although the English-language print sports the usual hilarious dubbing, which gives one Japanese executive a thick Southern drawl. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

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