Shawn Batten Movies

This independent comedy-drama follows a stray dog as he wanders from one New York neighborhood to another, proving a link between the stories of a number of otherwise unrelated characters. The dog's chance acquaintances include a businessman who has skipped out of work and is trying to pick up a free-thinking woman he meets on the street; a guy with a bowling ball who thinks that it might be fun to toss it out of his apartment window; a man trying to make a delivery who is pursued by a pair of toughs; an artist deciding where the first brushstroke should go on his latest canvas; and a man who takes his much younger girlfriend to a bar as he works up the nerve to break up with her. One Dog Day marked the feature debut for writer and director John Hyams; the rock band Kilgore Trout contributed the film's original score. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

It's 1958, and the producers of the quiz show 21 have a problem. Their current champ, Herbert Stempel (John Turturro), has a phenomenal memory and a broad range of knowledge. He's also a pudgy loudmouth with a grating personality, so Herbert is encouraged to "take a dive" and allow Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), a handsome and charming college professor, to become the show's new champion. Audiences like Van Doren, and he's certainly not averse to the money he's winning, but the ethics of the situation begin to trouble him, especially when the show's producers begin to give him the questions in advance. Director Robert Redford and writer Paul Attanasio paint a telling portrait of how the network heads and advertising men who manipulated the quiz shows were also able to manipulate the responsibility for the scandal away from themselves. While on the surface a story about the scandal itself, Quiz Show is just as importantly about a turning point in the 1950s when TV and advertising began to change American character and culture. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi