Michael Graham Movies
Inspired by the tragic true-life story of high school starting quarterback Luke Abbate, who died as a result of injuries sustained in a reckless driving incident just four days shy of his 16th birthday, director Rick Bieber's earnest docudrama shows how Luke's untimely death motivated his older brother Jon to lead the Wake Forest football team through the most successful season in the school's history, and saved the lives of five people in desperate need of organ transplants. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ryan Merriman, Andie MacDowell, (more)
A thrill-seeking group of urban explorers sets its sights on Russia in hopes of locating and documenting Stalin's secret metro and unearthing Ivan the Terrible's notorious torture chamber in director David L. Cunningham's tense, globe-trotting adventure. Nate and his friends are adventure seekers who infiltrate the most treacherous man-made structures on the planet for little other reason than the fact that they can. Their latest mission has found them venturing deep into the underground of modern-day Moscow. As it begins to become increasingly obvious that the fearless adventurers may have gotten in over their heads this time, the physical and mental tolls incurred during their excursion will find them fighting for both their lives and their sanity against an all-consuming blackness that threatens to swallow them without a trace. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Daniel Caltagirone, Flora Montgomery, (more)
Andre (Fernando Rey) has a charming house by the sea in Portugal, a home which contains all his childhood memories and attachments. Above all else this imminent divorce is bringing back memories of his mother and her untimely death, but also the death of his father in the Spanish Civil War. He begins to realize that the little town was once all he knew. As these images take him back to his childhood, he knows he has to loosen the hold the childhood relationships still have over him and finally face his divorce and the loss of this house and everything that goes with it -- a very difficult demand in this time of personal crisis. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Fernando Rey, Teresa Madruga, (more)
Eric (Corin Redgrave) is a novelist whose imagination is unusually powerful. While exploring a run-down mansion in the French countryside, looking for sites for his stories, he meets a girl dressed in clothes from another time. Returning to the site, he encounters a modern woman who says he probably met a ghost. He is fascinated by the situation which cannot be what it seems. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Leslie Caron, Bulle Ogier, (more)
A story about story-telling, Jacques Rivette's self-referential classic centers on the fanciful world of two women literally lost in the stories they tell each other. Celine (Juliet Berto) and Julie (Dominique Labourier) go from sharing a story about a haunted house to being part of a story about a haunted house -- or is it a real haunted house that has been called up by the story? The film blurs the line between the telling of the story and the story itself, as Celine and Julie, like Alice in Wonderland, become part of a surreal, drug-induced parallel universe; also like Alice, they ultimately become the heroines of the story that first imprisoned them. Rivette celebrates the magic of stories, and more broadly of imagination, adventure, and friendship, as essential elements of life; the themes are familiar from his other movies, but the tone is more playful. This enigmatic and fanciful film is not for all tastes, but, for its many devotees, it is one of the most distinctive and imaginative movies ever made. ~ Leo Charney, Rovi
- Starring:
- Juliet Berto, Dominique Labourier, (more)
In this action film, a racer of three-wheeled motorcycles meets another rider during a weekend competition and finds himself the object of his rival's girlfriend's attention. He rejects her and she retaliates by telling her boyfriend that the hero raped her. In return, the rival and his pals beat up the hero and rape and kill his fiancee. As soon as the hero heals from the beating he avenges her wrongful death. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ross Hagen, Diane McBain, (more)
After directing several extraordinary documentaries for the BBC, including the award-winning The War Game and Culloden, Peter Watkins made his first dramatic feature with this flawed but striking film about Steven Shorter (Paul Jones), a pop singer in a future society where entertainment is controlled by a totalitarian government. Shorter's music and image are used to channel the impulses of rebellious youth; in one concert sequence, the crowd watches him sing a plaintive plea for love and understanding while locked in a cage surrounded by police officers armed with clubs. While Shorter is remarkably popular, he's also living a life created for him by the government, which Steven knows is a sham. When Shorter's handlers decide to revamp his image into that of an obedient, religious boy, he rebels, to his peril. Model Jean Shrimpton made her film debut here as an artist commissioned to paint a portrait of Shorter. Privilege later became something of a cult film; one of the film's admirers was rock poet Patti Smith, who recorded one of "Steven Shorter"'s songs, "Set Me Free," on her 1978 album Easter. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Paul Jones, Jean Shrimpton, (more)
The Bedford Incident was an attempt by Columbia Pictures -- which had previously made Dr. Strangelove and released Fail-Safe -- to tap the well of public anxiety surrounding nuclear weapons and the Cold War one more time. Reporter Ben Munceford (Sidney Poitier) is allowed aboard a navy ship on patrol near the Arctic Circle, under the command of Captain Eric Finlander (Richard Widmark). His job is to observe the ship in action and do an article on Finlander, a hard-as-nails sailor and a dedicated anti-Communist with a patriotic zeal that's extraordinary even in a man of his rank and position. Finlander's main problem, however -- when he's not sparring with the reporter -- is tracking and hunting a Soviet sub that he knows is patroling the same waters. What alarms Munceford (and the audience) is that Finlander acts like there is an actual "hot" war going on; he drives his men mercilessly, up to and past the breaking point, trying to hunt down the submarine and force it to surface, and nothing -- not the questions of the reporter, the angry protests of the newly-arrived medical officer (Martin Balsam), or the quietly voiced concerns of retired U-Boat commander Commodore Shrepke (Eric Portman), aboard as an observer, can get him to relent. Then, when it looks like Finlander has been proved right and has gotten away with his provocation of the "enemy," a mistake by one over-tired young officer (James MacArthur) suddenly unleashes all of the destructive power with which Finlander has been flirting. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
- Starring:
- Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, (more)
This horror movie, the third and final entry in "The Fly" series, features a failed teleportation device, a mad scientist, a fugitive from a looney bin, and a closet full of mutants. The trouble begins again after a young woman escapes from a mental institution and ends up at the home of the Delambre family. There she finds the family leader continuing his experiments in using a machine to teleport people from one place to another. She also finds his handsome son whom she marries. After she discovers a closet filled with failed teleportation experiments, the police are notified. The crazed scientist tries to use his machine. Again it fails and all that remains of the mad inventor is a gooey blob. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Brian Donlevy, Carole Gray, (more)








