Ray Seiden Movies
After executive producing the acclaimed documentary Manda Bala and the J.M. Coetzee adaptation Disgrace, Julio DePietro makes his feature debut as a writer-director with The Good Guy, a drama about ambitious young Wall Streeters fighting each other -- and sometimes their own decent nature -- to get ahead in the world. Our narrator, Tommy (Scott Porter of TV's Friday Night Lights), is young, clever, charming, and attractive. He's got a smart, pretty girlfriend, Beth (Alexis Bledel of Gilmore Girls), an urban conservationist. He's also very good at his investment broker job, impressing his ruthless, cynical boss, Cash (erstwhile "Brat Pack" member Andrew McCarthy). When a key member of Tommy's sales team suddenly leaves for a competitor, Tommy needs to fill his spot quickly, and takes a chance on the bumbling Daniel (Bryan Greenberg, Bride Wars), a former Marine and computer geek who seems a bit naïve about high finance and a bit nervous around women. Tommy takes Daniel under his wing, showing him how to dress, where to socialize, and how to charm attractive women. Their relationship is threatened when Daniel begins spending more time with Beth, joining her book club, and becoming her confidant. Tommy begins to question his decision to share his wisdom with Daniel, while Daniel is forced to decide what success really means to him, and where his loyalties lie. The Good Guy also stars Anna Chlumsky (In the Loop) and Aaron Yoo (Disturbia). The film had its world premiere at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi
- Starring:
- Scott Porter, Alexis Bledel, (more)
Writer-director Loren Marsh's black comedy Invitation to a Suicide - an official selection at the AFI Fest and HBO Comedy Festival - concerns the plight of Kaz Malek, a witless young man raised in a Polish enclave of Brooklyn. In a (very) misguided attempt to escape from his dead-end life as a baker's son, Kaz slyly lifts $10,000 from a Russian mobster, but is promptly caught. The mobster threatens to kill Kaz's father if he can't come up with the payola. To escape from this plight, Kaz devises a wild yet workable scheme: he'll publicly hang himself and sell tickets for the show, thus raising the money to pay off his creditor but dying in honor instead of living in shame over his father's death. To his utter shock, everyone - his father and the Mafioso included - wholeheartedly applauds the idea. But it remains unclear whether Kaz will follow through and off himself. Marsh pulled influence for the film from such classic films as Harold and Maude and King of Hearts. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
Filmmaker James Mangold follows his Oscar-winning drama Girl, Interrupted (1999) with this whimsical fantasy. Meg Ryan stars as Kate McKay, a modern female executive in New York City whose drive to succeed in the cutthroat corporate world has left little time for romance. When her genius ex-boyfriend Stuart (Liev Schreiber) opens a portal in time, the experiment transports Leopold (Hugh Jackman) from 1867 to the present day. A charming bachelor and the royal "Third Duke of Albany" in his own time, Leopold is fascinated by the 21st century. As the courtly Leopold and the decidedly liberated Kate tour the town, a mutual attraction develops into something deeper, a relationship that's threatened by Leopold's temporary chronological status. Kate & Leopold (2001) was originally developed by co-screenwriter Steve Rogers as a project for star/producer Sandra Bullock, who had a hit with his film Hope Floats (1998). ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
- Starring:
- Meg Ryan, Hugh Jackman, (more)
