Mark Ballou Movies

A bittersweet satire about Hollywood's bottomless capacity for corruption, Dreamers follows the travails of two friends who leave their small Tennessee town for Tinsletown. Opening with a view of Hollywood through the lens of an Asian tourist's video camera accompanied by the movie-loving tourist's ramblings, the film cuts to Jefferson City, Tennessee, where two boys indulge in fantasies of fleeing to L.A. Several years later, one of those boys, Dave (Jeremy Jordan), is heading west to join his childhood friend Ethan (Mark Ballou) in Hollywood. Ethan has spent the past five years trying unsuccessfully to finish his untitled film, scraping together a living as an Amway salesman and construction worker. Following his arrival, Dave finds brief work on a porn set before being fired, and, as part of an attempt to help Ethan find funding for his movie, loses his virginity to a lusty Beverly Hills housewife (Ruth de Sosa). Dreamers is directed by Chinese native Ann Lu and features the late, great Paul Bartel in one of his last screen roles. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi

When a family's boat is capsized by a school of whales, they are left adrift in the shark-infested waters of the Pacific Ocean in this true survival story. ~ Tana Hobart, Rovi

Teenage angst finds a new voice in this drama. By day, Mark Hunter (Christian Slater) is a quiet, studious student at an ordinary suburban high school in Arizona. But at night, Mark creeps down into his basement, fires up his pirate radio transmitter, and broadcasts to the community as Hard Harry, a sexually obsessed social commentator who passes along angry philosophy about the state of teenage life when not blasting punk rock or gangsta rap cuts. Hard Harry's sworn nemesis is high school principal Mrs. Cresswood (Annie Ross), who keeps SAT scores up at the expense of her students' dignity and individuality by eliminating "troublemakers" from the student body. Hard Harry's broadcasts, however, have become a rallying point for the school's misfit underclass, and Mrs. Cresswood is determined to track down the mystery student and bring him to justice (broadcasting without a license, he's not merely an annoyance, but a criminal). The war against Hard Harry intensifies when he broadcasts data from confidential school board reports; Mark's father is a school commissioner, but he has no idea what his son is doing in the basement. Meanwhile, Mark gains the attentions of Nora (Samantha Mathis), who has figured out who he becomes at night. More serious and intelligent than the average teen film, Pump Up the Volume was written and directed by Allan Moyle, who previously dealt with disaffected, music-obsessed teens in Times Square and would return to them with Empire Records. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

More than anything else, 13-year old New Jerseyite Josh (David Moscow) wants to be "big". That's the wish he makes at an odd-looking amusement pier fortunetelling machine. The next morning, Josh wakes up-only to discover that he's grown to manhood overnight! (At this point, the part is taken over by Tom Hanks). Still a 13-year-old mentally and emotionally, Josh decides to hide out in New York City until he can figure out what to do next. He lucks into a job with a major toy company run by kid-at-heart McMillan (Robert Loggia). By cannily bringing a child's eye view to McMillan's business, Josh rises to the top-and in process, he falls in love with fellow employee Susan (Elizabeth Perkins). But he's still a kid, and he'd like to go back to his own world and own body. Written by Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg, Big proved a crucial success for budding director Penny Marshall, who'd work harmoniously with Hanks again on the radically different A League of Their Own. The cinematography was by Barry Sonenfeld, who went on to become a director himself with The Addams Family. That Big was heavily reliant upon the input of Tom Hanks and Penny Marshall was proven by the failed attempt to turn the property into a Broadway musical. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi