Michael Wolk Movies
The beauty of hope and the power of unity form the foundation of this tale of youthful love, drugs, and poverty in the City of Brotherly Love. Seven-year-old Babo suffers from asthma, and lives with his mother in a dangerous section of North Philly. In an attempt to impress a girl who's well out of his league, their scheming neighbor Demitri attempts to pass as a brainy bookworm. Meanwhile, as well-off art student Michelle falls into a drug-ridden affair with her dealer, Jacob, Kaleef and Jill struggle to save their marriage while bringing "produce to the people," and their teenage son, Heslin, bulks up for the World's Strongest Man competition. Rosario Dawson, Naomie Harris, and Paul Dano star. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Paul Dano, Rosario Dawson, (more)
- 2003
In 1977, Gary Wilson was the leader of a small clique of bohemian fringe artists in the small town of Endicott, NY, who, after years of staging bizarre happenings and making experimental films, decided to take his talents to the world by making an album. Recorded on a semi-pro setup in his father's basement, Wilson's You Think You Really Know Me was an oddball blend of fusion jazz, new-wave pop, prescient electronic funk, and noisy freak outs married to bizarre lyrical psycho dramas about his often curious relationships with women. Most listeners weren't ready for Wilson's music in 1977, and his live shows with his band the Blind Dates -- which sometimes included musicians wrapped in duct tape or covered with paint, and occasionally ended with Wilson attacking the audience -- didn't help at all. Wilson's self-released album sank like a stone, but with the passage of time it developed a cult following among fans of musical arcadia (most notably Beck, who even name-checked Wilson in one of his tunes), and in 2002 the independent record label Motel Records became interested in re-issuing You Think You Really Know Me; however, by that time, Wilson had been out of the music business for years, and no one was sure what became of him. You Think You Really Know Me: The Gary Wilson Movie is a documentary which follows the search for Gary Wilson, tracing his story from his days as a teenage misfit to his rediscovery while working in a porn bookstore in California to his return to the stage following the rerelease of his album. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Gary Wilson
An uneven but entertaining blend of graphic horror and black comedy from John Landis, very much in the mode of the director's successful An American Werewolf in London. French actress Anne Parillaud -- star of Luc Besson's acclaimed thriller La Femme Nikita -- plays Marie, a lithe and lovely vampire with a conscience who will not take "innocent blood" and maintains a low profile by dining exclusively on criminals and lowlifes. She finds a virtual smorgasbord in Pittsburgh's criminal underworld, arriving in the thick of a bloody mob war sparked by ruthless kingpin Sal Macelli (Robert Loggia). After preying on one of Macelli's hoods (Chazz Palminteri), Marie fumbles her attack on the boss himself and he manages to escape, eventually transforming into a vampire himself. Macelli soon comes to appreciate his new superhuman condition and hatches a diabolical scheme to control the syndicates by turning his underlings into vampires -- including his beleaguered lawyer, Emmanuel Bergman (Don Rickles). Marie, faced with a new and powerful undead enemy, is forced to take matters into her own claws. To this end she enlists the reluctant aid (and eventual affection) of undercover cop Joe Gennaro (Anthony LaPaglia), whose cover has just been leaked to the press, making him a target for Macelli and his growing army of blood drinkers. Landis has crafted a dark and brooding film, pumped up with bouts of extreme gore and gangland violence -- but where American Werewolf's occasional comic touches helped to ground the story and give the "straight" horror scenes more punch, most attempts at humor here seem jarring and out of place. The film's highlights come from numerous horror in-jokes, including cameos from Sam Raimi, Clive Barker, Dario Argento and Linnea Quigley; Rickles' explosive death scene ranks among the weirdest in cinema history. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi
- Starring:
- Anne Parillaud, Robert Loggia, (more)
