Gill Dennis Movies
James Mangold's Walk the Line tells the life story of country music legend Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix), focusing primarily on the long courtship he had with June Carter (Reese Witherspoon). The film is structured as an extended flashback opening with Cash readying to take the stage at his historic Folsom Prison Concert. The film touches on his childhood, relating a horrific early incident from his life and establishing the troubled relationship he would have with his father (Robert Patrick). Cash joins the military and leaves home. During his time in the armed services he begins writing songs and romances a hometown girl (Ginnifer Goodwin). After the end of his duty he settles down and attempts to begin a music career, but his wife has trouble adjusting to his dreams. Cash auditions for Sam Phillips (Dallas Roberts), signs to Sun Records, and soon finds himself on tour with a roster of young soon to be legends that includes Elvis Presley (Tyler Hilton) and Jerry Lee Lewis (Waylon Malloy Payne). On this tour he meets June Carter, the daughter of the famous Carter family, and they take a liking to each other although she refuses any serious advances from him. Cash gains world wide fame thanks in part to the inspiration he gets from June, but eventually his marriage crumbles and he develops a serious drug addiction. The film is based on Cash's autobiographies. Phoenix and Witherspoon performed all of their own singing in the movie, just as Sissy Spacek and Beverly D'Angelo did in Coal Miner's Daughter a quarter-century before. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, (more)
In 1989, Oregon Department of Corrections director Michael Francke was murdered near an office building. The case remains unsolved and in the opening and closing credits, the filmmakers offer viewers $1million for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the killers. This taut crime/courtroom thriller has a two-fold purpose. The first is to chronicle a brother's search for the truth and the second is to call the fairness of the American justice system into question. Either way, it's a scary tale. Shortly before Francke was killed he visited his brother Kevin in Florida. There he confided that he had accidentally discovered a drug smuggling ring that linked his colleagues with prison inmate. Later when the Salem police contact Kevin about the death, they assure him that Michael died during a routine robbery, but Kevin doesn't buy it and so heads to the northwest to investigate. It doesn't take long for him to get knee-deep into a complex conspiracy plot that leaves him wonder whom, if anyone in town he can trust. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1996
Based on a popular Zane Grey novel, this well-wrought western centers on a plucky female rancher who incurs the wrath of the local clergy when she boldly refuses to marry a deacon. To get revenge, the town preacher and his followers begin harassing the woman and her ranch hands until a sympathetic gunslinger rides into town and decides to help her out. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, (more)
- 1992
In this haunting and complex coming-of-age drama, a 15-year-old student at a boy's preparatory school grows up a little faster as he tries to deal with his own problems and those of his fragmented family. His parents are divorced and since the split, he has become estranged from his father. The trouble begins when he learns that his mother has developed schizophrenia. His reactions to her illness and the changes it brings form the core of this provocative film. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Judy Davis, Matthew Ferguson, (more)
This '80s follow-up to The Wizard of Oz is based upon two of L. Frank Baum's later Oz books. In Return to Oz (a version that may be a bit too scary for young children), Auntie Em sends Dorothy to a sanitarium where hopefully she will clear her head from all of the "Oz nonsense." This doesn't work, for soon Dorothy manages to return to Oz, but things have definitely changed. She finds her old friends turned to stone and discovers that the awful Nome King has taken over Oz. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nicol Williamson, Jean Marsh, (more)
Filmed intermittently over the course of a five-year period, David Lynch's radical feature debut stars Jack Nance as Henry Spencer, a man living in an unnamed industrial wasteland. Upon learning that a past romance has resulted in an impending pregnancy, Henry agrees to wed mother-to-be Mary (Charlotte Stewart) and moves her into his tiny, squalid flat. Their baby is born hideously mutated, a strange, reptilian creature whose piercing cries never cease. Mary soon flees in horror and disgust, leaving Henry to fall prey to the seduction of the girl across the hall (Judith Anna Roberts). An intensely visceral nightmare, Eraserhead marches to the beat of its own slow, surreal rhythm: Henry's world is a cancerous dreamscape, a place where sins manifest themselves as bizarre creatures and worlds exist within worlds. Interpreting the film along the lines of Lynch's claims that it's the product of his own fears of fatherhood may make Eraserhead easier to digest on a narrative level, if need be. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, (more)
