James Klein Movies
- 2005
Five young people battle incurable disease as their families deal with their physical and emotional struggles in this powerful documentary from filmmakers Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert. A Lion in the House was largely filmed on Ward 5A of Cincinnati Children's Hospital, a wing devoted to children with cancer and related illnesses. The film focuses on five youngsters undergoing treatment there -- Justin Ashcraft, an 18-year-old who has been living with leukemia since age eight; Al Fields, an 11-year-old non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patient; seven-year-old Alex Lougheed, also with leukemia; a third leukemia patient, nine-year-old Jen Moore; and Tim Woods, a 15-year-old boy with Hodgkin's lymphoma. As the children deal with the rigors and treatment and the toll their illnesses take on their bodies, they also wrestle with their need to be kids and navigate the tricky roads of growing up, while their families and physicians sometimes have to confront the fact that the children may not survive their treatment. Produced for broadcast on public television, A Lion in the House was screened as part of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tim Woods, Dr. Robert Arceci, (more)
Low-budget filmmaker Ed Radtke's second feature is a male-oriented road movie about two unlikely characters thrown together by a strange fate. Freddy (Maurice Compte), who has a pregnant girlfriend back home and no prospects for the future, tries to board a moving train but only ends up losing his bag and cap. He meets a delinquent- looking adolescent named Albert (Paddy Connor) at a service station. Despite protests from Freddy, Albert sticks to him like glue and proves to be a useful companion. The reasons each character has for taking the long journey are revealed gradually. Freddy is looking for his uncle to get some news of his long-lost father, while Albert, who has escaped from reform school, is trying to find his mother with nothing more than a postcard she has written as a clue to her whereabouts. As the characters slowly get to know one another, they also discover rural America through chance encounters with a gallery of diverse characters from soldiers to Indians. Director Ed Radtke, who was once convicted of felony himself, displays his first-hand knowledge of adolescent delinquency. He also draws a remarkable portrait of troubled youth, looking for roots and a sense of identity, but always on guard, knowing only too well that there are no miracles in a cruel and harsh world. Although the film is character-driven, the landscape (shot beautifully by Terry Stacey) plays a very important part in setting the mood. Despite its low budget, The Dream Catcher was shot in eight states across the U.S. in more than hundred locations involving several night shoots. There are more than forty speaking roles. Producer Julia Reichert brought students on the set and also involved young offenders from detention centers in the writing and acting process. The Dream Catcher was shown in competition at the 1999 Locarno International Film Festival, where it received the second prize of the Young Jury (UBS). ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi
- Starring:
- Maurice Compte, Paddy Connor, (more)
- 1990
At Kent State University, students protesting the Vietnam war were shot and several were killed by National Guardsmen. This documentary takes that incident as its foundation, as it explores the lives and attitudes of students living and studying at Kent State in the present time (1989). Many ironic images play up the students' current disinterest in this example of the idealism of their elders and the perfidy of governments, which is ancient history to them. They are far more concerned with their romantic lives, future careers, and present studies to pay the past much mind. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
This is an adaptation of a popular, violent Marvel Comics series about a character who's a frontier-style vigilante in modern-day urban America. Dolph Lundgren stars as Frank Castle, once a crusading police officer whose family was murdered by a car bomb planted by the Mob. Believed to be killed in the explosion, Castle has gone underground, building a subterranean lair in the sewer system and vengefully assassinating various criminals, wracking up an impressive body count of 125 slain in five years. Castle's former partner, Jake Berkowitz (Louis Gossett, Jr.) rightly suspects that he knows the true identity of the motorcycle-riding avenger dubbed "the Punisher." Meanwhile, Castle's bloody campaign has had the intended effect of weakening organized crime, creating an opportunity to consolidate power for the ambitious Gianni Franco (Jeroen Krabbe), the man responsible for the Castle family hit. Sensing an opportunity to muscle in on new lucrative turf, foreign competitors threaten Franco's empire. When the Japanese yakuza has the crime boss' innocent son kidnapped, Castle finds himself in the ironic position of helping a man he'd like to kill. Filmed in Australia, this low-budget action thriller did not get a theatrical release in the U.S., instead going directly to video. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dolph Lundgren, Louis Gossett, Jr., (more)
- 1983
About 400 known and unknown American communists were interviewed during this five-year documentary project, and the results culled down to an intriguing 100 minutes of screen time. As secretaries, factory workers, farmers, and intellectuals discuss the past, their insights provide both humor and pathos, but most of all, the interviewees emerge as human beings whose main interest has remained in lowering the gap between the haves and have nots. The documentary notes that as a result of leftist agitation, the United States adopted programs like Social Security and unemployment insurance faster than otherwise -- programs that were once labeled communist by American conservatives. Committed to defending human and civil rights, the 1,000,000-member American Communist Party lost more than half of its members when Stalin's inhuman purges were made public. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of these interviews, which also included people like Pete Seeger, is the change in attitudes during the 1960s and '70s and the fact that some members of the Communist Party refused to be interviewed because they were afraid of repercussions if their affiliation were made public. These repercussions had taken many forms in the past, including the loss of jobs as in the McCarthy era. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Bill Bailey, Dorothy Healey, (more)
- 1971
This film that first aired on PBS during the early '70s continues to help American women openly discuss the true meaning of feminism and what it's like growing up female in a culture still overwhelmed with conflicting sexual stereotypes. Six girls and women between the ages of four and 35 talk about the cultural institutions, advertising, and role models that are influencing their efforts to achieve various goals. ~ Elizabeth Smith, Rovi
