David Leland Movies

Both as a member of the Beatles and as a solo artist, George Harrison was one of the best loved and most influential musicians of his generation, and when he died November 29, 2001, after a long battle with cancer, it was a tremendous blow to the many great artists who were his friends and collaborators. A year to the day after his passing, a handful of pop music royalty who had known and worked with Harrison staged a special concert at London's Royal Albert Hall to play his music and honor his art and memory. Concert for George is a documentary which presents highlights from the Harrison memorial concert, featuring performances by Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Tom Petty and the Heartberakers, Jeff Lynne, Billy Preston, Jools Holland, Sam Brown, and Joe Brown. A portion of the profits from the film's release will be donated to The Material World Foundation, a charitable organization founded by Harrison. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Two small-time crooks find themselves in deeper water than they can handle in this offbeat comedy. Edgar (Bob Hoskins) and Morales (Antonio Banderas) are a pair of minor-league grifters posing as men of the cloth, who travel through the deep South selling cheap socks at inflated prices to raise money for the fictional children's charity St. Mortimer's Orphanage. While stopping at a diner, Edgar and Morales spot a fellow fugitive from justice, the White River Kid (Wes Bentley), who is wanted for murder. Taking pity on a fellow outlaw, Edgar and Morales decide to warn the Kid that there are cops nearby and that he might want to make himself scarce; however, they soon regret their brief moment of compassion when they discover the Kid has taken over their RV and is now holding them hostage along with a waitress from the restaurant. The White River Kid also features Ellen Barkin, Beau Bridges, Swoosie Kurtz, and Randy Travis. While the film was completed in 1999, it received only scattered theatrical distribution in Eastern Europe and South America, and made its American premiere as a cable television feature in 2001. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

British writer-director Maria Giese filmed this independent sports drama, which centers around the wasted opportunities of young footballer Jimmy Muir (Sean Bean). Muir works in a brewery and lives with his parents and younger brother in the hard-scrabble industrial city of Sheffield, England. He loves to play soccer, but he is arrogant, disrespectful, and frequently drunk, and he has never made much of his talents. While playing for a local pub's team, Jimmy is spotted by Ken Jackson (Pete Postlethwaite), who recruits him for a higher league. Meanwhile, Jimmy embarks on an affair with a young Irish woman named Annie Docherty (Emily Lloyd), and he gets her pregnant. Jimmy gets offered a tryout with a professional club, Sheffield United. But the night before his tryout, he beds a stripper and gets roaring drunk. The next day he is useless, and he blows his big chance to make something of himself. Annie, who badly wanted him to succeed to get them both a better life, then leaves him. Jimmy finally realizes that he must change if he is going to have any kind of a future. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi

Jeff Daniels stars in this tedious situation comedy concerning the middle-aged terror of illness and mortality. Scripted by Joe Eszterhas, Daniels plays Southern Californian Ray Macklin, who thinks he will live forever but realizes the fallacy of his idea when his best friend drops dead in front of him after issuing the set-up to the old joke, "Why don't Italians like barbecues?" (Which begs the question, "Why can't Joe Eszterhas write funny scripts?" The answer: "He did. Showgirls.") Anyway, after that shock trauma, Macklin becomes convinced that he is set to suffer the same fate and, as a result, becomes a raving hypochondriac. As Macklin continually clutches his chest and checks his heart monitor, he sinks himself deeper and deeper into the mindset that he is doomed, even though his tests turn out fine. All of this comes to a head in a bizarre dream sequence in which Macklin imagines Heaven as a Hawaiian resort populated by extras from a Federico Fellini picture. At that point, he wills himself to return to consciousness after surgery to remove his appendix. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

The British Wish You Were Here served as the auspicious film debut for 16-year-old Emily Lloyd. The scene is a British seaside community of the 1950s, where the local adults are shocked and embarrassed by the libertine Lynda (Lloyd), who dresses provocatively, behaves outrageously, and swears like a sailor (her favorite epithet is "Up your bum"). Lynda's mother is dead, and her father has given up trying to do anything with her. She attempts to hold down several jobs, but messes them all up through insolence and carelessness. Excessively promiscuous, Lynda has an affair with a middle-aged friend of her father's. She becomes pregnant, only to use her "fallen" state to gleefully shock and annoy her elders even more. Despite her bravado, there's an underlying sadness about Lynda: the title Wish You Were Here refers to her feelings concerning her late mother. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Director Alan Clarke's influential television drama Made in Britain marked the screen debut of actor Tim Roth. Roth plays Trevor, a skinhead with a swastika tattoo on his forehead who lashes out verbally and sometimes physically at everything that surrounds him. Cinematographer Chris Menges (who would go on to win Oscars for his work on The Killing Fields and The Mission), gets his camera right in Roth's snarling face, as the film tracks Trevor's progress through the British justice system. In the courtroom, charged with attacking a Pakistani man and vandalizing his store, Trevor displays absolutely no remorse as he matter-of-factly admits that he knew the man would have to be hospitalized for his injuries. Trevor's social worker, Harry (Eric Richard), recognizes Trevor's intelligence, but he's running out of ways to convince Trevor to straighten out his life. Harry takes him to a juvenile detention center for "assessment," after which he'll be sentenced. Trevor immediately dismisses Peter (Bill Stewart), the put-upon supervisor of the center, as a "wanker." He meets his black roommate, Errol (Terry Richards), whom he quickly convinces to come out with him on a car-stealing, glue-sniffing, job-center-vandalizing day trip. Brazenly returning to the detention center in a stolen car, Trevor eventually provokes Peter into locking him in a classroom, so a police superintendent (Geoffrey Hutchings) can harangue him about the hopeless path his life is taking. Trevor refuses to accept the center's (and society's) standards for "good behavior," raging that they all just want everyone to follow the rules and keep their mouths shut. The script was written by David Leland (Wish You Were Here) and the songs on the soundtrack are by the anarchist hardcore band the Exploited. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

In this historical fantasy, based on the classic medieval poem during the days of King Arthur, the gallant Green Knight gallops into the court and makes a gruesome challenge to the Round Table Knights. He dares any of them to successfully chop off his head. If they fail, he gets to hack off theirs. Brave Gawain accepts the challenge and with a mighty swing slices off the Green Knight's noggin. Unfortunately, the headless body calmly picks up the head and places it back on his shoulders. The honor-bound Gawain then must fulfill his destiny at the palace of the Green Knight. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A well-to-do widower with a cozy mistress and a country estate falls for his young houseguest, the inexperienced daughter of a friend of his, and marries her. This causes his daughter, who is the same age, no little distress. While the relationship of the father and daughter grows rancorous, the young bride grows attached to a handsome next-door neighbor, a farmer who is her own age. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

One of a handful of Hammer "Dracula" films starring Christopher Lee, The Scars of Dracula begins as Count Dracula (Lee) rises from the grave once again. Buckets of blood and vats of violence will delight fans of horror. A young man and his girlfriend find themselves in Dracula's castle where Dracula sinks his teeth into five victims and tortures a servant in a graphically violent scene. A priest is attacked by a bat and meets his maker much earlier than anticipated. Naturally, the girl is soon coveted by Dracula, and the heroic young man must come to her rescue. There are typical scenes of religious defilement, arson, and the requisite wooden cross that wards off the evil bloodsucker. Dracula meets his fiery demise (yeah, right) when the foreboding castle is torched. No matter how he meets his end, rest assured Dracula will rise once again from any grave he finds himself in at the end of every film. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi