Christopher Munch Movies

One man's unguarded honesty threatens to destroy the longtime friendship between an aspiring screenwriter and a successful magazine editor in writer/director Russell Brown's blistering comedy about the high price of being truthful. Sam has written a screenplay. He believes the film he has dreamt up could be his ticket to the big time, but before anything else, he wants to get some feedback from his old friend David. David is a magazine editor who's currently at the top of his game. He doesn't think too much of Sam's screenplay, and his admission of this fact opens up a critical rift between the two longtime writers. As the tension begins spreading to other areas of both men's lives, they suddenly find themselves forced to confront their motivations for becoming writers in the first place. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Two women connected by family are drawn closer by fate in this low-key drama. Frances (Jacqueline Bisset) is a woman in her early fifties who had already begun to sense time was running out for her when she learned that she has cancer. While Frances is fighting the disease through medical treatment, she decides it's a good idea to do some travelling before it's too late, and she pays a visit to Bob (Seymour Cassel), a former boyfriend who now owns a farm in rural Pennsylvania. To Bob's surprise, Frances strikes up a fast friendship with his wife Betty (Peggy Gormley), and Frances shares a confession with her -- while Frances maintains a close relationship with her son Morgan (Nick Stahl), she also had a daughter by Bob that she put up for adoption, and she's not certain if she should track down the child while there's still time. Coincidentally, Frances' daughter is Rebecca (Martha Plimpton), a successful lawyer who has begun to express a curiosity about her birth parents. Rebecca has been hired by a large communications firm to deal with the paperwork regarding the purchase of a radio station in Florida, and while in the Sunshine State, Rebecca gets to know the station's manager, Jimmy (Frankie R. Faison). As Jimmy and Rebecca ease into a short-term romance, he shares stories about the "Sleepy Time Gal," a mysterious female disc jockey who worked at the station back in the '50s; what neither Jimmy nor Rebecca know is that the Sleepy Time Gal was actually Frances. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The relationship between John Lennon and Brian Epstein, the manager of The Beatles, is fictionalized in writer-director Christopher Munch's acclaimed The Hours and Times. The basis of the film is a real-life event from 1963, when Epstein and Lennon left the rest of the Beatles behind to spend an extended weekend together in Barcelona, seeking rest and relaxation. Munch builds his film around conjectures about what may have happened that weekend just before the breaking of Beatlemania in America, portraying the bonding, conflicts, and sexual tension between the two men. As the trip begins, the homosexual Epstein has already been nursing a frustrating crush upon the young singer, which Lennon -- recently married -- has neither fully acknowledged nor discouraged, as he alternately questions Epstein with intrigued curiosity and flirts with stewardesses. Munch's film, winner of a special award at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as acclaim from numerous critics, presents Lennon and Epstein's exchanges in crisp, rich black-and-white images, framing the pair against various Barcelona backdrops. Ian Hart, who portrays John Lennon in the film, would soon afterwards reprise the role -- with intriguing, subtle variation -- in the 1994 feature Backbeat. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide