René Malo
- 2010
- AddScannersto Queue
Saw franchise mainstay Darren Lynn Bousman directs this remake of the David Cronenberg classic concerning an underground group of telekinetic "scanners" who plot to take over the world. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 2001
Though demolition sites rarely capture the rapt attention of adult passersby, kids are nearly always captivated by the huge machines involved in construction and excavation. In this video, fun names are given to the bulldozer and crane as the narrator explains how these big machines help construction workers make new buildings and tear down old ones. Viewers will see a giant crane lift and swing construction materials to different project areas, as well as clips of a factory and giant smokestack being reduced to rubble. ~ Elizabeth Smith, All Movie Guide
- 1999
John Malkovich and Lorraine Bracco star in this offbeat drama set in women's restrooms. The first half of the film tells of three actresses forced to prepare for their performance in the same bathroom because their dressing rooms are flooded. Veteran actress Gemma (Bracco) is stunned by the anger and pessimism of her younger counterpart. In the second half, Italian Lauren (Veronica Ferres) goes to the opera with her lover Roberto (Malkovich) only to learn his true nature when she runs into his pregnant wife in the ladies room. Ladies Room was screened at the 1999 Montreal Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Malkovich, Lorraine Bracco, (more)
- 1996
- PG
Set in a tiny Mojave desert town, this Canadian children's tale centers on Earl Williams, a 12-year-old boy obsessed with the notion of bringing back Frankenstein from the dead. Earl loves horror and frequently draws chilling pictures in class, something that gets him in trouble with his super-strict teacher Mrs. Perdue. Earl's father is a failed Hollywood actor and much of the boy's dreaminess comes from him. Earl gets a chance to enact his dream on Halloween night just after the police bring him and his buddy back home after catching them trying to sneak in to the drive-in to watch Night of the Living Dead. As soon as they can, the boys sneak out to a traveling carnival where they try to break into the House of Mysteries to investigate the "actual authentic Frankenstein's Monster" said to reside within. The next day the carnival heads to a new town, but as one truck pulls away, the monster falls out and is left in the road. Earl finds it and spends the rest of the picture trying to bring it back to life. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jamieson Boulanger, Burt Reynolds, (more)
- 1994
Mighty Machines teaches kids and adults about many different contraptions that vehicles used in various aspects of modern life. This edition concerns itself with various types of boats and ships. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- 1994
Mighty Machines teaches kids and adults about many different contraptions that vehicles used in various aspects of modern life. This edition concerns itself with machines that can be found on typical construction sites. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- 1994
Mighty Machines teaches kids and adults about many different contraptions that vehicles used in various aspects of modern life. This edition concerns itself with different elements of racing cars including working in a pit crew. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- 1994
In this sequel to Scanner Cop, Sam (Daniel Quinn) is out to discover who his mother really was. Meanwhile, a new kind of ephemeral drug has been developed that doesn't have the side effects of the previous ones, and a serial killer -- who is also a scanner and is sapping the power from other scanners -- is after it. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Quinn, Patrick Kilpatrick, (more)
- 1992
- R
This is the third in the Scanners series of films, where people have acquired telepathic powers (due to drugs taken by their mothers during pregnancy). This time a brother combats his adopted sister in a telepathic show-down when the sister takes an experimental drug that turns her toward evil. She schemes a plan to take over the world using her psychic powers and must be stopped. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Parrish, Liliana Komorowska, (more)
- 1991
- R
Picking up where Scanners left off, this sequel has good and evil scanners combatting when a crooked politician schemes to gain control of a major city. Scanners are people who, because their mothers had taken a certain drug during pregnancy, have acquired telepathic powers. Here, a "bad-guy" scanner escapes from a mental center and is hired by the politician to use his powers to gain control of others' minds, and then, their actions. A "good-guy" scanner teams with his sister to thwart these plans. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Hewlett, Deborah Raffin, (more)
In this glossy L.A. crime drama by Mike Figgis, Andy Garcia stars as Sgt. Raymond Avila, a cop who just joined the Internal Affairs division of the L.A.P.D. An investigation into police corruption has led Avila and his partner, Sgt. Amy Wallace (Laurie Metcalf), to Officer Dennis Peck (Richard Gere). Avila suspects something about Peck from the beginning; his influence and dominance over others seems to extend further than the reach of his badge. When officers who wish to testify against Peck start dying, the depth of his corruption becomes increasingly clear; at his disposal, he has an army of cops and criminals alike. He even agrees to assassinate a sleazy businessman's own parents, and humiliates the businessman while they make the deal. In his drive to dominate others, Peck attempts to seduce almost every woman around him and is obsessed with children and fatherhood. Peck is most dangerous when the investigation threatens his territory and his extended family; he stalks Avila and turns him against his wife (Nancy Travis). ~ Jonathan E. Laxamana, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Gere, Andy Garcia, (more)
- 1988
Immigrants from Quebec travel to the Eastern United States to work for French industrialists in this historical drama. Gratien Gelinas plays a venerable Quebecois who recalls in 1988 the era from 1907 to 1920 in a series of flashbacks. He compares the modern computer age with the steadily growing industrial era of the early 20th century. An all-star cast of French and Canadian thespians participate in this miniseries as the Quebecois deal with love, life, politics, and war. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Juliette Huot, Gratien Gelinas, (more)
- 1988
Set in a small Quebec town in the late '20s, this moving drama follows the life and exploits of Celeste Beaumont, a talented young pianist, who gains local celebrity at the town movie theater for her gifts as a silent film accompanist. As an added attraction, Celeste dons ornate gowns for each performance. Audiences are just as interested in her ever-changing apparel as they are in the film. Awkward Pierre Blaudell is her biggest fan and eventually convinces Celeste to be his wife. Shortly after she bears his son, Pierre joins the army. She insists on joining him at the base and his meddlesome, snooty parents insist she give them her son. After Pierre is killed in battle, Celeste flees to New York where she finds steady employment as a jazz pianist. She finds a life-long companion with a black musician and chronicles her experiences in a diary that she passes on to her son after he grows up. He becomes a painter and once his own son is grown, reads him the story of Celeste, the youth's grandmother. Intrigued, the young man heads to the Big Apple in hopes of finding her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Monique Spaziani, Gabriel Arcand, (more)
An obscure and offbeat novel by Andrew Neiderman comes to life as this strange, disturbing, but fairly compelling psychological thriller. The title refers to a life-sized medical dummy (the name is short for Pinocchio) through which strait-laced physician and would-be ventriloquist Doctor Linden (Terry O'Quinn) communicates with his children, Leon (David Hewlett) and Ursula (Cyndy Preston). Although Pin seems to have served a useful purpose by providing the emotionally distant Linden with a means of opening up to his family, the mannequin's importance gradually becomes a decidedly unhealthy influence for Leon, whose latent psychosis emerges fully after his father's death and compels him to "adopt" Pin as a member of the household. As Ursula, now a beautiful woman, begins to enjoy a relatively happy love life, Leon is consumed with jealousy and, goaded by the 'Pin' aspect of his personality, turns to murder as release. In its depiction of a psychotic who loses his will to an increasingly lifelike dummy, Pin is remarkably similar in theme to Richard Attenborough's Magic (which itself owed a debt to films like The Great Gabbo). Though it breaks no new ground in this respect, this quirky horror film does present an irresistibly eerie charm (thanks in large part to Hewlett's fine performance) and generates a decent amount of suspense, building to a chilling, if not entirely surprising, climax. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Hewlett, Cyndy Preston, (more)
- 1986
- R
- AddThe Decline of the American Empireto QueueAddThe Decline of the American Empireto top of Queue
A rousing "he said/she said" endeavor, The Decline of the American Empire begins by separating the boys from the girls. Preparing a gourmet dinner, four male intellectuals begin trading stories of their sexual experiences. At the same time, four well-read women, all working out in a gym, exchange their own tales from the love front. The film is set in the lofty circles of academia, a world well known to Canadian director Denys Arcand. The anecdotes related herein are based on actual events in the lives of Arcand's professorial friends. There's nothing bookish, however, about the subject matter of the stories themselves, which ranges from mild philandering to S & M. The Decline of the American Empire was the winner of eight Canadian Genie awards (that's the above-the-border equivalent of the Oscar), including Best Picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierre Curzi, Rémy Girard, (more)
- 1986
Gerald McRaney flies in the face of his likeable Simon and Simon image in the made-for-TV Easy Prey. McRaney plays real-life serial rapist/murderer Christopher Wilder who, in early 1984, abducted a teenaged girl from a California shopping mall. Repeatedly assaulting the girl and keeping her quiet with threats of death, Wilder forced her to accompany him on a crime spree that ranged from one end of the country to another. Shawnee Smith is excellent as Wilder's terrified victim. Filmed in Canada, Easy Prey was first aired on October 26, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1985
In a standard psycho-killer thriller, Cecile (Nathalie Baye) goes from her home in Canada to New York after her boyfriend is thrown in the slammer there for drug-running -- she still wants to be near him. Unable to stay past her visa's limits, Cecile literally contracts a legal marriage to an American via an agency and starts working in a deli to support herself. It is when her totally wacko "husband" shows up that her life goes from terrible to terrorific. His insanity has already slashed up one wife, and he is ready to continue on with Cecile unless the slow-witted female can figure out what to do. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nathalie Baye, John Shea, (more)
- 1984
This poignant human drama is phrased as a "small sonata" in three movements -- a novel approach by director and writer Micheline Lactôt to tell the story of two teenage girls. In the first movement, Chantal (Pascale Bussieres) rides the same bus every day and slowly develops an infatuation with the bus driver. Their interactions are expressed through gestures and glances and facial expressions, but not words. Just as Chantal is getting old enough, and maybe courageous enough to actually say something to the driver, fate steps in and she loses her chance. In the second movement, Louisette (Marcia Pilote) hides out on a fishing boat and is discovered by a Bulgarian fisherman who treats her with kindness and consideration and they spend a special evening together -- without being able to speak a word in the other's language. In the third movement, Chantal and Louisette become friends, and as kindred spirits they share a sense of loss and hopelessness -- leading to a plan of action that is dangerous to both of them. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pascale Bussières, Marcia Pilote, (more)
- 1980
One of Canada's talented directors, actress Micheline Lanctot expresses an effective, engaging approach in this simple, poignant drama about Armand (Jocelyn Berube), a handyman with one problem romance after another. The quiet Armand settles into Montreal after his wife has left him and before long, he continues the momentum when an ill-considered liaison with a nubile woman ends on her insistence. Next, Armand gives his heart to a frustrated housewife, though this decision is hardly well thought out. In the meantime, a gay man who rents out a room in his apartment has unfulfilled longings directed at the unsuspecting handyman. L'Homme a Tout Faire won a Silver Medal for "Best Picture" at the 1980 San Sebastian Film Festival. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jocelyn Berube, Andree Pelletier, (more)
