Joseph Strick Movies

This documentary offers a look at criminal activities in the contemporary United States. It includes some investigative reporting as well as interviews with criminals confessing their crimes to district attorneys, and surveillance films of actual crimes in progress. Though all manner of crimes ranging from child molesting to robbery of the donation box by a parish priest, to convenience store robberies are depicted, most of the crimes the film centers on are violent. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The wolves of the Arctic Circle and its environs, the stunning beauty of a Northern winter, a biologist who braves it all to record the lives of the wolves, and Inuits who save the biologist's hide and share their own wisdom openly are all winners in this film that is a tribute to the skills of writer and director Carroll Ballard (The Black Stallion). Based on Farley Mowat's autobiographical novel of the same name, Tyler (Charles Martin Smith) is a normal biologist until he gets up into the Arctic winter in order to prove that the caribou herds are not being decimated by wolves; then he becomes a semi-klutz, unable to instinctively adapt to the deep freeze around him. After he sets up his first stake-out, a native Inuit named Oolek (Zachary Ittimangnaq) comes along to help him out and gets him better established in an isolated hut, where Tyler is left to fend for himself again. That he does, but not because he can see in advance what his needs or problems are going to be -- he just comes up against the worst when it happens and works from there. At the same time, Tyler gets to carefully and closely observe a wolf family he has already dubbed as George, Angeline, and the three pups, and he has several comic interactions with his distant "pets." Oolek and his friend Mike (Samson Jorah) drop by to keep Tyler company for awhile, sharing their observations on nature and life in an easy-going, non-committal manner. With Tyler's perseverance and the knowledge gained from experience and through these conversations, the real culprit in the decimation of the caribou turns out not to have four legs at all. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Adapted by Judith Rascoe from James Joyce's first novel, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is told through the eyes of Joyce's alter ego Stephen Dedalus. Played by Bosco Hogan, Dadelus comes of age in many ways when he attends Dublin University. The film retains Joyce's pointed, inquisitive barbs at Catholicism, a fact that caused as nearly much uneasiness in 1977 as it did when the novel was first published. Also retained are vestiges of Joyce's stream-of-consciousness technique, though producer/director Joseph Strick adopts a more cinematic narrative approach. In 1967, Strick had produced the film version of Joyce's Ulysses; several of the cast members of that earlier film (T. P. McKenna, Rosaleen Linehan, Maureen Potter) are reunited for Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Darwin Adventure stars Nicholas Clay as 19th century British naturalist Charles Darwin. The film covers the whole of Darwin's life, with emphasis on his volatile evolutionary theories. The "adventure" of the title is Darwin's 1831 fact-finding voyage on the good ship Beagle, in search of nature's secrets in the darker corners of South America. The story ends in Darwin's declining years, during which time many of his theories have been adopted and refined by younger, more broad-minded naturalists. The Darwin Adventure plays like a Cliff's Notes version of the subject's life, packing far too much into its 91 minute running time to be properly digested by the average filmgoer. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Three years after cinematizing James Joyce's long-censored Ulysses, Joseph Strick mounted an adaptation of another racy literary work -- Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. Rip Torn plays Miller, an American expatriate author living -- and loving -- in 1920s Paris. The much-vaunted sex scenes were hot enough in 1970 to earn the film an X-rating, and an NC-17 when the film was re-rated in 1992. Ellen Burstyn (then billed as Ellen MacRae) has a few effective scenes as Miller's long-suffering wife, Mona; Phil Kaufman later elaborated on her character in the 1990 film Henry & June. Henry Miller himself appears in Tropic of Cancer, billed as a "spectator." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based on the classic novel by James Joyce, this drama deals with the life of an impotent married Jewish man, his wife and a student/poet in Dublin. Focusing more upon the characters' thoughts and fantasies than upon their actions, it features some of Joyce's previously banned prose. This drama was filmed in Ireland with a largely Irish cast and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay. ~ Kristie Hassen, Rovi

The Savage Eye opens by introducing the camera lens as a "character" who will follow the leading lady (Barbara Baxley) throughout her day. The woman is a recent divorcee who moves to Los Angeles in hopes of jump-starting her life. As she weaves her way through the LA, we share her observations on the various denizens of the street, from religious fanatics to faddists. Except for a smattering of professionals like Baxley, Gary Merrill and Herschel Bernardi, most of the characters in Savage Eye are the genuine article, though they're all too aware they're being photographed and thus can't be taken as completely "real." A mixed-bag attempt at cinema verite, Savage Eye was cocreated by Joseph Strick, the entrepreneur who later tried to film James Joyce's unfilmable slice-of-life novel Ulysses. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi