Bob Weis Movies
- 1998
In this comedy, Eve Jacobs (Corrine Bohrer) is 39 years old, and her biological clock is threatening to start running down at any moment. Eve wants to have a baby, and has decided the time is now; however, she's not having much luck conceiving, and her husband Adam (Johnathan Penner) has more than a few anxieties about the prospect of becoming a father, especially as he approaches middle age. Eve begins consulting a battery of doctors, hoping someone can help her with her problems conceiving; she also attends meetings of a support group, WOMB (Women On a Mission to have a Baby), whose leader Rachel (Mo Gaffney) encourages desperate women to take desperate measures to have the child they've of which they've been dreaming. Inconceivable was directed by Bob Weis and written by Diane Fredel-Weis; it was the first feature film for both members of this husband-and-wife team, who based the story on their own difficulties having a baby. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Corinne Bohrer, Jonathan Penner, (more)
In this offbeat, romantic comedy, a young woman tries to conceal her paralyzed leg in order to get her man. Sophie is a young and creative writer. Her stories are quite sexual. One night, as she reads one of her erotic tales aloud she is overheard by Eddie, a jeweler known for his womanizing. Eddie is engaged to a forthright, demanding woman. Sophie falls in love with Eddie. He too, seems similarly attracted to her. But Sophie has a secret that may present an obstacle; she has a paralyzed leg and she fears that will turn Eddie off. Eddie had never seen her stand so he doesn't know this. Love-struck Sophie begins to spy on Ed. She gets a chance to win him after she accidently breaks her crippled leg. Telling him she injured it while skiing, the two begin a relationship. That Eddie is involved with stolen jewelry and a Russian policeman presents other obstacles to their happiness. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gia Carides, Anthony LaPaglia, (more)
Actor Bob Hoskins made his big-screen directorial debut with the British Raggedy Rawney. The time is World War II: a band of gypsies, roaming a country that looks and sounds suspiciously like England, give shelter to Dexter Fletcher, a soldier who has deserted an army comprised of plunderers and rapists. Gypsy leader Hoskins, confused by Fletcher's seemingly lunatic behavior (which can be explained in the context of the picture) becomes convinced that the deserter is conjuring powers that will bring his tribe good luck. The exact opposite happens, leaving Hoskins and his followers at the mercy of the marauding army. The film has the logic of a horrible dream, but it isn't exactly a horror tale. It has moments of offbeat humor, but it's not a comedy. The characters and events are exaggerations of real life, but the film isn't a satire or lampoon. What, then, is Raggedy Rawny. Like we said at the beginning: Raggedy Rawny is the big-screen directorial debut of actor Bob Hoskins.... ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bob Hoskins, Dexter Fletcher, (more)
- 1988
The limitless talents of British actress Judy Davis are generously displayed throughout Georgia. Davis plays a dual role, as Nina, a brilliant attorney and (in flashbacks) Georgia, the attorney's mother. Haunted by her mother's long-ago death by drowning, Nina reopens the investigation. What she learns not only jeopardizes her relationships with several loved ones, but also puts her own life in peril. Perhaps too intense for some viewers, Georgia is nonetheless deserving of a wider audience than it originally received in 1988. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Judy Davis, John Bach, (more)
- 1985
This Australian lampoon of historical epics stars Kim Gyngell as William John Wills and Garry McDonald as Robert O'Hara Burke, two real-life Australian explorers. Setting about to travel across the Australian continent and back again, Wills and Burke both perish on the return trip. In rehashing this oft-told story, director Bob Weis and screenwriter Philip Dalkin decided to play for laughs. Evidently many domestic viewers missed the point, inasmuch as Weis was compelled to tack the words The Wacky World Of... onto his title. Still, the film was greeted with stony silence by non-Australian audiences, who neither knew nor cared who Wills and Burke were. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1985
Cashing in on the release of Burke and Wills, this undistinguished comedy by Bob Weiss tries to turn the tragic crossing of Australia's desert in 1860 into fodder for humor, but it is tasteless fodder in the end. Robert O'Hara Burke (Gary McDonald) and William John Wills (Kim Gyngell) set out from Melbourne with a large caravan of supplies and people, intending to reach the northern coast and the Gulf of Carpenteria. Out of the 19 men who started the trek, only one returned alive. There are a few good performances delineating minor characters in this ostensibly dark comedy. One notable feature of the film is that a young Nicole Kidman plays Julia Matthews, a Melbourne singer who had a long affair with Burke. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Garry McDonald, Kim Gyngell, (more)
- 1985
Empty Beach brings Australian novelist Peter Corris' detective hero Cliff Hardy to the big screen. F/X star Bryan Brown plays Hardy, who this time around is hired to confirm or disprove the reported death of a millionaire. Hardy confers with journalist Brian Henneberry (Clifford Tate), who has some potentially explosive evidence -- and who, inevitably, is murdered before he can talk. The trail of evidence runs hot and cold, thanks to a gaggle of suspects and hangers-on who aren't revealing everything that they know. Co-starring in Empty Beach is Anna Maria Monticelli, aka Anna Jemison. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bryan Brown, Anna Maria Monticelli, (more)
- 1984
This chilling made-for-cable production stars winsome Amanda Pays as a prissy English college student who accompanies her estranged father (George Segal) to East Germany in an attempt to reconcile their differences. Shortly after her arrival, she begins to experience intense feelings of cold and dread in their flat -- which eventually progress into strange mental fugues wherein she is apparently transported to the era of Nazi occupation. As her perception of the present begins to unravel, she is thrust into a harrowing adventure involving a young anti-Nazi activist who is being hunted by Hitler's SS. Whether these time-slips are a product of her deteriorating sanity or the result of an actual rift in time is never fully explained -- until the effective climax, in which the parallel storylines intersect. Despite a few vague stretches and some unresolved plot holes, this is overall a well-crafted thriller which plays like a slick feature-length episode of The Twilight Zone. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Segal, Amanda Pays, (more)
- 1984
- R
Los Angeles is the playing field for producer/ writer/ director Bobby Roth's Heartbreakers. Peter Coyote and Nick Mancusco play a couple of thirty-something holdovers from the 1960s. Coyote is an artist specializing in S&M poses, while Mancusco is heir apparent to a large garment-manufacturing firm. Curiously, it is the hedonistic Coyote who desires a lasting relationship with a woman, while the "conservative" Mancusco is dedicated to the proposition of one-night stands. Carol Laure and Carol Wayne are the ladies who strain Coyote and Mancuso's friendship--and in so doing, force both arrested adolescents to do some growing up. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Coyote, Nick Mancuso, (more)
- 1982
Fresh out of medical school, Paul Armstrong (Simon Burke) has landed a job at an Australian urban venereal and sexual disease clinic. While he understands the medical stuff he learned in school pretty well, he is stuffy and a bit of a prude. Most of all, he hasn't yet adjusted to the idea that homosexuals are real human beings. However, in this fast-paced yet gentle comedy, which focuses on the intern's clinical encounters, he swiftly learns the ropes and changes his tune on a lot of issues, as he encounters women and men with all sorts of social and sexual problems. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chris Haywood, Simon Burke, (more)
- 1976
The seething, seamy underworld of the Melbourne drug scene provides the backdrop for this fast-paced improvisational drama that chronicles 48 hours in the lives of the drug addicts. As an added touch of realism, the cast is comprised of actual junkies. Included are scenes of real heroin injections, unconscious users, and a fatal overdose. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Waddell, John Laurie, (more)
