Seymour Cassel Movies

Director Wes Anderson and his longtime friend and writing partner Owen Wilson follow up Bottle Rocket (1996) and Rushmore (1998) with this similarly offbeat comedy about a dysfunctional family reunion. Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) was a successful attorney who had three children with his wife Etheline (Anjelica Huston), an archaeologist. Each of the Tenenbaum kids was a precocious genius: Chas (Ben Stiller) made a killing as a child investor. Richie (Luke Wilson) was a junior tennis champ and three-time U.S. Nationals winner. The adopted Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) was a playwright who won a 50,000-dollar Braverman Grant in the ninth grade. When Royal abruptly left his family, however, it was the beginning of two decades of betrayal and failure that would scar the Tenenbaums for life. Their past resentments are bitterly held against Royal when he suddenly reappears, claiming to have six weeks to live and a desire to reconnect with his family. Typically, Royal's story is a sham, but his presence and sincere desire for absolution soon have a profound effect on the Tenenbaums, who are each dealing with thwarted desires and relationships. Among them are Richie's lifelong love for Margot, who's unhappily married to Raleigh St.Clair (Bill Murray) and Etheline's eccentric engagement to Henry Sherman (Danny Glover), who wishes to marry her. The Royal Tenenbaums also co-stars Owen Wilson and features narration provided by Alec Baldwin. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Herman Melville's short story Bartleby the Scrivener gets a slightly surreal update in this offbeat comedy drama. The manager (David Paymer) of the city records department in a mid-sized California community decides that his staff of three -- flirty chatterbox Vivian (Glenne Headly), sloppy Vietnam vet Ernie (Maury Chaykin), and slick-suited, Don Juan wannabe Rocky (Joe Piscopo) -- could use some help, so he places an ad looking for a new employee. The boss ends up hiring the one and only applicant who wants the position, a quiet, pale young man named Bartleby (Crispin Glover). At first, Bartleby is a model of efficiency, but before long he loses enthusiasm for his job, much to the annoyance of his co-workers, and soon he's spending his days staring at an air conditioning vent. The Boss asks Bartleby to get back to work, but Bartleby's repeated reply to such requests is, "I prefer not to," and the Boss sees little recourse but to fire him. However, Bartleby refuses to leave his desk, and it soon becomes obvious that Bartleby has not only stopped doing his work -- he's stopped going home and has moved into the office. Bartleby was the first feature film for producer/director Jonathan Parker; he also wrote the screenplay, in collaboration with Catherine Di Napoli. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A groom-to-be wanting to put his best foot forward finds that's not so simple in this updated screwball comedy. Isaac Adler (Timothy Hutton) is a straight-laced college professor who is invited to give a lecture in San Francisco on the day before his wedding. Adler accepts the invitation, certain he has plenty of time to get back home in time for the nuptials, but he makes the mistake of leaving his shoes out to be shined -- and only one of the shoes returns. Adler sets out to find his missing shoes, or obtain a new pair of dress shoes before he reaches the altar, but that proves to be a lot more complicated than he expected; along the way, he meets a lovely and free-spirited woman named Aurora (Maria Grazia Cucinotta) who offers to help him, but Aurora's "helpful" ideas include visiting several nightspots, getting tattoos, and eventually spending the night in jail. Is there any hope for Adler -- or his shoes? Just One Night also features Udo Kier and Seymour Cassel. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this dark comedy, a group of retirees wants to save their homes -- but they're not typical senior citizens trying to make the most of their Social Security checks. Four aging former mobsters -- Joey "Bats" Pistella (Burt Reynolds), Bobby Bartellemeo (Richard Dreyfuss), Mike the Brick (Dan Hedaya), and Tony "The Mouth" Donato (Seymour Cassel) -- live in the same rundown Miami apartment complex, the Raj Mahal. New owners hope to clear out the current tenants and replace them with a younger, more lucrative clientele. But the veteran gangsters don't want to move, so to scrape up the extra rent money, they take a job executing the father of a Miami mob boss. They happen to know he's already dead, so all they have to do is make it look like they did the hit. Their problems start when loudmouthed ladies' man Tony tells too much to Ferris (Jennifer Tilly), a stripper, and soon she's talked him into murdering her mother (Lainie Kazan) in exchange for her silence. The Crew also features Carrie-Anne Moss as a detective and Jeremy Piven as a mob kingpin out to avenge his father's death. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Actor-turned-director Steve Buscemi follows up on his restrained 1996 directorial debut Trees Lounge (1996) with this gritty, understated prison drama. Twenty-one-year-old suburban kid Ron (Edward Furlong) got busted for dealing drugs and slapped with an especially severe jail sentence. Though he tries to keep a low profile at prison, he soon attracts unsavory attention of various sex-starved goons. Fearing rape, he appeals directly to Earl (Willem Dafoe), a fellow prisoner who runs the place like it was his own fiefdom. Though Ron's request is strictly against this rarified culture's baroque rules, Earl takes him under his wing, and soon he is a part of Earl's inner circle. Slowly Ron learns the breadth of Earl's power, ranging from the easy procurement of drugs to the violent dispatching of a prisoner who gets out of line. As Ron grows increasingly indebted to Earl, he wonders how he is expected to repay him. Yet Earl, who shows his fondness for the lad with fatherly tenderness counterbalanced with repressed yearning, never pushes his advantage. Other members of the cast include Tom Arnold as a salivating hill-billy and an almost unrecognizable Mickey Rourke as a cross-dressing prison queen. This film was highly praised at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Austrian director Stephan Wagner makes his feature debut with this edgy deadpan film noir about two friends who -- upon opening an antique shop -- learn more about the themselves and the world around them than they cared to know. Former thug Bernd (Thomas Morris) grows weary of the crime racket and particularly of his psychotic partner Erwin (Wolfgang S. Zechmayer) and decides to buy a curio shop from an old man with his buddy Paul (Simon Licht). Paul manages to pool some money together for the purchase thanks to the family of his girlfriend Eva (Eva-Marie Straka). Problems arise when Paul throws his relationship with Eva in jeopardy when he involves himself in an increasingly intense affair with Lisa (Tatjana Alexander). Meanwhile, Bernd, who is using the shop as a cover for his drug-dealing ring, garners some unneeded notice from his scorned colleague Erwin. Matters come to a head when Bernd is ordered by crime boss Dragan to kill Erwin while Paul's romantic double-dealing finally catches up with him. Kubanisch rauchen was screened at the 1999 Denver Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

A framework of a standard crime drama gets turned on its head in the independent comedy/drama Snapped. Billy (Johnny Zander) swipes a bag of money from a diner in New York City and heads to East Hampton with the loot. Bob (Seymour Cassel), the owner of the cash in question, follows close behind, giving rather slow chase. Once Billy arrives, he meets his girlfriend Tara (Gaby Hoffman), a photographer who specialized in pictures of road kill. Billy, however, has some competition from Shane (David Wheir), a clerk at a photo shop who admirers her work. Snapped was shown as part of the 1999 Los Angeles Independent Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

After the highly acclaimed independent film Bottle Rocket, director Wes Anderson followed up with a quirky Touchstone Studios film entitled Rushmore. Written by Anderson and friend Owen Wilson (an actor in Armageddon and Anaconda), they created the story of Max Fischer, a highly eccentric 15-year-old boy who attends the tenth grade at Rushmore Academy. Played by Jason Schwartzman (Talia Shire's son and Francis Ford Coppola's nephew), Max is a poor student with big dreams and a love of extracurricular activities. Max is editor of the school newspaper and yearbook, president of the chess, astronomy, French, and German clubs, captain of the fencing team, and director of the school play. Max is also a compulsive liar, telling everyone that his barber father (Seymour Cassel) is really a brain surgeon. Suddenly Max falls in love with Miss Cross (Olivia Williams), a first-grade teacher at the school. He also makes a new friend in business tycoon Mr. Blume (Bill Murray), an eccentric millionaire who also loves Miss Cross. The love triangle heats up as Max refuses to believe that his age has anything to do with Miss Cross refusing his romantic advances. Also Max's scheme to erect an aquarium on the school baseball diamond gets him booted out of Rushmore Academy. As his life crumbles around him, he is forced to grow up and accept the consequences of his actions and his lies. He throws himself more into his extracurricular activities, hoping to redeem himself by staging the most ambitious school play ever attempted. ~ Arthur Borman, All Movie Guide

Pulp fiction writer Jim Thompson's novels have been adapted into noirish movies such as The Grifters and this one, directed by Michael Oblowitz. This unusual dark tragedy is narrated by Marty (Billy Zane), a successful investigative reporter who is unhappy with his shy and sick wife. As children, Marty and his twin sister Carol (Gina Gershon) saw their father and his mistress murdered in their home. Their mother (Rue McClanahan) took the children on the road, and they had a tumultuous childhood before finally settling in a small town in California. Marty and Carol had an incestuous relationship, and now they resume it after Marty leaves his wife and job to visit his sister and mother. Carol has been divorced and has become a cheap hooker. Marty soon hooks up with a classy, highly professional policewoman, Lois Archer (Sheryl Lee), who has a secret need to treated abusively, and they spend decadent weekends together at a beach cottage that Lois and her husband own. Marty and Carol plot to get the cabin for themselves after Carol poisons a couple of gangsters who are horning in on her prostitution business. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

This crime drama, based on the best-selling novel by Mario Puzo, follows 20 years in the long reign of powerful Mafia kingpin Don Domenico Clericuzio (Danny Aiello). For years, the Clericuzios have been warring with a rival crime family, the Santadios, which is not helped when Domenico's daughter Rose Marie (Kirstie Alley) decides to marry the son of the head of the Santadio clan. On the night of Rose Marie's wedding, Domenico orders the execution of the entire Santadio family, including his new son-in-law. Rose Marie is pregnant as a result of her brief honeymoon, and her son Dante (Rory Cochrane) grows up to become a hired killer with a bitter hatred of his grandfather. Meanwhile, Pippi De Lena (Joe Mantegna), Domenico's key enforcer who carried out the slaughter of the Santadinos, has been grooming his son Croccifixio (Jason Gedrick) to take over as the Clericuzio's new trigger man. However, after he muffs a crucial execution, Croccifixio is sent to work with the family's operations in Las Vegas, where he becomes involved with starlet Athena Aquitane (Daryl Hannah). Soon Dante makes a risky bid to seize control of the Santadio family's crime empire. Originally produced as a television miniseries, the home video release of The Last Don is 262-min. long and it includes material not used for television broadcast. The video version features adult language and nudity and received an R rating. The Last Don co-stars Robert Wuhl, Penelope Ann Miller, Seymour Cassel, Burt Young, and k.d. lang. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Set upon the island of Cyprus, a pair of good friends who run a prominent nightclub/prostitution ring find their good life about to come unraveled when they receive a damning film that reveals them having disturbingly kinky sex. These acts happened years ago when both friends were migrant workers in the Persian Gulf. The man who sent them the tape is a greedy American who participated in the shenanigans and now wants a piece of their lucrative club. His demands have tragic repercussions. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Filmed in St. Helens, Oregon, this comedy-drama centers on highly educated Anne, a young woman forced by circumstance to work in a photographic equipment store. Poor Anne goes into a terrible funk after her lover, a foreign correspondent assigned to Eastern Europe, dumps her via telephone. This, on top her general disillusionment with her current life, drives Anne to attempt suicide. She wasn't terribly serious about it an survives. Realizing she needs help, Anne calls a suicide hot-line and begins talking to Don, a slightly older fellow with few goals and aspirations who works in real estate for his father. Don has worked the Hope Line for many years and nothing really surprises or even interests him anymore, but when Anne calls, something about her touches him. He inadvertently learns her identity and launches a tentative romance with her, even though she doesn't know exactly who he is. Meanwhile Anne makes a maudlin series of video-tapes to send to her lover in hopes of explaining herself to him. Unbeknownst to her, the videos are grabbed and kept by Paul, the delivery boy who has a secret crush upon her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide