Nicky Guadagni Movies
Lars (Ryan Gosling) and Gus (Paul Schneider) are the grown children of a father who died recently and a mother who died giving birth to Lars. But as brothers, they couldn't be more different. While Gus lives in the family home and has a loving wife (Emily Mortimer) and a child on the way, Lars leads a more reclusive existence in the family's garage, hiding in plain sight of his small, wintry hometown. Painfully shy and eccentric, Lars fails to recognize that his co-worker Margo (Kelli Garner) has a major crush on him, and he picks up on a casual reference made by his cubicle mate, who mentions a website where you can order life-sized, anatomically correct sex dolls. But instead of seeing a sex object, Lars sees in this doll a potential life partner and the only kind of social "peer" he can relate to. So Lars orders a doll, whom he names Bianca, and begins treating her with utmost gentlemanly respect -- and as though she's his real-life, flesh-and-blood girlfriend. As he begins bringing Bianca with him everywhere he goes, the townspeople have to find just the right balance between supporting Lars' unusual romance and trying to introduce him to a more conventional partner. Lars and the Real Girl was written by Six Feet Under scribe Nancy Oliver and directed by Mr. Woodcock's Craig Gillespie. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, (more)
A mother and daughter flee to a strange abandoned town to seek out answers to the daughter's nightly psychological turmoil in Brotherhood of the Wolf director Christophe Gans' adaptation of the popular survival horror video game. Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) is a very sick child, yet rather than seeing her child suffer the cruel indignities of the medical profession, Rose (Radha Mitchell) ignores her husband's (Sean Bean) pleas and absconds with her ailing daughter to the fog-enshrouded town of Silent Hill. A town drenched in darkness and inhabited by a strange collection of menacing specters, Silent Hill seemingly swallows young Sharon whole upon arrival. Determined to get her daughter back at any cost, Rose sets out to explore the mysterious Silent Hill, only to discover an evil so powerful that it possesses the ability to transform anything it wishes. With the deeply disturbing history of the town slowly coming into focus through the dense fog, Rose soon realizes that both she and her daughter may be little more than simple pawns in a much larger, and seemingly supernatural, game. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Radha Mitchell, Sean Bean, (more)
- 1999
The life and career of Ricky Nelson--from awkward kiddie TV star to teenaged singing idol to "young hasbeen"--is adequately encapsulated in this made-for-cable movie, one of several celebrity biopics produced for VH-1. Told in flashback as Ricky Nelson (Gregory Calpakis) recounts his experiences to a worshiping fan in the last hours before the 1985 air crash that would take his life, the story begins around 1952, as the adolescent Ricky is recruited by his bandleader-producer father Ozzie Nelson (Jamey Sheridan) to play "himself" on the movie and TV version of the popular radio series The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Anxious to crawl out from under the shadow of his dictatorial father Ozzie, his vocalist mom Harriet (Sara Botsford) and his marginally more talented older brother David (Anthony Lemke), the 16-year-old Ricky begs for a chance to sing on the family's series. The wildly enthusiastic audience response to Ricky's warblings prompt Ozzie to aggressive promote Ricky's musical career, but ultimately Ricky breaks loose from the family's influence to strike out on his own. Alas, after several years at the top, Ricky's career and fan following plummets, before he has reached his 30th birthday he is grasping at straws by performing at county fairs and trade shows. Making matters worse is his unhappy marriage to Kris Harmon (depicted as something of a conniving opportunist by Anne Openshaw) and his ever-increasing dependence upon drugs. Astonishingly, the film never allows us to hear Ricky perform "Garden Party", the song that enabled him to make a spectacular comeback. Ricky Nelson: Original Teen Idol first aired on August 22, 1999. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
This low-budget science-fiction drama, winner of a 1997 Toronto Film Festival prize for "Best Canadian First Feature," depicts the plight of a group of people clad in prison-style uniforms and trapped in futuristic cube-like metal cells. Their memories are hazy; no one can recall how they got there. Alderson (Julian Richings) awakens in a cell, seeks an exit, and arrives in an adjacent cube where he's sliced and diced. Former cop Quentin (Maurice Dean-Wint) becomes the group leader, and he's challenged by conspiracy theorist Dr. Holloway (Nicky Guadagni). Government worker Worth (David Hewlett) remembers a past government link to the project. A discovery that the cubes have numerical codes suggests study by math-student Leaven (Nicole deBoer) while former thief Rennes (Wayne Robson) knows some escape tricks. However, the extreme behavior of Kazan (Andrew Miller) becomes a threat to their survival. The film was also shown at the 1997 Vancouver Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maurice Dean Wint, Nicole deBoer, (more)
- 1997
- PG13
Based on Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust, a book by Gay Block and Malka Drucker, this made-for-cable drama was intended as the first of a trilogy inspired by the same literary source. The film is divided into two segments, both set in Europe during WWII. Scripted by Ernest Kinoy, "Mamusha" stars Elizabeth Perkins as a Polish-Catholic nanny who saves her orphaned Jewish charge by literally hiding the child in plain sight, posing as the child's mother. And "The Woman on the Bicycle," adapted by Susan Nanus, features Sela Ward and Fritz Weaver in the story of a fearless French resistance fighter who smuggles secret papers for the Allies while going about her daily cheese deliveries (this same character was fictionalized in the 1963 theatrical epic The Longest Day). Executive-produced by Barbra Streisand and directed by Peter Bogdanovich, Rescuers: Stories of Courage -- Two Women made its Showtime cable debut on October 5, 1997. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elizabeth Perkins, Sela Ward, (more)
- 1996
Filmed in Canada and broadcast in America by the USA cable network, We the Jury offers a new and intriguing spin to the old 12 Angry Men format. There is absolutely no question that Emmy-winning TV personality Wynne Atwood (Lauren Hutton) shot and killed her cheating husband in the home of his mistress. But while the prosecution demands that Atwood be convicted of murder, her attorney, Wilfred Franciscus (Christopher Plummer), insists that the charge be reduced to manslaughter, arguing that his client had been driven to insanity by an abusive husband. Ultimately the verdict must be determined in the jury room, where at first the jurors are divided straight down gender lines. As the deliberations continue, things get hot, heavy, and potentially violent, with the various prejudices, biases, and even the ambitions of the jurors (one of whom wants to write a book about the trial!) threatening to build impenetrable roadblocks on the path of true justice. Attempting to keep his colleagues "on program" is the beleaguered jury foreman, played by future Da Vinci's Inquest star Nicholas Campbell. American viewers first saw We the Jury on October 16, 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kelly McGillis, Lauren Hutton, (more)
- 1995
When a witness against Ray's old nemesis Kruger (Aidan Devine) perjures herself in court, Ray (David Marciano) goes ballistic--and ends up being jailed for contempt. Reckoning that there are several incarcerated cons who have scores to settle with Ray, Fraser (Paul Gross) arranges to "protect" his friend by getting himself arrested. While Fraser makes many new friends behind bars as the jail's new library monitor, Ray discovers that the lying witness was only trying to save her imprisoned husband from Kruger's wrath. Lee Purcell becomes a semi-regular in the role of highly suspicious attorney Louise St. Laurent, a character introduced in the first-season episode "Victoria's Secret." Originally broadcast on Canadian television, "Witness" made its US debut on December 15, 1995. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Gross, David Marciano, (more)
- 1991
In this off-beat, suspenseful Canadian fable, an introverted, repressed young writer becomes obsessed with peeping into the apartment of a beautiful rock singer. She becomes his whole world until he finds himself witnessing her murder. Shocked back to reality, he attempts to stop peeping. He attends the singer's funeral and there meets an intriguing woman. They become lovers, but as time passes, he begins suspecting that she and the late singer are somehow inextricably linked. Meanwhile, his involvement with the new woman, does little to strengthen his resolve to quit spying on others. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kate Nelligan, Maurice Godin, (more)
- 1988
In 1982, five young left-wing extremist shook up the Canadian government and its people by bombing a power plant, destroying a Litton Industries plant that made cruise missile guidance systems and firebombing several pornographic video stores. Based on interviews with one of the convicted bombers and wiretap transcripts, this made for Canadian television drama tells their story. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robyn Stevan, Michael McManus, (more)
- 1985
Turning to Stone is a Canadian drama set in a women's prison, but you'll find no Linda Blair excesses this time around. Nicky Guadagni stars as a pretty and pleasant young woman who becomes involved in the drug culture. Busted for smuggling, Guadagni is tossed into the slammer. While Judith Thompson's script is unsparing in depicting the bleakness and degradation of prison life, this is no mindless, torn-blouse exploitation film. Turning to Stone is in the same league as the landmark women's-prison picture Caged in chronicling the depersonalization process inherent in life behind bars. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1984
A Matter of Sex is the calculatedly misleading title of a based-on-fact TV movie, which originally bore the more suitable title Women of Willmar. In 1976, the women working in a bank in Willmar, Minnesota become incensed because less-qualified men are being promoted over them. Head teller Jean Stapleton, with the help of attorney Peter Dvorsky and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, organizes an employee's union. When the chauvinistic bank officers cause negotiations to break down, Stapleton and seven other female employees go on strike--a job action which lasts for two years, despite political and social pressure from the community. Director Lee Grant, whose daughter Dinah Manoff is cast as one of the strikers, had previously helmed a documentary based on the same incident, The Willmar Eight--which was telecast on PBS the night before the January 1984 network premiere of A Matter of Sex. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
