Babs Chula Movies

This semisweet backwards glance at 1960s impulsiveness stars Margaret Langrick as a Canadian college freshman. She undergoes a bit of a culture shock when her white-bread values are challenged by her new hippie friend Liisa Repo-Martell. With a trio of her new and old chums, Langrick heads to Portland to attend a wedding. Once they arrive at the ceremony, the girls wreak a little bit of sexual havoc amongst the male guests before deciding to journey on to California. Thus a pattern is set for the previously shy and sheltered Langrick of letting her heart rule her head-a pattern ending up as far afield as Europe! American Boyfriends was the sequel to the equally fey, funny and freewheeling My American Cousin (1985). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Vancouver-based Texan Stacy Kirk made her feature directorial debut with this low-budget Canadian film, which she also scripted. Exterminator Lucky (Peter Flemming) gets caught up in a trailer-park triangle between his angry wife (Suzy Joachim) and an appealing waitress (Deanna Milligan). Set in Texas, the film was shot in Super 16mm in British Columbia and had a later blow-up to 35mm. Shown at the 1997 Vancouver Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Actress and writer Nia Vardalos, who became an overnight sensation with My Big Fat Greek Wedding, returns to the big screen with this gender-bending comedy. Connie (Vardalos) and Carla (Toni Collette) are best friends who've shared the same dream ever since they were teenagers -- making a name for themselves in the musical theater. However, after years of treading water on Chicago's dinner theater circuit and playing bottom-of-the-barrel nightclubs, the two are facing middle age with minimal career success. One evening after a performance, Connie and Carla have the misfortune of witnessing the murder of nightclub owner Frank (Michael Roberds) by low-level Mafiosi; the gals are seen by the shooters, and they hit the road in fear for their lives. Connie and Carla end up in Los Angeles, where they struggle to create new identities for themselves. After witnessing a drag review at a nightclub, they realize that even they have more talent than most of the men performing that evening, and they decide to pose as female impersonators in hopes of landing a gig. Connie and Carla's new act is an immediate hit, and soon they're the toast of L.A.'s gay community. But the women discover it's difficult to keep on fooling people into believing they're men, and things become even more complicated when the Mobsters discover that Connie and Carla are in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Connie finds herself falling for Jeff (David Duchovny), a regular guy looking for his cross-dressing brother who can't understand why he's developing a crush on a drag queen. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Adapted from the Robert Boswell novel, the film focuses on a very troubled family beset from all sides by conflict, arguments and scandal. The father (Peter Coyote) brings his wife (Cindy Pickett) and two sons (Vincent D'Onofrio, Peter Berg) to Washington State to begin a new life, but finds that the same problems have followed them. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

Glenn Close and James Woods star in this artery-clogging schmaltz about a childless couple who desperately want to have a baby. Linda (Close) and Michael Spector (Woods) are an upscale couple who have everything -- except a child. Linda mists over after she takes her temperature, plans the correct time for conception, and then her period starts. Despite medical intervention, the Spectors cannot conceive. They finally decide to adopt a child and meet the pregnant 17-year-old Lucy (Mary Stuart Masterson), who decides that the Spectors can provide a better home for her child than she and her boyfriend Sam (Kevin Dillon) could. The Spectors look Lucy over and determine -- since Lucy's mother died when she was seven -- to take care of her during her pregnancy. The three bond as they await the birth of Lucy's child. But now Lucy has second thoughts about the decision to turn her baby over to the Spectors. The solution for this happy group? Adopt Lucy and become the "immediate family." ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Canadian indie auteur Bruce Sweeney spins this wry look at the relationship of three Vancouver couples. After dating for a mere six months, Noah (Benjamin Ratner) and Zipporah (Frida Betrani) shock family and friends by announcing that they are getting married. No one is particularly thrilled about the impending nuptials and soon Noah starts to figure out why. Noah, a waterproofing expert, is maddened first by Zipporah's condo's leaking roof and then by his wife, who has illusions of fame and fortune as a country singer but has precious little talent. Noah's buddies Peter (Tom Scholte) and Shane (Vincent Gale) -- both of whom gave halfhearted congratulations at the wedding -- have romantic issues of their own. Shane grows increasing jealous when his girlfriend and fellow architect (Molly Parker) gets a big career break while he languishes behind. Meanwhile, Peter, a literature professor, cheats on his wife, Leslie (Nancy Sivak), with a shapely student (Marya Delver), who offers him favors while he discusses the work of Margaret Laurence. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Producer/writer/director Carl Bessai mines the richly textured terrain of mother/daughter relationships to craft this ensemble comedy focusing on three distinctly different mother/daughter pairings. Micki (Babs Chula) is a high-strung writer of pulp romance novels whose actress daughter Rebecca (Camille Sullivan) finds her mother completely overwhelming. Meanwhile, dedicated housewife Brenda (Gabrielle Rose) is taken aback by her husband's announcement that he is leaving her for a younger woman, and can't understand why unsympathetic daughter Kate (Tiffany Lyndall-Knight) seems more devastated by the news than she. Lastly, self-sufficient Métis businesswoman Celine (Tantoo Cardinal) begins to suspects that her latest client, a young professional named Cynthia (Tinsel Korey), who was adopted into a white household as a young girl, may in fact be her long-lost granddaughter. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry was especially written by playwright James Prideaux for Katharine Hepburn. It would have been impractical to attempt a live staging, so the script was committed to a TV movie, under the direction of Hallmark Hall of Fame veteran George Schafer. Hepburn plays another variation on the indomitable elderly lady that has become her forte in the past decade. Here she is Margaret Delafield, a wealthy WASP widow who falls in love with the divorced Jewish doctor (Harold J. Stone) who has saved her life. The clucking tongues of both her family and the doctor's will not dissuade her: Mrs. Delafield stands her ground in a climactic scene reminiscent of the actress' earlier Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (67). Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry is formula all down the line, but every latter-day Katharine Hepburn performance deserves to be treasured (though the film itself hardly warranted the three-page TV Guide article written by Ms. Hepburn herself). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Kate (Donna Mills) is an alcoholic--and, as is often the case, she is in full denial regarding her illness. Only when she is threatened with mass desertion by her husband, children and best friend does the sullen Kate agree to seek out treatment. A lengthy and often harrowing rehabilitation period with a varied group of recovering addicts seems to have a enlightening effect on Kate, who promises her loved ones--and herself--that she has taken her last drink. Thus is established the tension that permeates the final half of the made-for-TV My Name Is Kate, for which Donna Mills pulled double duty as star and producer. The film made its initial ABC appearance on January 24, 1994. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This unusual Canadian addition to the Scandavian film movement Dogma 95, which emphasizes a realist style with minimal artifice, focuses on a Romanian photographer adrift in the confusing world of Vancouver. Forty-year-old Petru (Peter La Croix) manages to get a job as a night watchman in an aging shipyard. His grumpy boss (Jay Brazeau) offers him a place in a low-rent neighborhood filled with artists. One painter relishes urinating on his work while a pretty young sculptor (Gina Chiarelli) encourages the Romanian to show his photographs. Noroc was screened at the 1999 Vancouver Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Best-selling author Michael Crichton wrote and directed this science fiction thriller that combined the influences of Blade Runner (1982), comic books, and Crichton's ongoing fascination with the dangers of high technology. Tom Selleck stars as Sergeant Jack Ramsey, a single father in the near future, when robots have largely replaced humans in performing menial labor. However, the robots occasionally malfunction, threatening human life and requiring a specialist like Jack, who terminates the haywire "runaways." Investigating a particularly nasty series of recent cases, Jack and his new partner Karen Thompson (Cynthia Rhodes) discover a connection between the runaways and Charles Luther (Kiss frontsman Gene Simmons). Luther, a maniacal genius, is masterminding a plot to create an army of killing machines. With time running out, it's up to Jack and Karen to match wits with Luther and save humanity. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide