Lisa Gay Hamilton Movies

Academy Award-nominated Atonement director Joe Wright teams with screenwriter Susannah Grant to tell the true-life story of Nathaniel Ayers, a former cello prodigy whose bouts with schizophrenia landed him on the streets after two years of schooling at Juilliard. Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) is a disenchanted journalist stuck in a dead-end job. His marriage to a fellow journalist having recently come to an end, Steve is wandering through Los Angeles' Skid Row when he notices a bedraggled figure playing a two-stringed violin. The figure in question is Ayers (Jamie Foxx), a man whose promising career in music was cut short due to a debilitating bout with mental illness. The more Lopez learns about Ayers, the greater his respect grows for the troubled soul. How could a man with such remarkable talent wind up living on the streets, and not be performing on-stage with a symphony orchestra? Later, as Lopez embarks on a quixotic quest to help Ayers pull his life together and launch a career in music, he gradually comes to realize that it is not Ayers whose life is being transformed, but his own. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Filmmaker Rodrigo García takes an unusual look into the lives of nine different women in this episodic drama. Each of the film's nine sequences has been staged as a single shot, using the Steadicam system to allow the camera to follow the action fluidly and without cuts. In these short episodes (lasting between ten and 14 minutes), Holly (Lisa Gay Hamilton) has a brief moment of reverie while confronting the specters of her past in her old neighborhood. Maggie (Glenn Close) escorts her young daughter Maria (Dakota Fanning) to a cemetery as they visit the graves of their family members. Ruth (Sissy Spacek) is a married woman contemplating an affair while visiting Henry (Aidan Quinn) in his hotel room. Diana (Robin Wright Penn) unexpectedly runs into an old boyfriend, Damian (Jason Isaacs), while shopping for groceries. Camilla (Kathy Baker) is a hospital patient awaiting surgery for cancer. Samantha (Amanda Seyfried) is a teenage girl who helps look after her handicapped father Larry (Ian McShane). Sandra (Elpidia Carrillo) is a female prison inmate who is expecting a visit from her children. Sonia (Holly Hunter) lashes out at her boyfriend Martin (Stephen Dillane) when she finds out he's been cheating on her. And Lorna (Amy Brenneman) has an unexpectedly moving encounter with her ex-husband Andrew (William Fichtner) as she pays her respects to his second wife, who has just passed away. Nine Lives premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

First-time filmmaker Abby Epstein directs Until the Violence Stops, an hour-long documentary capturing the impact of V-Day in five different international communities. Following the success of Eve Ensler's award-winning play The Vagina Monologues, V-Day was created as a global movement to end violence against women and girls. In 2002, hundreds of V-Day benefit events occurred all over the world in order to raise both awareness and funds. This program focuses on specific V-Day events in New York, California, the Philippines, South Dakota, and Kenya. Includes appearances by founder Eve Ensler along with celebrity activists Jane Fonda, Glenn Close, and Isabella Rossellini. Until the Violence Stops was shown at a special screening of the Sundance Film Festival prior to its commercial-free broadcast premiere on Lifetime Television in February of 2004. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Directed and written by Rodrigo Garcia, Ten Tiny Love Stories features ten women who, in a series of monologues, talk about the men who have made the largest impact on their respective lives. Though each woman is unique in her experiences with love, sex, death, loss, and many other aspects of the human condition, they all have one thing in common: their memories are the only remaining connection they have to the man who affected them to an extent he will probably never realize. Ten Tiny Love Stories is Garcia's second feature film, and features Kathy Baker, Radha Mitchell, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Debi Mazar, and Elizabeth Peña. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Campbell Scott is both star and co-director of this elaborate (albeit economically produced) four-hour TV version of Shakespeare's immortal tragedy Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. The film is based on Scott's earlier theatrical production of the same play, with several of the same actors repeating their same roles. Updated to 1900 New York, the text remains substantially the same as it has always been: Hamlet (Scott), the "melancholy" Danish prince, discovers to his horror that his late father, the King, was murdered by his brother (and Hamlet's uncle) Claudius (Jamey Sheridan), who upon ascending to the throne, added insult to injury by wedding Hamlet's mother, Gertrude (Blair Brown). Though his desire for revenge is strong, Hamlet does not want any more bloodshed, and concocts an elaborate scheme to "catch the conscience" of Claudius and force him into a confession. Part of this scheme involves Hamlet's feigned descent into madness -- which, as interpreted by Scott, may not be as "feigned" as he thinks it is. Caught in the middle of this intrigue is Hamlet's lady love, Ophelia (Lisa Gay Hamilton), daughter of Claudius' chief consul, Polonius (played in the manner of a protocol-conscious Victorian diplomat by Roscoe Lee Browne). Some of the choices made by Scott in adapting Hamlet to the screen -- the turn-of-the-century setting; the utilization of black actors in the roles of Polonius, Ophelia, and Laertes (who is played by Roger Guenveur Smith); the casting of Byron Jennings to play both the Ghost of Hamlet's father and the Player King, who pretends to be the father -- were applauded by the critics. Other innovations, notably the use of slow jazz music throughout the action, and Hamlet's violent treatment of poor Ophelia during the "Get thee to a nunnery" scene, were not so enthusiastically received. Whatever the case, Scott does a remarkable job with a tiny budget and a slim 29-day shooting schedule. In addition to the actors' lilting interpretation of the Shakespearean dialogue and soliloquies, the film boasts a truly exciting climactic duel, shot in long takes without the use of stunt doubles. Initially produced for a theatrical release, this Hamlet made its American debut as a cable TV miniseries on the Odyssey Channel, beginning December 10, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jonathan Demme directed this adaptation of Toni Morrison's fact-based fifth novel (winner of a 1988 Pulitzer Prize), written in an experimental stream-of-consciousness flow and capturing the impact and aftermath of slavery on the human soul. In 1873, middle-aged Sethe (Oprah Winfrey) lives near Cincinnati with her teenage daughter, Denver (Kimberly Elise). She gets a surprise visit from her old friend Paul D (Danny Glover), whom she knew when they were both slaves on the Kentucky plantation Sweet Home. Paul D moves in, and a number of mysteries are introduced, including Sethe's memories of her dead older daughter and the fact that Sethe has been abandoned by her husband, two sons, and Denver's grandmother, Baby Suggs (Beah Richards). When a feral, insect-covered, stuttering teenager (Thandie Newton) turns up at Sethe's house, she is nursed back to health by Denver and called "Beloved." Violent flashbacks begin to explore shocking episodes from Sethe's past. (The film is rated R "for violent images, sexuality and nudity.") Hints of the supernatural surface as the question arises -- could Beloved be Sethe's older daughter, back from the dead? This film was a pet project of producer-star Oprah Winfrey, who spent over a decade bringing this work to the screen after she bought the film rights in 1987. With titles fashioned by leading poster/titles designer Pablo Ferro and music by Rachel Portman, director Demme filmed in a variety of locations, including Pennsylvania (Philadelphia Civic Center, Lancaster's Landis Valley Museum), Maryland (Fair Hill Natural Resources Area), and Delaware (Old New Castle). ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

The lawyers are forced to consult another law firm when they encounter a murder case. ~ TV Guide, All Movie Guide