Lisa Gay Hamilton Movies
Born in Los Angeles, actress Lisa Gay Hamilton moved across the country to attend N.Y.U. and then Juilliard. She made her film debut in the cult favorite rap movie Krush Groove (1985) and made her television debut on Homicide: Life on the Street. By 1993, she was appearing on-stage at the New York Shakespeare Festival and on Broadway in August Wilson's The Piano Lesson. She moved on to film comedies, playing a bumbling crook's wife in the crime caper Palookaville and a trusty gal pal in the romantic comedy Nick and Jane. After a few small roles in Jackie Brown and Drunks, she moved on to television as associate attorney Rebecca Washington on David E. Kelley's ABC drama The Practice. After her Emmy nomination, she remained on the show until the 2003 season. Staying with more dramatic fare, she played the young Sethe in Jonathan Demme's Beloved and a devoted wife in Clint Eastwood's True Crime. She found stellar roles in made-for-television movies, as a woman accused of murder for having an abortion in Swing Vote, a cotton plantation slave in A House Divided, and Ophelia in Hamlet. Back on the big screen, she provided a monologue for Ten Tiny Love Stories and worked with director Demme again on The Truth About Charlie. After writing with the Sundance screenwriter's lab, Hamilton made her directorial debut with the HBO documentary Beah: A Black Woman Speaks, a biography of the late actress, poet, and playwright Beah Richards. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
An Alcoholics Anonymous meeting brings together a disparate group of people struggling with addiction to drugs and liquor in this film based on Gary Lennon's play "Blackout." Jim (Richard Lewis) is in a bad mood as he sits in on an AA meeting in the basement of a church in New York City; he's prodded into speaking in front of the group for the first time in seven months, and he confesses that he desperately wants to get drunk. Three years before, Jim gave up a decade of dependence on booze and heroin for the sake of his wife, who has just died unexpectedly of an aneurysm, and before long, Jim runs out in search of a bottle. Meanwhile, the other members of the group share their own stories about their problems with substance abuse, including Rachel (Dianne Wiest), a physician who tries to uses her job to fill the void in her life left by the departure of her husband and son; Joseph (Howard Rollins), whose drunk driving put his five-year-old son in the hospital; Debbie (Parker Posey), a young woman who wishes she could have been Janis Joplin; Shelly (Amanda Plummer), whose force of will is being tested by an upcoming visit from her mother; Becky (Faye Dunnaway), a divorcee who is not sure how she'll handle losing custody of her child; Brenda (Lisa Gay Hamilton), an HIV-positive former junkie who was stealing syringes from her diabetic mother; and Louis (Spalding Gray), who is actually looking for the choir practice at the church; he then goes into a rhapsodic ode to the pleasures of beer which suggests that he has his own problems with the bottle. Drunks was the first feature film for director/producer Peter Cohn. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Lewis, Faye Dunaway, (more)
Quentin Tarantino wrote and directed this adaptation of Elmore Leonard's 1995 Rum Punch, switching the action from Miami to LA, and altering the central character from white to black. Ruthless arms dealer Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson), who lives with perpetually stoned beach-babe Melanie (Bridget Fonda), teams with his old buddy Louis Gara (Robert De Niro), just released from prison after serving four years for armed robbery. ATF agent Ray Nicolette (Michael Keaton) and cop Mark Dargus (Michael Bowen) bust stewardess Jackie Brown (Pam Grier), who was smuggling money into the country for Ordell. Ordell springs Jackie, but when middle-aged bail bondsman Max Cherry (Robert Forster) picks her up at the jail, he's attracted to her, and they choose a romantic route with detours. Mistrust and suspicions surface after Jackie pits Ordell and the cops against each other, convincing Ordell that she's going to double-cross the cops. Tarantino commented on the film's budget: "Jackie Brown only cost $12 million. You can't lose. You absolutely, positively can't lose. And you don't have to compromise." ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, (more)
- 1996
With nods in direction of Picture Perfect and Pretty Woman, this romantic comedy opens with classy corporate executive Jane (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson) discovering her boyfriend/colleague John (John Dossett) in bed with another woman. Exiting into the New York night, she grabs a rundown Checker cab, driven by Nick (James McCaffrey). Jane's friend Vickie (Lisa Gay Hamilton), who thinks Jane should make John jealous, hatches a plan that would give taxi-driver Nick a fake executive background with an alias, "Nolan Miller." Falling for this, John suggests Jane invite Nolan to the annual company luncheon. Jane promises Nick an easy $1500 if he will go through with the charade, and he agrees. Then comes the gender-switch on Pretty Woman as Nick gets a Madison Avenue makeover. By this time, naturally, Jane is realizing she's attracted to Nick, and events become triangulated. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, James McCaffrey, (more)
An intense film about time travel, this sci-fi entry was directed by Terry Gilliam, a member of the comedy troupe Monty Python. The film stars Bruce Willis as James Cole, a prisoner of the state in the year 2035 who can earn parole if he agrees to travel back in time and thwart a devastating plague. The virus has wiped out most of the Earth's population and the remainder live underground because the air is poisonous. Returning to the year 1990, six years before the start of the plague, Cole is soon imprisoned in a psychiatric facility because his warnings sound like mad ravings. There he meets a scientist named Dr. Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe) and Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt), the mad son of an eminent virologist (Christopher Plummer). Cole is returned by the authorities to the year 2035, and finally ends up at his intended destination in 1996. He kidnaps Dr. Railly in order to enlist her help in his quest. Cole discovers graffiti by an apparent animal rights group called the Army of the Twelve Monkeys, but as he delves into the mystery, he hears voices, loses his bearings, and doubts his own sanity. He must figure out if Goines, who seems to be a raving lunatic, holds the key to the puzzle. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, (more)
Three likable losers attempt "a momentary shift in lifestyle" by becoming part-time thieves in this comedy. Russ (Vincent Gallo) is living with his family, who don't get along especially well, and he fools around with the teenage girl who lives next door. Jerry (Adam Trese) is married to Betty (Linda Gay Hamilton), who -- unlike her husband -- has a job and wants to keep it, even if that means having an affair with her boss. And Sid (William Forsythe) has a soft spot for dogs, which helped derail his plans for a taxi service for senior citizens. All three guys are out of work and need quick money; Russ comes up with a plan to rob a jewelry store, but things go haywire when they accidentally break into a bakery instead, though they at least make off with a large supply of doughnuts. Despite their initial failure as criminals, the would-be thieves raise their sights and plan to knock over an armored car, but they soon discover just how far out of their league they really are. Palookaville was based on a series of short stories by Italian writer Italo Calvino. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Forsythe, Vincent Gallo, (more)
- 1995
A cab driver is murdered, putting the detectives on a long and circuitous trail of clues. Along the way, such elements as a loan shark, a missing plumber, and a forged check determine the proceedings. Ultimately, the investigation focuses on the dead man's widow, Denise Johnson (Lisa Gay Hamilton) -- and, of course, Johnson's resourceful attorney, Brian Elliott (Michael Beach). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1993
Still frustrated by the unsolved Watson murder, Bayliss (Kyle Secor) and Pembleton (Andre Braugher) are in no mood to tackle the murder of a police dog -- but they must, since the Baltimore municipal code dictates that any police killing in the line of duty must be given first priority. Meanwhile, Howard (Melissa Leo) and Felton (Daniel Baldwin) go after a sadistic drug dealer who has ritualistically murdered his victim -- and in so doing, they find a link to a case being handled by Lewis (Clark Johnson). And on the domestic scene, Bolander (Ned Beatty) meets the teenage son (Stiv Paskoski) of his current amour Dr. Carol Blythe (Wendy Hughes); and Crosetti's (Jon Polito) wife is pregnant. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniel Baldwin, Ned Beatty, (more)
This film is a darkly humorous, determinedly ambiguous adaptation of Alan Dershowitz's book about his successful legal appeal of Claus von Bulow's conviction for the attempted murder of his wife, Martha "Sunny" von Bulow. Sunny (Glenn Close) -- who remains in a "persistent vegetative state" resulting from a suspicious injection of insulin -- narrates the film, summarizing the first murder trial, which ended with Claus (Jeremy Irons) convicted and released on bail pending appeal. Claus approaches Harvard Law professor Dershowitz (Ron Silver) to handle the case. Working with a small group of law students recruited from his classes, Dershowitz presents sufficient new evidence to cast doubt as to Claus' guilt and the veracity of the star witness, her maid. Jeremy Irons' extraordinary, Oscar-winning performance dominates the film. He plays the role of Claus with a alternatively pompous, aloof snobbishness and an engagingly enigmatic, kinky, sly humor. Barbet Schroeder was also nominated for an Academy Award for his extraordinary, off-beat, direction of this sophisticated, exceptionally intelligent legal drama. Reversal of Fortune with its sharp, witty, Oscar-nominated screenplay by Nicholas Kazan is unusual in its understanding that legal guilt and moral culpability are not the same thing -- making for an unusually provocative tragicomedy of bad manners and bad behavior among the rich. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons, (more)
In-between rappin' numbers by groups like Run-DMC and The Fat Boys, an almost unnoticeable plot unfolds as manager Russell (Blair Underwood) desperately looks for funding to press more records for Run-DMC's first hit. This gets him into deep water when he borrows from the wrong man and then is left behind after his performers hit the charts and are off on a better life. But all is not lost, after more rap and rock by everyone, the clan returns with salvation at hand. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Blair Underwood, Joseph Simmons, (more)
