Scott Coffey
- 2008
A suburban housewife begins to gravitate away from her husband and into the arms of the nutritionist at the couple's local gym in this heartfelt marriage drama starring Julia Roberts and directed by Scott Coffey. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Julia Roberts
Cinema of the surreal icon David Lynch follows up the success of his critically acclaimed 2001 feature Mulholland Drive with this dark mystery, shot on a handheld Sony PD150 digital video recorder. It is the tale of an actress whose personality becomes increasingly fragmented as she delves ever deeper into her work for a high-profile filmmaker. Kingsley (Jeremy Irons) is a director looking to adapt for the screen a Polish gypsy folktale that was previously stalled when the two leads were viciously murdered. Having offered the female lead to devoted actress Nikki (Laura Dern), Kingsley warns her male co-star, Devon (Justin Theroux), to maintain his professional distance, as Nikki's husband (Peter J. Lucas) is known to be notoriously possessive. As the passionate co-stars quickly cross the line and become lovers, Nikki's slowly slipping sense of reality causes her to eventually become lost in her character while the mysterious story of a Polish couple and a trio of giant stage-bound rabbits (voices of Naomi Watts, Scott Coffey, and Laura Harring) lounge around on the sofa and tend to their domestic duties. Shot over the course of two and a half years and without a formalized script, Lynch's hallucinogenic look at a doomed film project features all of the abstract imagery and strange symbolism that have long made the director a favorite of film fans who embrace his disorienting approach to unconventional storytelling. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laura Dern, Jeremy Irons, (more)
Naomi Watts produces and stars in Ellie Parker, a semi-autobiographical story of an Australian actress struggling to make it in Hollywood. Ellie is young enough to still schlep to auditions back and forth across L.A., changing wardrobes and slapping on makeup en route, but just old enough that the future feels "more like a threat than a promise." She lives with her vacant musician boyfriend (Mark Pellegrino), who leaves her just about as dissatisfied as any other part of her life, and has a loose definition of the word "fidelity." Helping make sense of their surreal and humiliating Hollywood existence is her best friend Sam (Rebecca Rigg), another out-of-work actress trying her hand at design, who attends acting classes with Ellie to stay sharp. When Ellie gets into a fender bender with a guy who claims he's a cinematographer (Scott Coffey), her perspective on her work and the dating world starts to change. Chevy Chase also makes an appearance in this series of Hollywood vignettes, playing Ellie's agent. Watts, Coffey, and Pellegrino all worked together on David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, where Watts had her breakout performance, and Ellie Parker grew out of the friendship forged between Watts and director/screenwriter Coffey. It was shot on digital video over the course of five years, having begun its life as a series of shorts featuring Watts' character. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Naomi Watts, Rebecca Rigg, (more)
David Lynch wrote and directed this look at two women who find themselves walking a fine line between truth and deception in the beautiful but dangerous netherworld of Hollywood. A beautiful woman (Laura Elena Harring) riding in a limousine along Los Angeles' Mulholland Drive is targeted by a would-be shooter, but before he can pull the trigger, she is injured when her limo is hit by another car. The woman stumbles from the wreck with a head wound, and in time makes her way into an apartment with no idea of where or who she is. As it turns out, the apartment is home to an elderly woman who is out of town, and is allowing her niece Betty (Naomi Watts) to stay there; Betty is a small-town girl from Canada who wants to be an actress, and her aunt was able to arrange an audition with a film director for her. Betty befriends the injured woman, who begins calling herself "Rita" after seeing a poster of Rita Hayworth. While Betty's audition impresses a casting agent, and she catches the eye of hotshot director Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux), Kesher's producers and moneymen insist with no small vehemence that he instead cast a woman named Camilla Rhodes. As Rita attempts to put the pieces of her life back together, she pulls the name Diane Selwyn from her memory; Rita thinks it could be her real name, but when she and Betty find a listing for Diane Selwyn and visit her apartment, they discover the latest victim of a mysterious killer who is eluding police detective Harry McKnight (Robert Forster). Rita's emotional identity soon takes a left turn, and it turns out that neither woman is quite who she once appeared to be. David Lynch originally conceived Mulholland Drive as the pilot film for a television series; after the ABC television network rejected the pilot and declined to air it, the French production film StudioCanal took over the project, and Lynch reshot and re-edited the material into a theatrical feature. The resulting version of Mulholland Drive premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, where David Lynch shared Best Director honors with Joel Coen. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, (more)
Five years after the critical and commercial disappointment of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, director David Lynch returned to the big screen with this cryptic thriller about confused identities and erotic obsession. Fred (Bill Pullman) is an avant-garde jazz saxophonist who shares a luxurious but fashionably barren house with his wife Renee (Patricia Arquette). Fred suspects that Renee may be unfaithful to him, but realizes he has bigger things to worry about when a series of videotapes appear at his door that prove someone is watching his home from the outside and inside. When Renee is found murdered, Fred finds himself behind bars, but one morning Fred is no longer in his cell. He has seemingly been transformed into Pete Drayton (Balthazar Getty), a young auto mechanic who foolishly allowed himself to get involved with the wife of gangster Dick Laurent (Robert Loggia), a luscious blonde named Alice who looks exactly like Renee. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, (more)
Based on a popular British cult comic book, this film is the story of a futuristic feminist superhero and her fight to preserve the environment against an evil government bureaucracy. The action is set in the year 2033, after an ecological disaster of drought and pollution has ravaged the countryside, and water is scarce. Tank Girl (Lori Petty) is a sassy punker who has her own vintage tank in tow, along with other high-tech weapons. Her mutant friends join her in bizarre battles against the corporate-statist Department of Water and Power and its villainous chief, Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell). At stake is the world's water supply, which the Department is hoarding and which the rebels frequently raid. Rock star Iggy Pop has a cameo as Rat Face, one of the half-human, half-kangaroo Rippers. Courtney Love coordinated the post-punk soundtrack. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lori Petty, Malcolm McDowell, (more)
A man discovers that what he doesn't know can hurt him, especially when it comes to his wife, in this suspense drama. Ray Reardon (James Spader) is an architect who has just gone through a messy divorce; while his friends sing the praises of the single life, Ray would prefer to settle into a life of middle-class domesticity with a home, wife, and family. Ray meets a beautiful but mysterious woman named Lena (Madchen Amick) at a party, and for him it's love at first sight; while she remains elusive, Ray pursues her avidly, and before long he proposes, even though he doesn't know her especially well. A few years later, they're seemingly happily married with children. But Lena's behavior starts to become erratic and depressive, and she is no longer willing to account for where she's been or what she's been doing. Ray is convinced that Lena has been having an affair and begins doing some research into her past; he soon discovers her previous life bears little resemblance to what she told him and that she's been lying to him about nearly every part of her history and their relationship. Lena contends that she's just "a regular screwed-up person," but in time, Ray realizes that there's a purpose behind her duplicity: she's trying to convince people that he is insane. Dream Lover was the directorial debut of screenwriter Nicholas Kazan. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Spader, Mädchen Amick, (more)
The Temp is yet another installment in the 1990s thriller genre of "the conniving woman who gets back at all who stand in her way to success," as seen in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Single White Female, Basic Instinct, The Crush, The Babysitter, et al. In this rehash of the perennial formula, Peter Derns (Timothy Hutton), a marketing executive for a cookie company that has recently been bought out by another firm, is forced to hire temporary help when his regular office assistant takes maternity leave. Into the breach comes Kris Bolen (Lara Flynn Boyle), whose efficiency saves the day for the clueless Peter. Unfortunately for Peter's associates, her efficiency extends to killing off Peter's regular assistant upon her return to work by arranging an accident with a paper shredder. But Kris doesn't stop there, and Peter begins to notice a high body count of dead employees falling around him. Peter suspects Kris may be the culprit, but since he has just emerged from treatment for acute paranoia, he can't decide if he is imaging things or not. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Timothy Hutton, Lara Flynn Boyle, (more)
Everyone's favorite headbangers from Aurora, Illinois, are back in this sequel to the 1992 hit comedy Wayne's World. The success of their TV show allows Wayne Campbell (Mike Myers) and Garth Algar (Dana Carvey) to finally move out of their parents' homes, but now they have to figure out what to do with their lives. Wayne's girlfriend, up-and-coming rock star Cassandra (Tia Carrere), is enjoying a career boost thanks to her new manager Bobby Cohn (Christopher Walker), but Garth thinks that Bobby is more interested in her body than her place on the charts. Meanwhile, Wayne is visited in a dream by the late Jim Morrison (Michael A. Nickles), who convinces him to promote a massive rock festival, "Waynestock," featuring Aerosmith as headliners. Garth, on the other hand, is finally relieved of his pesky virginity by femme fatale Honey Hornee (Kim Basinger), though it turns out that Honey has a hidden agenda. Drew Barrymore, Harry Shearer, and Charlton Heston play cameo roles in Wayne's World 2, and Jay Leno, Rip Taylor, and Todd Rundgren appear as themselves. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, (more)
- 1991
- PG13
John Travolta stars as a hip music teacher in this old-fashioned pseudo-musical set in 1955, the dawn of the rock n' roll era. Travolta is Jack Cabe, a musician on the run in Texas for murdering a man during a recording session. Attempting to elude the law, Jack takes refuge at the Benedict School for Boys, where he is hired as a music instructor by school director Eugene Benedict (Richard Jordan). At the school, he sets teen rebel Jesse Tucker (James Walters) straight by introducing him to the new music called rock n' roll. But Jack doesn't just stop there, and soon all the youngsters are snapping their fingers to the devil's music instead of keeping time to John Philip Sousa. This steers Jack on a collision course with Eugene, who doesn't appreciate the rhythm and the blues of rock n' roll. As if that weren't enough, Jesse has taken it into his head to seduce Sara (Heather Graham), Eugene's beautiful daughter. Meanwhile, Jack has problems of his own. With the law closing in on him, he is ready to take it on the lam to another state. But the big school concert is coming up and he doesn't want to let his students down. Should he stay to play the gig and risk arrest, or elude the law and take off down the road to freedom? ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Travolta, James Walters, (more)
Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern play a pair of lovers on the run in David Lynch's surrealist road movie Wild at Heart. Cage's Sailor Ripley is a violent ex-convict with an Elvis Presley fixation who falls in love with Dern's Lula Pace Fortune, the daughter of a rich, but mentally unstable, Southern belle named Marietta (Diane Ladd, Dern's real-life mother). Just after Sailor is released from prison, where he was jailed for brutally killing one of Marietta's thugs, he and Lula take off on a wild cross-country trip, pursued by his parole officer, her mother, criminals, bounty hunters, and detectives. Along the way, Sailor and Lula have a lot of sex, share their pasts, share their respective obsessions for Elvis and The Wizard of Oz, and meet a lot of bizarre characters, including a seedy ex-marine (Willem Dafoe) who persuades Sailor to participate in a bank robbery. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, (more)
Another "get even with Hollywood" satire in the tradition of SOB and Movers and Shakers, The Big Picture is an elongated inside joke complete with un-billed celebrity cameos. In this first feature-film directorial effort by actor/writer Christopher Guest, Kevin Bacon plays a "boy wonder" director whose willingness to compromise his ideals allows him to keep afloat in Tinseltown. Bacon's corruption begins when his first Hollywood project, a black-and-white experimental film about an over-40 menage a trois, is distorted beyond recognition into a color, big-budget "youth trip". Bacon hasn't really sold out; he's merely waiting to accrue enough industry clout to strike back at the Philistines in charge. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kevin Bacon, Emily Longstreth, (more)
Shag is a beach flick set in 1963. The years have passed, but the old Where the Boys Are formula holds firm: Four attractive young lasses head for the surf and sand of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, looking for guys. Phoebe Cates is about to be married, so her three pals seek out a final affair d'amour on her behalf before she is lost to the world forever. The cast is fascinating for its family ties: Bridget Fonda is the daughter of Peter Fonda, Page Hannah the sister of Darryl Hannah, and Tyrone Power III is the son of you-know-who. Filmed in 1988, Shag was released that year in Europe, then offered to American audiences one year later. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Phoebe Cates, Scott Coffey, (more)
TV's sitcom teen (Family Ties) Justine Bateman is cast as the leader of a four-girl/one-guy rock band who's first real gig is an all-summer job playing at a resort club. The gig includes living accommodations--one room--which the entire band shares for the summer. That memorable summer, with all its emotions, plans and pains, provides the substance of the film. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Justine Bateman, Liam Neeson, (more)
In a gender-reversed version of his previous hit Pretty in Pink, John Hughes retreads all-too- familiar ground in Some Kind of Wonderful, the story of a sensitive, young would-be artist, Keith (Eric Stoltz), who vies for the affection of his high school's popularity queen, Amanda (Lea Thompson), seemingly out of some deep-rooted insecurity regarding his social ineptitude. He enlists the help of his butch best friend and fellow misfit, Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson), unaware that she secretly pines for him. While she goads him to give up his pointless pursuit of Amanda, he encounters one other small obstacle -- Amanda's rich bully of a boyfriend, Hardy (Craig Sheffer), who threatens Keith with a face rearrangement. Undeterred, Keith decides he will, by any means necessary, escort his dream girl to the prom -- but not before he buys her expensive jewelry with the money from his college fund in order to impress her. (Hughes expects the audience to side with Keith when his father protests.) Some Kind of Wonderful is pure fantasy, but the plot is too tired and flawed for it to be completely satisfactory escapism. Still, the performances are all-around good and the ending is slightly more likeable than its predecessor's. Hughes decided to use the original Pretty in Pink ending, which had been dropped from the original after poor audience response at the advance screenings. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eric Stoltz, Mary Stuart Masterson, (more)
- 1987
- R
In this horror film, young Andrea (Virginia Madsen) discovers that the students at her new boarding school seem to be a little unusual. However, when she discovers that they are being preyed upon by a group of administrators in search of eternal youth, she must struggle to avoid meeting the same fate. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Virginia Madsen, Richard Cox, (more)
Teenaged Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) is a legend in his own time thanks to his uncanny skill at cutting classes and getting away with it. Intending to make one last grand duck-out before graduation, Ferris calls in sick, "borrows" a Ferrari, and embarks on a one-day bacchanal through the streets of Chicago. Dogging Ferris' trail at every turn is high-school principal Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), determined to catch Bueller in the act of class-cutting. Writer/director John Hughes once again tries to wed satire, slapstick, and social commentary, as Ferris Bueller's Day Off starts like a house afire and goes on to make "serious" points about status-seeking and casual parental cruelties. It brightens up considerably in the last few moments, when Ferris' tattletale sister (Jennifer Grey) decides to align herself with her merry prankster sibling. A huge moneymaker, Ferris Bueller's Day Off eventually spawned a TV sitcom. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, (more)
This is an eerily prescient family adventure starring Kate Capshaw as Andie, a frustrated NASA astronaut who's never actually been into outer space. Her husband, flight controller Zach (Tom Skerritt), is sympathetic, but he can't influence her place in the rotation. Andie is assigned to train a group of intelligent high school students at the summer science camp called Space Camp, which is run by NASA and supervised by her husband. There she meets her campers: Kevin (Tate Donovan), a blasé, horny teenager; Tish (Kelly Preston), an airhead with a photographic memory; Kathryn (Lea Thompson), an arrogant pilot; obnoxious youngster Max (Joaquin Phoenix); and scientist-in-training Rudy (Larry B. Scott). While testing the solid booster rockets aboard a real shuttle, the team is blasted into space accidentally. Without enough air, the discordant team pulls together, each discovering hidden talents. The "Challenger" space shuttle disaster in January 1986 was bizarrely similar to the events depicted in Spacecamp, with far more horrific results. Its release date pushed back several months because of the tragedy, the film was still a painful reminder to the public of the national calamity, and it consequently grossed only about $10 million at the box office. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kate Capshaw, Lea Thompson, (more)
On her first day at an all-girls Catholic High School in Chicago, shy and reserved Janey Glenn (Sarah Jessica Parker) meets the wild and wacky Lynne Sands (Helen Hunt). Even though her oppressive dad, Col. Glenn (Ed Lauter), won't let her go, Lynne talks her into sneaking out to try out for a spot on the beloved show Dance TV. Janey wows the judges with her gymnastic ability and makes first cuts, conveniently assigned to a cute dance partner: blue-collar bad boy Jeff Malene (Lee H. Montgomery). They compete against the bratty rich girl Natalie Sands (Holly Gagnier), who sabotages them because she wants Jeff and the contest for herself. Janey and Lynne get revenge by inviting punks and street kids to crash her debutante ball. Natalie then resorts to making her wealthy industrialist dad, J.P. Sands (Morgan Woodward), threaten Jeff; If he doesn't let Natalie win, his dad (Biff Yeager) could lose his job at the factory. It all leads up to the live television broadcast of the Dance TV contest, right when Janey's dad races to the studio to stop her. Also starring Shannen Doherty as Jeff's little sister, Maggie. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sarah Jessica Parker, Lee Montgomery, (more)
- 1985
Leading man Gabriel Byrne adds a "Harlequin Romance" dash to the two-part, six-hour TV movie Christopher Columbus. Seeking out a swifter route to the lucrative Indies, Genoa-born Columbus begs King John of Portugal (Max Von Sydow) to finance a westbound expedition. Failing this, he turns to Spain's Queen Isabella (Faye Dunaway), who is entranced by Columbus' near-religious fervor. After the famous 1492 expedition, Columbus is bankrolled for future forays into the New World, which win him both adulation and vilification. Originally telecast May 19 and 20, 1985, Christopher Columbus was filmed on location in Spain, Malta and the Dominican Republic, making full use of a $15 million budget. It isn't an earth-shattering cinematic experience, but is lots more worthwhile (and less ponderous) than the brace of Columbus biopics inflicted upon movie audiences in 1992. Those concerned with political correctness should be satisfied with the film's second half, which explores the more sinister elements of chauvinistic colonization. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1984
- R
This sci-fi adventure is set in a distant future wherein the scorched, irradiated Earth is run by the tyrannical Omega Force until a courageous motorcycle-riding maverick shows up to stop him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Ginty, Persis Khambatta, (more)
Though some viewers might be put off by its length, graphic violence, and absence of likable characters, Sergio Leone's final film is also a cinematic masterpiece. Spanning four decades, the film tells the story of David "Noodles" Aaronson (Robert De Niro) and his Jewish pals, chronicling their childhoods on New York's Lower East Side in the 1920s, through their gangster careers in the 1930s, and culminating in Noodles' 1968 return to New York from self-imposed exile, at which time he learns the truth about the fate of his friends and again confronts the nightmare of his past. The acting, the re-creation of the time period, the cinematography, and the music are all superb. However, even more important is Leone's ability to make the film work on so many different levels: it's both a criticism of gangster-film mythology and a continuation of the director's exploration of the issues of time and history. Strange as it may seem, the violence and gore in the first half of the film turn into a sad elegy about wasted lives and lost love. The film's strengths emerge only in its full 229-minute version -- the 139-minute and other edited versions don't make nearly the same impact. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert De Niro, James Woods, (more)
