Victor Solnicki Movies

For good or ill, there's no arguing that few magazines have had as great an impact on American culture as Playboy, which helped launch several major salvos in the sexual revolution and broke down barriers about what was acceptable to show and say in print. But while the magazine's founder and publisher Hugh Hefner has a well deserved reputation as a free speech advocate and a man who embraces the good life in every way he can, the person behind the carefully cultivated public image remains a mystery to many. Filmmaker Brigitte Berman presents an in-depth portrait of a man who has quietly promoted many causes other than wine, women and song in the documentary Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel. In addition to chronicling the rise of his publishing empire, the film explores how he's used his success to promote causes he believes in, such as racial equality, reproductive freedom, First Amendment causes, fighting the anti-Communist blacklist and equality for women. Created with Hefner's participation and featuring interviews with Mike Wallace, Jesse Jackson, George Lucas, Jim Brown, Pete Seeger, Dick Gregory and James Caan, Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel was an official selection at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

An aspiring comic, Neville (Larenz Tate) is burdened by drug abuse and memories of childhood traumas. He and his older half brother Matthew (Martin Cummins), a boxer, are unable to escape from the painful repercussions of their past, which includes their mother serving a prison sentence for killing Neville's father. Things seem to look up for Neville when he becomes involved with a gifted singer (real-life R&B chanteuse Deborah Cox), but still he must struggle to surmount a family legacy that has resulted in so much anger and emotional ruin. Screened at the 2000 Vancouver International Film Festival, Love Come Down features renowned Canadian actress Sarah Polley in a role as an unconventional nun. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

In this Canadian film, overweight piano prodigy Junior Brown (Martin Villafana) searches for a piano because his goofy mother (Lynn Whitfield) severed the strings on the family piano. Since paranoid Miss Peebs (Margot Kidder), his piano teacher, won't let him finger her keyboard, he has to run scales on her dining room table. Fortunately, Junior has a friend -- troubled Buddy Clark (Rainbow Sun Francks) who lost his family in a fire when he was a young child. Buddy goes out with a teen runaway (Sarah Polley), and he helps eccentric school janitor Mr. Pool (Clark Johnson) construct a model of the solar system in the school basement. Junior's frustrations mount as his quest continues. Music includes Chopin's "Prelude No. 4". Shown at the 1997 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Hardcore pornography, sadomasochism, mind control, and living televisions all play crucial roles in Videodrome, one of director David Cronenberg's explorations of dangerous sexuality and technological obsession. The morally questionable hero of the tale is one Max Renn (James Woods), a television executive searching for an intense new program for his sex-oriented network. He ultimately discovers an underground program called "Videodrome," which appears to broadcast pornographic snuff films of actual murders. Horrified but perversely intrigued, Renn sets out to find the truth behind the program. During his search, he meets alluring femme fatale Nicki (Blondie lead singer Debbie Harry), technology cult leader Bianca O'Blivion, and other mysterious figures. Things become even more disturbing for Renn as his addiction grows, and the program begins to infect the outside world -- or perhaps merely destroy own his sanity. Cronenberg mingles his cerebral concerns about the nature of reality in the video age with enough visceral gore (courtesy of Rick Baker) to satisfy the film's intended horror audience. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

The title of this David Cronenberg sci-fi horror film refers to a group of people who have telekinetic powers that allow them to read minds and give them the ability to make other people's heads explode. The children of a group of women who took an experimental tranquilizer during their pregnancies, the scanners are now adults and have become outcasts from society. But Darryl (Michael Ironside) decides to create an army of scanners to take over the world. The only person who can stop him is his brother Cameron (Stephen Lack), who wants to forget that he was ever a scanner. Winner of the International Fantasy Film Award at the 1983 Fantasporto Film Festival, Scanners was followed by a pair of sequels, neither of which involved Cronenberg. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

When the money-hungry Duke Stuyvesant (Sterling Hayden) orchestrates a phony gas shortage, chaos ensues in a small Midwestern town. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Canadian director David Cronenberg followed his graphic vampire variation Rabid with this multi-layered, speculative horror film which addresses the way the repressed demons of the psyche can force their way to the surface. Psychologist Dr. Raglan (Oliver Reed), director of the controversial Psychoplasmic Institute and author of the book "The Shape of Rage," encourages his patients to outwardly manifest their anger and fear (aided by some experimental drugs), which then takes physical shape as actual sores, cancers, or strange new organs. One of Raglan's more successful patients (from his point-of-view, anyway) is Nola Carveth (Samantha Eggar), who is undergoing therapy following a painful divorce from her husband, Frank (Art Hindle). When Frank discovers evidence that Nola may have injured their daughter, Candice (Cindy Hinds), he begins to suspect Raglan's techniques but is unprepared for the most horrifying by-product of her rage: a progeny of sexless, dwarflike mutants who are born for the sole purpose of acting out her violent fantasies of revenge. Containing only enough energy to carry out their murderous tasks, the brood is dispatched to kill Nola's parents, then a woman she believes is having an affair with Frank. By the time Frank discovers the origins of the tiny offspring, they have already abducted Candice and taken her to the institute, where Frank must confront Nola in person. Although it contains one of the most visceral and nauseating scenes in movie history (during the film's climax), this nevertheless remains the most subtle of Cronenberg's early horror projects, with a strong subtext about the devastating effects of divorce. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide