Trula M. Marcus Movies
- 2006
- PG13
- Add The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift to QueueAdd The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift to top of Queue
Better Luck Tomorrow director Justin Lin picks up where John Singleton left off to offer a high-octane look at the world of underground Japanese drift-racing in the latest installment of the super-charged Fast and the Furious film series. A frustrated teen from a broken home, Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) is an outsider looking to make a name for himself on the illegal street racing circuit. When Sean is busted by the police for his high-speed exploits and given the option of either spending time behind bars or moving overseas to live with his no-nonsense, military man father who's currently stationed in Tokyo, the young rebel packs his bags and sets his sights on Nippon. Though at first reluctant to adapt to the unfamiliar customs and foreign code of honor of his new home, Sean soon strikes up a friendship with American speed freak Twinkie (Bow Wow), a like-minded race fan who schools the inexperienced newcomer in the pulse-pounding world of drift-racing. Inadvertently challenging local champion and yakuza associate D.K. (The Drift King) his first time on the road, Sean is subsequently forced to work under expatriate Han (Sung Kang) to pay off his debt after failing to cross the finish line first. Taking note of the young American's affinity for racing as he warmly welcomes him into his merry band of misfit drift-fanatics, Han slowly introduces Sean to the key principles of the popular new racing style. When Sean makes the potentially deadly mistake of falling for D.K.'s girlfriend Neela (Nathalie Kelley), he'll need all the help he can get to face his most challenging race to date and take on the most notorious driver on the Tokyo drift scene in a hair-raising, hairpin-turn race where the winner truly takes all. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lucas Black, Bow Wow, (more)
- 1995
- R
This lightweight Hungarian comedy chronicles the return of an expatriate who has been away for over 38 years. When the Russians invaded Hungary in 1956, 14-year old Tamas Gordon fled the country. But for a case of mumps, he took almost nothing with him. Now he returns with Shirley, his African-American wife. He drives around the streets of his old town in a hired Caddy. Though successful, he is still homesick for his family with whom he has had no contact for almost 40 years. The mumps left him sterile and he has no children. He has returned to pay his younger brother Laci $300,000 to donate his highly viable sperm (Laci's wife already has a son and is pregnant with another.) so Shirley can become pregnant. Laci is happy to oblige, but prefers to impregnate her in the usual manner. Shirley, is also happy to oblige. Trouble ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
This drama, set in the gritty areas of New York's Lower Eastside and filmed in black and white, focuses upon the lonely and often pathetic lives of the down and out. Simon is a hustler who makes a minimal living by selling boot-leg homemade recording of underground metal-leather bands. He lives a grim life in dirty flat. He prefers solitude but has frequent and unwelcome visits from his girlfriend, a street dweller that wants to emulate him, and Shayme a junkie. The dull routine of his gray life is interrupted by a visit from a young woman from his hometown in Long Island. She is a former mental patient who was hospitalized in the same place as Simon's mother. Seeing her, brings up many unresolved feeling in Simon. Together they go to Far Rockaway, but Simon cannot deal with it and returns to the city for the movie's tragic ending. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jason Andrews, Eddie Daniels, (more)
- 1994
Following up a series of strange sensor readings, Odo and Dax are drawn to an unknown planet. Here they are taken prisoner by a Yaderan colony, where several inhabitants have disappeared without explanation. As Odo and Dax endeavor to solve the mystery (and to plan their escape), back at DS9, Kira becomes more closely acquainted with Vedek Bareil (Philip Anglim. Written by Robert Hewitt Wolfe, "Shadowplay" made its U.S. television bow on February 19, 1994. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
A reporter (Ally Sheedy) sneaks into a lab to investigate animal cruelty, and emerges from the ordeal with a mastiff named Max in this 1993 thriller. The dog, which has been genetically enhanced, makes her life miserable while they are being chased by the owner of the lab (Lance Henriksen). ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ally Sheedy, Lance Henriksen, (more)
At the turn of the century, West African slaves were brought to a small island near South Carolina to labor in the indigo trade. Isolated in the swampy atmosphere, the Gullah community was built based on ancient Yoruba traditions. They spoke in a distinct dialect, a combination of English and West African languages. This unique community is explored in Julie Dash's debut feature Daughters of the Dust, a costume drama about the Peazant family, a fictional group of Gullah natives living on Ido Landing. The secluded family experiences conflicts surrounding religion, industrialization, and tradition. The mystical matriarch Nana (Cora Lee Day) holds true to the beliefs of their anscestors, while Haagar (Kaycee Moore) can't wait to move away. Yellow Mary (Barbara O) returns from a life as a prostitute in Cuba with her girlfriend, and gets morally attacked by the reformed Christian Viola (Cheryl Lynn Bruce). Meanwhile, indifferent Eula (Alva Rogers) is pregnant with a baby that may or may not be the result of a rape. While the story doesn't attempt to follow a standard Eurocentric narrative, the plot revolves around a picnic on the shore in honor of the family members who chose to move to the prosperity of the north. The narrator is a spirit called the Unborn Child, who appears sometimes as a rambunctious little girl. A photographer accompanies the group to capture the events on film. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alva Rogers, Barbara O, (more)
This first film directorial effort of actor Simon Callow is based on a novel by Carson McCullers -- which, in turn, was adapted for the stage by Edward Albee in 1964. Vanessa Redgrave plays a powerful Southern matriarch who, sequestered in her café/general store, holds her home town in the palm of her hand. Redgrave's benevolent despotry is threatened by the arrival of her hunchbacked cousin, Cork Hubbert (in the role played on stage by dwarf actor Michael Dunn), and her jailbird husband Keith Carradine. Unable to remove this threat to her authority by her usual means, Redgrave is reduced to challenging Carradine to a bare-knuckle fight! Carson McCullers' fascination with the disintegration of the Old South coupled with her preoccupation with the grotesque requires delicate handling (as witness Heart Is a Lonely Hunter). Callow works overtime keeping things controlled and tasteful; unfortunately, this results in a very mannered and stilted production, all too obviously betraying its stage origins. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vanessa Redgrave, Keith Carradine, (more)
- 1990
In this black and white independent melodrama, Joe Belinsky (Eric Mitchell) doesn't know how to cope with his wife's pregnancy and his loss of an insurance agency job, and feels adrift. As a consequence of that, he takes a job working the counter of a low-cost, somewhat hip eatery, and meets a French girl with whom he has a brief affair. Though the affair ends, it has created an obsession in him - first with the French girl, and later with slim young women in general. All of them reject him, and he leaves his waiting job to prowl around for these inaccessible beauties. Meanwhile, his wife is having their baby. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eric Mitchell, Audrey Matson, (more)
- 1989
- R
African-American mime artist Charles Lane directed and starred in this ultra-low-budget film. Lane plays a Chaplinesque homeless individual with a talent for sidewalk chalk art, who finds himself caring for an abandoned baby. The child's father has been killed in a robbery, so Lane begins a long, lonely search for the kid's next of kin. What little dialogue there is comes from the mouths of the multitude of oddball characters with whom Lane comes in contact while he roams the streets of New York. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Lane, Nicole Alysia, (more)
