Marco Weber Movies

A collection of Bret Easton Ellis' short stories are adapted for the screen by Ellis and Nicholas Jarecki and helmed by Gregor Jordan in The Informers, a Senator Entertainment ensemble film featuring Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, and Winona Ryder. The film observes the goings-on during a week in Los Angeles in 1983, with many intersecting characters including a kidnapper, movie executives, rock stars, and other freewheeling, morally loose individuals. Austin Nichols, Jon Foster, and Amber Heard co-star. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi

The cynical son of an upper-class New York family bedeviled by booze, pills and mental illness strikes out on his own in this caustic, darkly comic drama. Igby Slocomb (Kieran Culkin) and his older brother, Oliver (Ryan Phillippe), are are in the process of killing their mother, Mimi (Susan Sarandon). Flashbacks delineate Igby's troubled childhood: Speed-freak Mimi and her depressed husband, Jason (Bill Pullman), snipe at each other endlessly until Jason attempts suicide before Igby's very eyes and takes up residence in a mental hospital. Igby grows into a rebellious youth, gets kicked out of several boarding schools and ends up in a hellish military academy. After one failed escape attempt, he heads to New York City and hides out in the apartment of Rachel (Amanda Peet), the heroin-addled mistress of his godfather, D.H. (Jeff Goldblum). Oliver locates the young scoundrel and informs him that Mimi is suffering from cancer. Unperturbed, Igby continues his slacker existence -- and his romance with Sookie (Claire Danes), a hipper-than-thou undergraduate who finds herself torn between Igby and Oliver. As Igby gets drawn further into the mind games and hypocrisy of the adult world, his already jaded outlook grows even darker. He takes to dealing smack and hanging out with a cross-dressing performance "artist" (Jared Harris). Ultimately, though, Mimi's impending death draws him back into the family fold for unexpected revelations and realizations. Written and directed by first-time filmmaker Burr Steers, Igby Goes Down features Rory Culkin, Kieran's brother, as the young Igby. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

The increasingly blurry lines between what is real and what is an artificial construct - both physically and philosophically - are the point of focus in the science fiction drama The Thirteenth Floor. In 1937, a man named Fuller (Armin Mueller-Stahl) gives a note to Ashton (Vincent D'Onofrio), the bartender at a swank hotel, that's addressed to Douglas Hall (Craig Bierko). Fuller tells Ashton it's crucial that no one else sees the note, and that the information enclosed is of great importance. Moments later, Fuller transports himself to 1998. He's soon found murdered, and a shirt stained with Fuller's blood is found in Hall's apartment. Fuller and Hall both work for Intergraph Computer Systems, a cutting edge artificial intelligence firm, and the "past" Fuller was visiting was actually a stunningly realistic recreation of Los Angeles 50 years ago, complete with people you can meet and places you can visit, that exists only in a microchip. The message he left with Ashton, however, is real. Some people, including LAPD detective Larry McBain (Dennis Haysbert) believe Hall murdered Fuller to assume his position of leadership at Intergraph. Jane (Gretchen Mol), Fuller's daughter, soon arrives on the scene, and Hall finds himself infatuated; Hall is determined to clear his name, so with the help of Whitney (also played by (Vincent D'Onofrio), he into the virtual 1937 in hopes of discovering just what happened. The Thirteenth Floor makes copious use of digital effects technology to allow its characters to travel between 1937 and 1998 - ironically using computer technology to create a world that exists inside a computer. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A reporter discovers both his writing and his sexual appetites can have deadly consequences in the thriller No Strings Attached. Vincent Spano plays Mark Demetrius, a journalist who is pressuring his editor, Elliot (Michael McKean), to run an investigative piece he's written on a psychiatrist with some very nasty habits. It seems one Dr. Singer (David Ackroyd) has a history of getting female patients addicted to drugs and then abusing them sexually. Elliot is reluctant to run the story, fearing legal reprisals, but agrees under the condition that Mark help him out by writing a puff piece on women's sexual fantasies. The magazine has set up a phone line for women to call in and discuss their desires, and one day Mark takes a call from Nicole (Cheryl Pollak). Mark becomes fascinated with Nicole, and is obsessed with meeting her, despite a happy, long-term relationship with his fiancée Sarah (Traci Lind). Mark eventually meets Nicole and she seduces him (not that he minds), but Mark soon discovers Nicole is not all she seems to be as his life and career are both placed in grave danger. Displaying a bit more style and smarts than the average erotic thriller, No Strings Attached was directed by Josef Rusnak, who later went on to make The Thirteenth Floor. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In this political comedy, a right-wing political party is looking for a suitable spokesman to make their ravingly eccentric positions acceptable to the general public. They find an out of work actor (Harald Juhnke) to serve as their "parrot," and at first it looks as though they have chosen well, as their popularity is now on the rise. However, they hadn't counted on the poor man having something they themselves apparently lack: a conscience. This made-for-television movie was so well received during its scheduled airing that it was later released as a movie. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi