David Nichols Movies
One of Oscar Wilde's most popular plays is given a new screen interpretation in this period comedy. In New York in the early '30s, Mrs. Erlynne (Helen Hunt) is a widow who lives comfortably through the largesse of several married men, and when she runs out of wealthy suitors in Manhattan, she decides to find greener pastures among the wealthy elite of Italy's Amalfi coast. Mrs. Erlynne sets her sights on Robert Windermere (Mark Umbers), a wealthy Englishman who is married to the young, innocent and very beautiful Meg (Scarlett Johansson). Mrs. Erlynne gingerly tries to separate Robert from his wife and his money, fueling suspicions within Amalfi society as well as the audience that they are involved. Humiliated and ready to beat him at his own game, Meg begins to consider the advances of the handsome Lord Darlington (Stephen Campbell Moore), one of her husband's close friends. In the midst of all the attempted infidelity, the genially eccentric Tuppy (Tom Wilkinson) struggles to win Mrs. Erlynne's hand, while only one of the interconnected parties know that she carries a shocking secret. A Good Woman was based on Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan, with its title drawn from that show's subtitle, "A Play About a Good Woman." ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helen Hunt, Scarlett Johansson, (more)
The blurry line between a rumor and the truth is stretched to the breaking point in this drama. Three arrogant and self-centered college students, Jones (Lena Headey), Derek (James Marsden), and Travis (Norman Reedus), are brought together for a class project, in which they decide to start a rumor and keep track of how it spreads. Looking for possible gossip material, they see Naomi (Kate Hudson), a girl known for her high-minded views on saving sex for marriage, drunkenly making out with Bo (Joshua Jackson) at a party. The three students begin passing around the rumor that Naomi became a victim of date rape later that evening, embroidering the truth with allegations that Bo forcibly seduced Naomi after she was too inebriated to put up a fight. Before long, the rumor makes its way back to Naomi herself, who suffered a black-out on the night in question after too much alcohol. Naomi panics, and convinced that the rumor is true, contacts the police, who assign Detective Kelly (Sharon Lawrence) to investigate the charges of rape filed against Bo. Featuring a cast of young actors best known for their work on television, Gossip was an appropriate first feature film for director Davis Guggenheim, who previously distinguished himself on such TV series as ER, NYPD Blue, and Party of Five. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eric Bogosian, Marisa Coughlan, (more)
Typically impressive natural vistas from director Jean-Jacques Annaud (some secretly filmed on location in Tibet) highlight this adaptation of the memoir by Heinrich Harrer. Brad Pitt stars as the arrogant Heinrich, a famed Austrian mountain climber who leaves behind his wife and infant son to head a Himalayan expedition in 1939, only to fall into the hands of Allied forces as a prisoner of war. He and a fellow escapee, Peter Aufschnaiter (David Thewlis), make their way to the Forbidden City in Tibet, where Peter finds a wife and Heinrich befriends the Western culture-obsessed teenage Dalai Lama (Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk), the spiritual leader of his Buddhist nation. As Heinrich waits out the war, his friendship with the Dalai Lama begins to transform him from haughty to humble, but a crisis with China looms. A controversy over the revelation of the real-life Harrer's Nazi Party affiliation brewed during the film's production, forcing Annaud to briefly deal with the subject in the film. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brad Pitt, David Thewlis, (more)
Loosely based on a true account, this family drama centers on a group of aimless Hawaiian teens who with the support of two inspirational teachers turn their lives around by building a solar powered car and racing it across the Australian outback during the World Solar Challenge. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Halle Berry, James Belushi, (more)
- 1994
- PG
Rival groups of boys from two neighboring Irish villages engage in a running battle in this remake of the 1962 French movie of the same name, based on a novel by Louis Pergaud. The boys from Ballydowse, who dress as they please, exchange insults with boys from nearby Carricksdowse -- who wear school uniforms. One day, the Bally gang cuts the buttons off the clothes of a bully in the Carricks gang. The Carricks retaliate by swiping the buttons from the clothes of the leader of the Bally boys, Fergus (Gregg Fitzgerald). The Ballys deface the Carricksdowse church, though both groups are Catholics. They rout the Carricks by charging at them naked. Marie (Eveanna Ryan), who heads the Ballys' girls auxiliary, tries to calm down the boys by raining new buttons on them to replace those lost in warfare. When Fergus' abusive stepfather (Jim Bartley) finds out about the war, he beats Fergus and sends him away. Fergus goes to the cliffs along the valley between the two villages, chased by the Carricks' leader, Geronimo (John Coffey). Geronimo, who has come to help, slips, and Fergus rescues him from a fall. In the end, Fergus, riding a horse, leads his troops, dressed in motley medieval suits, into a final battle. The allegorical anti-war film is primarily aimed at children. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liam Cunningham, Gregg Fitzgerald, (more)
The owner of an aircraft salvage company (Viggo Mortensen) is reported killed in a crash. However, his wife (Andie MacDowell) knows better, and she decides to find him and his secret bank accounts. She travels around the world, and winding up in Cairo, she meets Liam Neeson, who helps her uncover her husband's smuggling scheme. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andie MacDowell, Liam Neeson, (more)
- 1991
In a remote branch of the Brazilian Amazon, Americans Lewis (Tom Berenger) and Wolf (Tom Waits) are stranded when their plane runs out of gas. They are kept company by an evangelist missionary (John Lithgow) and his wife (Darryl Hannah). The preacher and his followers want to preach to the primitive Niaruna Indians, while others are interested in the Niaruna for more diabolical reasons-specifically, business concerns that would like to claim the Indians' land for development. The local police chief cuts a deal with the mercenaries Lewis and Wolf: if they will agree to bomb the Niarunas out of existence, they will be paid enough money to leave the country. Instead, Lewis, part Native American himself,aligns himself with the Niarunas. From this moment on, he and the tribe are doomed. A long-standing pet project of producer Saul Zaentz, At Play in the Fields of the Lord was adapted from the best-selling novel by Peter Matthiesen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Berenger, Aidan Quinn, (more)
Two women, related but separated by one generation and 60 years, have parallel experiences in the evocative mystical environment of India in this period drama from producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory. Although a little slow-paced for some, and slightly confusing because the stories of the two women are intercut, the scenery and script evoke a time and place that mesmerize. Based on the 1975 novel by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, a long-time collaborator in Merchant-Ivory Productions, the story begins with Ann (Julie Christie) who discovers some letters written by her grandfather's first wife Olivia (Greta Scacchi) that open up a whole new world as Ann travels to India to continue researching her grandmother's past. The letters reveal that when she was young, the free-spirited grandmother fell in love with an Indian nobleman (Shashi Kapoor) and left her husband -- an administrator in the British colonial government -- for her lover. After Ann arrives in India, her life and the modern rush of cars and people are played off against flashbacks to Olivia's life in a colonial setting. When the environment of each woman is compared and the nature of their momentous decisions placed side-by-side, their rites of passage and the society that dominated their choices stand out in high relief. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala won "Best Adapted Screenplay" at the 1983 British Academy Awards for her script of Heat And Dust. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Julie Christie, Christopher Cazenove, (more)
