Russel Harper Movies
Bermuda-born Alison Swan, a NY documentary filmmaker, made her dramatic feature directorial debut with this comedy-drama, a low-budget look at racial identities. With divorced parents (white attorney father and black mother), Nia (Karyn Parsons) grew up in Westchester Country. Employed as an upwardly mobile advertising copywriter, she hangs out with both black and white friends. Irritated by an ad campaign to spur ghetto blacks to consume alcohol, she quits her job with plans to write a book. Stirring the racial mix, she sets out to find her own identity. Shown at the 1998 New York Women's Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Karyn Parsons, Eric Thal, (more)
- 1998
- Add The Adventures of Sebastian Cole to QueueAdd The Adventures of Sebastian Cole to top of Queue
Tod Williams made his feature directorial debut with this teen comedy-drama set in 1983. High school senior and writer wannabe Sebastian Cole (Adrian Grenier) survives a car accident in a remote Southwestern area near the trailer home of a Spanish-speaking woman. As she dresses his wounds, Sebastian looks back over the past year and his dysfunctional family life. After a divorce, Sebastian's near-alcoholic mother Joan (Margaret Colin) remarried. His architect father Hartley (John Shea) was more devoted to career than family. His sister Jessica (Marni Lustig) is off to the West Coast with her dullard boyfriend. Sebastian's stepfather Hank (Clark Gregg) plans a sex change. Since being married to a woman doesn't appeal to Joan, she returns to her native England with Sebastian. Months later, Sebastian moves back to his upstate New York hometown, rejoining Hank. However, Hank is now Henrietta, wearing makeup and women's clothing and serving as both a mother and father figure for Sebastian. Shown at the 1998 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Adrian Grenier, Clark Gregg, (more)
- 1998
Detectives Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) investigate when a teenager is wounded. The trail of clues leads to the mysterious death of a young woman. Ultimately, a vicious drug operation enters the picture, at which time the detectives fade into the background and the D.A.'s office, represented by A.D.A.'s McCoy (Sam Waterston) and Carmichael (Angie Harmon), take over. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1997
A former Goldman Sachs investment banker, 24-year-old director Mark Schiffer based this semi-autobiographical drama on a past incident when he took a spring break from Yale to visit his Long Island family and wound up the victim of a vicious beating. As scripted by Schiffer, junior-high student Ari (Tommy Michaels) sometimes hangs with local Long Island mischief-makers and beer buddies, a group called the Strong Island Boys. More often, Ari spends his time wrestling and weightlifting. After Ari and his young pal Jeremy (Brett Tabisel) are attacked in the park by ski-masked older teens, Ari's gang plots revenge and launches a search for the other group's black van. As if Ari didn't have enough problems, he spends so much time pumping iron, his girlfriend Tara (Selma Blair) beds his best friend Jason (Tom Lock). Shown at the 1997 Hamptons Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tommy Michaels, Selma Blair, (more)
Grover Reindorf (Kyle Howard) is a kid with a problem, which is how to keep his parents from divorcing. He hits on a solution that makes sense to him. Why not lock them up in the basement, and keep them there until they reconcile? He and his younger sister Stacey (Amy Sakasitz) agree to do just that, and they successfully lure their parents into the basement and lock them in. When their junior-high-school friends find out what they've done, they decide that their own misbehaving parents need exactly the same treatment. One after another, all are tricked into entering into the Reindorf's basement. Meanwhile, upstairs, the youngsters have a very mild good time, as they can't even bring themselves to swallow the champagne they try. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Pollak, (more)
