Sullivan Stapleton Movies
- 1998
- PG13
Nadia Tass directed this Australian comedy-drama about deaf-mute Amy (nine-year-old singer-recording artist Alana De Roma), traumatized by seeing her rock-star father Will (Nick Barker) killed in an electrical accident at an outdoor concert during a rainstorm. His widow Tanya (Rachel Griffiths) retreats with Amy to an outback farm, but child welfare officers force a return to Melbourne for Amy's education. They move into a shabby house in a working-class neighborhood of losers where they meet musician Robert (Ben Mendelsohn), battered neighbor Sarah Armstrong (Kerry Armstrong) and her son Zac (Jeremy Trigatti), Zac's alcoholic father Bill Trendle (William Zappa), two slow-witted brothers (Torquil Neilson, Sullivan Stapleton), grouchy Mrs. Mullins (Mary Ward), and Robert's sister (Susie Porter). Amy was shown at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alana De Roma, Rachel Griffiths, (more)
Six characters go in search of meaningless pleasure over the course of one night in Brisbane. At a fast-food pizza joint called Speedie, chef Dom (Sullivan Stapleton) kicks things off by trashing the place, sticking the body of a dead cat in the oven, and behaving in a less-than-genial manner. Misha (Ryan Johnson) boasts to co-workers that he had sex with his last pizza delivery customer; when his colleagues don't believe him, he runs off to the apartment of Sophie (Jessica Napier) and goes about seducing her. Meanwhile, fellow deliverers Robert (Brendan Cowell) and Erin (Kellie Jones) are best friends, but Erin, unknown to Robert, would like to be more. Their manager Katie (Haley McElhinney) amuses herself by having sex with someone wearing a Mr. Speedie mask, and Stacey (Megan Dorman) occasionally works at Speedie but prefers to spend most of her time hanging out with thugs. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sullivan Stapleton, Ryan Johnson, (more)
Children have a very good reason to be afraid of the dark in this flashy horror story. Matilda Dixon was a genially eccentric woman who, in the 1850s, lived in a New England town known as Darkness Falls. Matilda was well known to the local children for her habit of paying them for teeth they'd lost, but when two youngsters mysteriously disappeared, Matilda was lynched by an angry mob wrongly convinced that she had murdered the kids. In the year 2002, former Darkness Falls resident Kyle Walsh (Chaney Kley) lives in Las Vegas and is still desperately afraid of the dark since a childhood run-in with the ghost of Matilda Dixon left him severely traumatized. While police and psychiatrists scoffed at Kyle's stories about Matilda's spirit, his childhood friend Caitlin (Emma Caulfield) is alarmed when her nine-year-old brother Michael (Lee Cormie) begins having nightmares very much like those which disturbed Kyle's rest for years. Like Kyle, Michael has little luck convincing most grown-ups that the white-robed specters he sees in the dark are real, so Caitlin asks Kyle to return to Darkness Falls to help get to the bottom of his story. Darkness Falls marked the directorial debut of filmmaker Jonathan Liebesman. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chaney Kley, Emma Caulfield, (more)
- 1996
Sleazy real estate wheeler-dealer Ben Egan (Aden Young) is brought up short when a deal catastrophically falls through. After he hits a policeman, Egan winds up doing several months of community service at a youth drop-in center. Before that, he had been all set up to marry the boss's daughter (Tammy MacIntosh) and rise swiftly in the old man's firm. The woman who runs the center (Essie Davis), and one of the children get his attention and he begins to have charitable thoughts occasionally. However, old habits die hard. When he learns that the youth center is situated in a prime development area, he tries very hard to get hold of the property. Will his growing conscience break through the shell he has built around it in time to prevent him from closing this deal? ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
WWE superstar "Stone Cold" Steve Austin stars as a death row inmate who gets a rare second shot at life in director Scott Wiper's adrenaline-charged action thriller. Jack Conrad (Austin) is a dangerous convict currently awaiting execution in a corrupt Central American prison. "Purchased" by a wealthy television producer and transported to a deserted island, the formidable inmate is offered the opportunity to avoid capital punishment and win back his freedom by fighting to the death against nine other condemned criminals in an illegal game to be broadcast uncensored over the Internet. Rick Hoffman and Vinnie Jones co-star in a brutal battle royal of non-stop carnage. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Robert Mammone, (more)
- 1999
Set in Victoria, Australia, the made-for-TV Witch Hunt concerns an infant girl named Hannah, who is abducted by her grandmother Barbara Thomas (Jacqueline Bisset). Hannah's father David Overton (Cameron Daddo), convinced that Barbara is the head of a coven of witches, inaugurates a desperate nationwide search for his missing daughter. However, David may have a sinister agenda of his own, as indicated by the fact that his wife recently died under mysterious circumstances. Originally telecast by Australia's Network Ten on May 2, 1999, Witch Hunt later aired in the U.S. courtesy of cable's Lifetime network. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
