Edgar Davis Movies
Actor Bill Paxton made his directorial debut with Frailty. The bulk of the story is told through flashbacks, as a mysterious man (Matthew McConaughey) tells a terrible tale to an FBI agent (Powers Boothe) investigating the "God's Hand" serial killer case. The man grew up in a small town in Texas, where he and his brother lived a bucolic life with their kindhearted widower father (Paxton). One night, the father awakens the two boys, Fenton (Matthew O'Leary) and Adam (Jeremy Sumpter), and tells them he's had a vision, and God has chosen him and his sons to help Him slay demons who walk the earth in human form. He tells the boys they can never tell anyone about this task. Before long, he comes home from work with a list of names that he claims an angel has given to him. He then begins abducting people, bringing them home, one by one, and having the boys watch while he lays his hands on them. After having proven, to his mind, that they are demons and not human, he chops them up with an axe while the boys look on. Young Adam is eager to participate, seeing his family as "kind of like superheroes," while the older Fenton is distraught, believing that his father has lost his mind. He contemplates running away, but is reluctant to leave his little brother behind. Eventually, he goes to the authorities, which results in disaster. As he tells the story, McConaughey takes Boothe out to the public rose garden near his old home, where he claims his brother, the "God's Hand" killer, buried the bodies. Paxton dramatizes the mayhem while leaving almost all of the gore offscreen, and Brent Hanley's script leaves the true motives of several characters unclear until the very end. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Paxton, Matthew McConaughey, (more)
It is hardly an unusual occurrence when the Minneapolis airport is snowed in...even on Christmas eve, stranding thousands of disgruntled tourists. What makes this particular snowbound evening a bit different from others is the identity of two would-be flyers who must wait out the blizzard before they can take off to their respective destinations. Maddie Parker (JoBeth Williams), on the verge of divorcing her briefly unfaithful husband, has arrived at the terminal with sister and daughters, en route to her mother (Dina Merrill)'s house in Chicago. At the same time, Maddie's sportswriter husband, Matt (Michael Ontkean), who plans to visit his dad in Miami, is likewise cooling his heels in the selfsame terminal. Thus thrust together, Maddie and Matt are given ample time to decide if they ought to give their relationship a second chance. Meanwhile, long-married older couple Earl and Ruth Pulmer (Charles Durning and Barbara Barrie), battle-scarred veterans of many a domestic skirmish, benignly stand on the sidelines and kibitz. Although the conclusion of the film is foregone, getting there is half the fun. A Chance of Snow made its cable TV debut via the Lifetime network on December 7, 1998. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- JoBeth Williams, Michael Ontkean, (more)
- 1997
American independent filmmaker Rob Tregenza, who includes Jean-Luc Godard among his admirers, directed this deliberately paced, minimalist drama about Jean Hammett (Frederic Pierrot), a French artist who has been committed to a mental institution in the United States. One of the female inmates becomes infatuated with him as the patients react with the nuns who run the hospital and attempt to interact despite the emotional distance between them. Tregenza, who also wrote, produced, and photographed Inside/Out, shot the film in the widescreen CinemaScope format to better visually illustrate the separation of the characters. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
