Victor Argo Movies

The family friendly film Personal Sergeant concerns a Korean war veteran who looks back fondly on his time in the military. Five decades later he spends his time looking after his twelve-year-old granddaughter who is a budding soccer player. The two have a strained relationship, but soon his military skills are used to create a training and coaching regimen for the granddaughter. The two bond warmly in unexpected ways. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

A woman is forced to decide which of her dreams she'd like to come true in this musical-comedy drama. Billie Golden (Isabel Rose) is a young woman who dreams of being a successful cabaret singer and often imagines herself performing in a swank lounge or starring in a classic movie musical of the 1940s. At the moment, however, Billie is singing in a dingy cocktail lounge near an airport and lives in a ramshackle row house in Queens with her hard-drinking mother (Alix Korey). One day, Billie bumps into an old friend from high school, Greg Ellenbogen (Cameron Bancroft); as it happens, Greg is now a very successful lawyer, and he still carries a torch for Billie. While Greg loves Billie and can easily give her all the creature comforts of life, she's also infatuated with Elliot (Andrew McCarthy), a hipster piano player who believes in her abilities as a singer. When Greg asks Billie for her hand in marriage, she's forced to decide between love and security or the career in music for which she's always longed. Also screened under the title Standard Time, Anything but Love includes an appearance by legendary entertainer Eartha Kitt; leading lady Rose also wrote the film's screenplay. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

When is three company, and when is three a crowd? A trio of sexually adventurous New Yorkers find themselves pondering that question in this provocative comedy-drama. Tony (Agustin) is a handsome young man who has come to New York City in hopes of making a name for himself as a poet, an ambition that has not endeared him to his parents, a conservative couple who live in a quiet Long Island community. As Tony's parents try to persuade him to abandon writing verse for something more practical, Tony becomes acquainted with Kelly (Evly Pacheco) and Monica (Angelica Ordonez), an attractive lesbian couple. While Kelly and Monica are firmly committed to one another, they find Tony intelligent and intriguing company, and eventually invite him over for an ménage à trois. At first, all three parties are happy with the arrangement, but despite their shared pledge of openness and non-judgmental understanding, flaws begin to appear in the relationship, especially after Monica starts to suspect that Kelly is more interested in Tony than her, and that they both may be moving out of her life. Shot on high-definition video equipment, Love=Me³ marked the directing and screenwriting debut of leading man Agustin. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Cult favorite Abel Ferrara directed and co-wrote this story set in New York City in 1993, before Mayor Rudy Giuliani's much-publicized crusade against street crime put a dent in semi-public drug dealing in the city. It's a few days before Christmas, and a Latin American couple living on the city's Upper East Side (Lillo Brancato Jr. and Drea de Matteo) are watching their daughter (Lisa Valens) perform in her school's holiday pageant. Afterward, the couple drop the child off with a babysitter and set out to run some errands. They have two items on their agenda: get their daughter the doll she's been asking for (a nearly impossible task, since the toy has become the must-have item of the season), then head to their work space uptown, where they prepare and package heroin for street distribution. While the wife has her qualms about the ethics of drug dealing, both she and her husband know there's plenty of money to be made in heroin -- more than most Hispanic immigrants could make working legitimate jobs in New York -- and the business has been highly lucrative for them. The couple discovers one of their lower-level dealers may be talking to the police, but they soon have a bigger problem to deal with when the husband is lured to the Bronx by a fence who can get him the toy he's been looking for. The husband finds he's been lured into a trap, and a kidnapper (Ice-T) gives the wife less than a half hour to collect and pay a huge ransom, or her husband will be killed. As in Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant, the audience never learns the names of most of the major characters in 'R Xmas; also like Bad Lieutenant (as well as King of New York and The New Rose Hotel), Ferrara invited pioneering gangster rapper Schooly-D to contribute to the film's score. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

An elderly man falls in love with a woman young enough to be his daughter -- and that's not the least of their differences -- in this offbeat romantic comedy. Horace (Victor Argo) is a retired police officer who now works for a travel agency. Outwardly gruff, Horace is at heart a gentle soul, and as he grows older he finds himself depressed by his single status. Horace's feelings of loneliness only intensify when he learns that a combination of lung cancer and severe diabetes is likely to claim his life within the next six months. Despite his sorry state, love finds Horace, but in a form he never would have anticipated -- Queenie (Valerie Geffner), known to her parents as Bernice Applegate, the daughter of a wealthy family who toys with a career as a social worker and a dominatrix while trying (without much success) to find work as an actress. After Queenie discovers her boyfriend has been having an affair with his secretary, Queenie gives him his walking papers and meets Horace by chance. Queenie and Horace quickly hit it off, but while Horace is grateful for Queenie's interest, it's obvious that they don't have much in common, and he has a hard time adjusting to her oddball sense of humor and free-wheeling sexual appetites. Queenie in Love also stars Louise Lasser, Austin Pendleton, and Mark Margolis. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Amos Kollek directs this quiet, understated comedy about lonely hearts and empty pockets in New York. Pushing 40, Bella (Anna Thomson) works as a waitress at small downtown diner in Manhattan. Her elderly regulars include Paul (Robert Modica), a lovelorn retiree who scours the personal ads and his ill-tempered buddies Seymour (Victor Argo) and Graham (Mark Margolis), who are more than a little disparaging toward Paul's attempts at finding love. Involved in a 12-year relationship with married Broadway theater director George (Austin Pendleton), Bella craves marriage and children. On a blind date set up by her mother, Bella meets Bruno, a divorced cabbie and fledgling novelist with two young children. Meanwhile, Paul meets ready-and-willing widow Emily (Louise Lasser), while Seymour shacks up with Wanda (Valerie Geffner), a stripper with a master's degree. This film was shown in competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Part of Regina Ziegler's Erotic Tales series, the short film Angela is directed by Israeli-born American independent filmmaker Amos Kollek. Victor Argo plays Bob, a professor in Manhattan about to have his 70th birthday. He's longing for one last sexual encounter before calling it quits. Juilliard School graduate Valerie Geffner stars as the young woman named Angela. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

An ordinary guy with a crooked friend discovers no good deed goes unpunished in the comedy On The Run. Albert (Michael Imperioli) is having a quiet evening at home when he gets a call from his old pal Louie (John Ventimigila), whom he hasn't heard from in years. There's a good reason for this -- Louie's been in prison. Ever since childhood, Louie has never been able to stay out of trouble, though whenever they're together, the blame for Louie's indiscretions always seems to fall on Albert's shoulders. Louie calls Albert to tell him he's just broken out of jail and would like Albert to meet him at the bus station. Albert calls the police to tell them a fugitive is due on the next bus, but he soon thinks better of it and makes a dash to the depot, hoping to warn Louie in time. Louie manages to evade the cops, but Albert soon finds himself stuck with Louie for the evening, as he's dragged along for a progressively more dangerous series of misadventures where he's always left holding the bag. Though directed by a Portuguese filmmaker and financed by French and Portuguese production companies, On the Run was filmed on location in New York City, with English dialogue and a primarily American cast. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Writer Paul Auster made his solo directorial debut with this romantic drama about an affair between a middle-aged musician and an aspiring actress. Hit by a stray bullet during a nightclub shooting, jazz saxophonist Izzy Maurer (Harvey Keitel) can no longer play, and he falls into a depression. His ex-wife Hannah (Gina Gershon), now attached to producer Philip Kleinman (Mandy Patinkin), turns up unexpectedly to take care of Izzy. Izzy meets Kleinman, and he also has an encounter with actress-director Catherine Moore (Vanessa Redgrave), who's planning a production of Pandora's Box. Walking around Lower Manhattan, Izzy finds a man's body with a phone number and a stone that emits a blue light with healing properties. When he phones the number, he speaks with actress Celia (Mira Sorvino), who just happens to be listening to his music. They fall in love, and Celia gets Izzy a job as a busboy at the restaurant where she works. Both are fired when he goes into a jealous rage over the attention she receives from one of her customers. After Celia leaves to act in a film in Ireland, anthropologist Dr. Van Hom (Willem Dafoe) turns up, searching for the healing stone. Shown at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

An independent romantic comedy, Next Stop, Wonderland (1998) made headlines at the Sundance Film Festival when it became the object of a bidding war, ultimately won by Miramax Pictures to the tune of $6 million. Hope Davis stars as Erin Castleton, a night-shift nurse who's cruelly dumped by her boyfriend Sean (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a political activist. When her mother Piper (Holland Taylor) places a wildly inaccurate personals ad in the local paper, Erin is at first enraged, but then becomes curious. After she dates a variety of men who are all wrong for her, she meets Andre (Jose Zuniga), a handsome Brazilian music expert who invites her to Sao Paulo. Although Erin likes Andre, her Mr. Right is actually Alan Monteiro (Alan Gelfant), a plumber she's never met, though the two keep crossing paths. Trying to break out of his working class existence, Alan is studying marine biology but is indebted to a local mob boss, who wants him to kidnap a star blowfish from the local aquarium. Actress Taylor, the real-life aunt of co-writer, editor and director Brad Anderson, also appeared in his next film, Happy Accidents (1999). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Director Wayne Wang and screenwriter Paul Auster had enough storylines and characters left over from their charming comedy Smoke to make another film, so they shot Blue In The Face immediately after Smoke was completed. The film once again centers on the Brooklyn Cigar Store and manager Auggie (Harvey Keitel), although most of the other characters are different. The store owner's frustrated wife Dot (Roseanne) is one of them, and one of the plotlines follows her attempts to seduce Auggie. Madonna, Michael J. Fox, Lily Tomlin, and Lou Reed (as himself) also put in appearances. Blue In The Face was shot without a complete script and presents a unique combination of distinctive performances, oddball characters, improvisations, and raffish scenes. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Lindsay Wagner stars in this TV movie as Molly McKinley, a former nun now employed (and grossly underfunded!) as a rape counselor. A teenager named Sophia (Holly Marie Combs) seeks out Molly's help after she is raped by the scion of a wealthy family. Refusing to release a confidential file that would reveal Molly's past promiscuity--and thus seriously compromise her case against her assailant--Molly is sent to jail. The problem now becomes two-pronged: If Molly wants to be released, she must hand over information that may allow the rapist to go free; and if Sophia doesn't speak up, Molly's future career will be destroyed. Although the film would seem to be inspired by the 1988 theatrical feature The Accused, it was based on a true story. Sins of Silence originally aired February 20, 1996 on CBS. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide