Merritt Wever Movies
- 2006
One of the two NBC series debuting in the fall of 2006 which took place backstage at a Saturday Night Live-style comedy show (the other was 30 Rock), Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was the brainchild of The West Wing's Aaron Sorkin. This weekly, hour-long dramedy concerned itself with the million-and-one intrigues behind the hallowed walls of the fictional "NBS" network, where ambitious new president Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet) was determined to pump fresh blood into the network's anemic Prime Time schedule. Over the objections of imperious NBS chairman Jack Rudolph (Steve Weber), McDeere rehired writer Matt Albie (Matthew Perry) and director Danny Tripp (Bradley Whitford), who had been fired from the staff of the network's weekly ensemble-comedy offering "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" two years before. It was hoped that Albie and Danny could save the flagging property from cancellation, a formidable task in that "Studio 60" was already collapsing from within thanks to a surfeit of egotism and ill-will. For head writer Matt Albie, the challenge was doubly difficult: it so happened that "Studio 60"'s star Harriet Hayes (Sarah Paulson) was his former lover. Fortunately, Matt and Cal worked together so harmoniously that it would seem that Jordan McDeere's strategy for rescuing her network from oblivion was sheer brilliance. . .maybe. Other regulars included D.L.. Hughley and Nathan Corddry, respectively, as popular "Studio 60" cast members Simon Styles and Tom Jeter. Filled to overflowing with smart-and-savvy inside references to the state of network TV in the first decade of the 21st century (many of the "jokes" were at the expense of the series' host network NBC), Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip premiered September 18, 2006. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, (more)
- 2002
Law & Order rips another story from the headlines in the series' 13th-season opener. When a professor specializing in stem-cell research is murdered, the detectives at first suspect that the killer was a pro-life zealot. It soon develops that the actual target for extermination was the professor's wife (also murdered in the attack), who was raising money and public awareness for Muslim women's rights. Ultimately, the clues lead to a young Muslim extremist who calls himself Mousah Salim, but who is actually an American named Greg Landen (Wil Horneff). In prosecuting the case, the lawyers try to ferret out the motivation behind Landen's wild-eyed fanaticism, with surprising results. Fred Dalton Thompson joins the cast as new DA Arthur Branch. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1997
No sooner has serial rapist Lewis Darnell (Burt Young) been released on parole than a young woman is assaulted and murdered. Assistant D.A. McCoy (Sam Waterston) is determined to connect Darnell with this most recent outrage and to put him behind bars permanently. Unfortunately, McCoy's zeal leads to accusations of undue "strongarm" methods on the part of detectives Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Curtis (Benjamin Bratt). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Michael Clayton (George Clooney) handles all of the dirty work for a major New York law firm, arranging top-flight legal services and skirting through loopholes for ethically questionable clients. But when a fellow "fixer" decides to turn on the very firm they were hired to clean up for, Clayton finds himself at the center of a conspiratorial maelstrom. Once an ambitious D.A., Clayton is now a shell of his former dynamic self, thanks to a divorce, an unfortunate business venture, and astronomical debt. Though he longs to leave the cutthroat, ethically dubious world of corporate law behind, Clayton's poor financial situation and devotion to firm head Marty Bach (Sydney Pollack) leave him little choice but to remain on the job and tough it out. Meanwhile, litigator Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) finds her entire company's future hinging on the outcome of a multi-billion-dollar settlement overseen by Clayton's friend, star lawyer Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson). When Edens snaps and decides to blow the whistle on the questionable case, sabotaging the defense, Clayton must decide between his loyalty and his conscience. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, (more)
The "reality TV" craze is taken to its final, logical extreme as six people hunt each other down in a small town for the benefit of network TV cameras in this darkly comic satire. "The Contenders" is a top-rated television game show in which six contestants are set loose in the same Connecticut community, with orders to kill or be killed; the last of the six who is still alive is declared the winner. As "The Contenders" goes into its seventh season, Dawn (Brooke Smith) is a two-time champion who is hoping to hold on to her title, despite the fact that she's due to have a baby in a month. Dawn's rivals this time out are Tony (Michael Kaycheck), an unemployed blue-collar worker with a taste for violence; Connie (Marylouise Burke), a middle-aged nurse who doesn't like to hurt people but is an experienced hand with a syringe; Lindsay (Merritt Wever), an 18-year-old dance student whose parents are eager to see her compete; Franklin (Richard Venture), an elderly conspiracy theorist with a tenuous hold on reality; and Jeff (Glenn Fitzgerald), who is dying of testicular cancer -- and was Dawn's boyfriend years ago. Series 7: The Contenders marked the directorial debut for Daniel Minahan, who previously employed pop culture and America's obsession with violence as themes in his screenplay for I Shot Andy Warhol. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brooke Smith, Glenn Fitzgerald, (more)
Following the smash hit The Sixth Sense (1999) and the under-performing follow-up Unbreakable (2000), directing phenom M. Night Shyamalan returns to the summer box office landscape that served as the backdrop for his cinematic breakthrough. In Signs, another paranormal outing for the writer-director, Shyamalan explores the eerie implications of a 500-foot crop circle that mysteriously appears on the Bucks County, PA farm of reverend Graham Hess (Mel Gibson). As Hess and his family (Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin) try to take stock of what the sign means, and how its message incorporates into their faith, they start to get the feeling they are not alone in the fields behind their house. Shyamalan re-teams with producers Frank Marshall, Sam Mercer and Kathleen Kennedy, and produces the project in association with his Blinding Edge Pictures banner and Touchstone Pictures. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, (more)
- 1998
- PG13
Sarah Kernochan wrote and directed this nostalgic coming-of-age comedy-drama with some autobiographical touches. In 1963, budgetary problems at the East Coast boarding school Miss Godard's School for Girls, prompt a merger with a boy's academy. The girls are stunned at the prospect of going co-ed and devise a campaign to sabotage the plan. Screenwriter Kernochan, scripter of Sommersby and 9 1/2 Weeks, won an Oscar when she co-directed the 1972 documentary Marjoe, but this film marks her feature directorial debut creating comedy-drama. The upstate New York seen here is actually Toronto. The title created some confusion, since Kernochan's film received reviews the same month the 1998 New York Film Festival unspooled a new 35mm print of Sergei Eisenstein's silent classic Strike (1924). ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lynn Redgrave, Gaby Hoffmann, (more)
- 2008
- NR
A sardonic, gin-soaked detective contends with an odd cast of characters while tailing a mysterious, middle-aged man traveling with a Mexican boy from Chicago to Los Angeles in writer/director Noah Buschel's twisting neo-noir mystery. John Rosow is a Chicago gumshoe whose skill for cracking a case often comes with a price; he has a penchant for getting in over his head, but he never loses his cool. Contacted by influential lawyer Drexler Hewitt and asked to shadow a man who is currently en route to Los Angeles with a young boy, Rosow collects his cash and instructions from Hewitt's gruff assistant, Miss Charley, and sets out on his latest assignment. Upon arriving in Santa Monica, however, Rosow is caught off guard when he learns that his objective has been updated. He is now to bring the man back to New York. For his efforts, Rosow will receive the tidy sum of half a million dollars. Later, as Rosow attempts to track down his target, a Segway-riding LAPD officer and a cab driver with extensive knowledge of the Catholic saints offer some helpful clues to the man's whereabouts as meddling FBI agents close in and a sensual femme fatale follows his every move. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Shannon, Frank Wood, (more)
A Hole in One is set in 1950s America. Anna (Michelle Williams), a passive young woman living in a small town, where she is betrothed to a powerful local hoodlum, Billy (Meat Loaf Aday), is searching for a key to her unhappiness. Her younger brother came home from the World War II a different man, and was subjected to shock treatments in a mental hospital before his untimely death. Dr. Harold Ashton (Bill Raymond) has been selling his new book, intended to advance the cause of a new scientific "advancement" in psychiatric care, the transorbital lobotomy. Ashton promotes this procedure, done with an ice pick that he keeps tucked in his vest, as a cure for all kinds of mental illness, major and minor. After witnessing Billy commit a brutal murder, Anna reads a Life Magazine article on lobotomies, and soon decides that the procedure is right for her. She asks Billy for his permission. Billy, concerned about Anna's ability to function, convinces Tom (Tim Guinee), one of his employees, to pose as a doctor so he can tell Anna that she doesn't need a lobotomy. But when the two meet, they quickly find that they have a connection that will put their lives in imminent danger. A Hole in One marks the feature debut of writer/director Richard Ledes. The film had its world premiere at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michelle Williams, Meat Loaf, (more)
