Mia Frye
Director Brian De Palma returns to the helm for the first time since 2002's Femme Fatale with this stylish screen adaptation of James Ellroy's novel detailing one of the most notorious unsolved murders in Hollywood history. Elizabeth Short (Mia Kirshner) was a struggling actress looking to make a name for herself in 1940s-era Tinseltown. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, it was her grim fate that would ultimately overshadow anything she would accomplish during her short and tragic career. When police discover Elizabeth's body cut clean in half and with all of her organs missing, ex-pugilist detectives Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) and Bucky Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) are the men charged with cracking the case and apprehending the killer. This isn't your average murder case, however, and as Blanchard's marriage to Kay (Scarlett Johansson) begins to suffer due to his obsession with the sensational crime, his partner Bleichert discovers a troubling link between the victim and the mysterious Madeleine Linscott (Hilary Swank), a prominent socialite and the daughter of one of the town's most connected key players. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, (more)
- 2000
- PG13
Based on an original idea by celebrated French director Luc Besson, The Dancer follows the struggle of its eponymous heroine, a mute dancer by the name of India Rey (Mia Frye), to perform on the Broadway stage. Every Saturday night, India, who teaches movement to school children by day, wins the weekly dance contest at a local Brooklyn disco. Under the management of her brother, Jasper (Garland Whitt), a surly meat delivery boy, she makes the cut at an open audition for a Broadway show. Her dreams are aborted when she is dismissed by the director after giving her name in sign language, and she is told that her disability will hold back the rehearsal process. India despairs, but help is on its way in the unlikely form of Isaac (Rodney Eastman), a stuttering scientist infatuated with her. Isaac toils in his lab to invent something that will allow India to translate her movement into sound, effectively clearing her path to big-time success. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mia Frye, Garland Whitt, (more)
Good and evil battle for the future of 23rd century Earth in this visually striking big-budget science fiction epic. In the movie's prologue, which is set in 1914, scientists gather in Egypt at the site of an event that transpired centuries earlier. Aliens, it seemed, arrived to collect four stones representing the four basic elements (earth, air, fire and water) - warning their human contacts that the objects were no longer safe on Earth. A few hundred years later (in the 23rd century), a huge ball of molten lava and flame is hurtling toward Earth, and scientist-holy man Victor Cornelius (Ian Holm) declares that in order to prevent it from destroying the planet, the same four elemental stones must be combined with the fifth element, as embodied by a visitor from another world named Leeloo (Milla Jovovich). However, if the force of evil presents itself to the stones instead, the Earth will be destroyed, and an evil being named Zorg (Gary Oldman) will trigger the disaster. Despite her remarkable powers, Leeloo needs help with her mission, and she chooses her accomplice, military leader-turned-cab driver Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis), when she literally falls through the roof of his taxi. Writer and director Luc Besson began writing the script for The Fifth Element when he was only 16 years old, though he was 38 before he was able to bring it to the screen.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich, (more)
The serpentine plotline of Luc Besson's La Femme Nikita begins its 117-minute slither when punkish, psychotic, and drug-ridden Nikita (Anne Parillaud) fires her gun into a cop's face following the stick-up of a drug store, and is promptly imprisoned. She is thrown into a dank cell, then injected with a substance and told it is a lethal toxin. Instead of dying, however, the comes to in an all-white interrogation room, where French intelligence officer Bob (Tchéky Karyo), informs her that an alternate to execution exists: she can receive covert government training as an assassin. She accepts the bid, is rigorously trained, and later returns to society as a seemingly normal and gentle civilian, but falls in love with a drugstore employee while she's waiting for that first government assignment. The paradoxical concept of a young woman blossoming socially while carrying out cold-blooded murders was downplayed when La Femme Nikita was remade in America as the silly and disappointing Point of No Return, directed by John Badham with Bridget Fonda in the lead. A far less sociopathic TV-series version of La Femme Nikita surfaced on the USA cable network in early 1997. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Parillaud, Jean-Hugues Anglade, (more)
