Jeff Gardner Movies
An artist who compromises his work for money finds his heart and soul are also being toyed with by his new patrons in this drama. Robert (Peter Sarsgaard) is a playwright who has recently lost his longtime lover and business partner, Malcolm (Bill Camp), to AIDS-related illnesses. Robert has written a screenplay about their relationship, called "The Dying Gaul," and is interested in selling the project to powerful producer Jeffrey (Campbell Scott). However, while Jeffrey likes the script, he tells Robert that he's not about to spend money on a film about a gay couple -- though he'll give him one million dollars for the screenplay under the condition he turns the character of "Maurice" into a woman so the film will be easier to sell. While Robert is secretly appalled by the idea, he's also deep in debt and wants the film to be made, so he agrees to make the changes. Robert is soon invited into the inner circle of Jeffrey and his wife, Elaine (Patricia Clarkson), herself a talented screenwriter until their marriage put an end to her career. Jeffrey finds himself fascinated by Robert, and soon begins seducing him both physically and intellectually, while Elaine is also deeply attracted to him. As Robert and Elaine become close friends, she also begins pursuing him in on-line chat rooms, playing on his emotional weaknesses as she fashions a story of her own. The Dying Gaul was the first directorial credit for playwright and screenwriter Craig Lucas. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patricia Clarkson, Campbell Scott, (more)
In this violent thriller, three young men start a joke that quickly becomes more real (and more dangerous) than they'd ever anticipated. It's 1957, and three high school seniors celebrating their graduation think it would be fun to pull a prank; David (David Arquette), Tim (Jason London), and Joe (Jonah Blechman) will fake a robbery by driving up to a bank, "shooting" one of their number with a blank gun, and throwing him in the trunk before speeding away. But just as they're playing their practical joke, Florence (Mickey Rourke) and Leon (Stephen Baldwin) are pulling an actual armed robbery at the same bank. In the confusion, the boys get mixed up with the real criminals, who take the teenagers hostage. Florence, unstable and given to sadistic tendencies, subjects the boys to torture with a clear homoerotic undercurrent; eventually, Florence and Leon tell the boys they'll release them only if they pull an actual bank job. The boys grudgingly agree, but Tim ends up grabbing window teller Patty (Sheryl Lee) instead of the cash. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mickey Rourke, Stephen Baldwin, (more)
In Patriot Games, Harrison Ford plays former CIA agent Jack Ryan, taking over from Alec Baldwin, who had played author Tom Clancy's brainy protagonist in Hunt for Red October. This time around, Ryan foils an attempted assassination, thereby incurring the wrath of a maniacal Irish radical (Sean Bean). After seemingly neutralizing the villains, and deciding to celebrate the occasion with his wife (Anne Archer) and daughter (Thora Birch), everything appears to be back to normal; then all hell breaks loose. Author Tom Clancy himself bemoaned the liberties taken with his novel in the final sequences; the picture scored with audiences, however, and soon inspired a followup, A Clear and Present Danger (1994), also starring Ford. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harrison Ford, Anne Archer, (more)
Forever interested in the kitsch built into past eras, director John Waters chooses the TV dance show craze of the early '60s for his playful focus in Hairspray. Ricki Lake plays Tracy Turnblad, just one of several alliteratively named characters coming of age in 1962 Baltimore, where "The Corny Collins Show" is the most popular American Bandstand-type program, watched by hundreds of young dreamers each day after school. Being chosen to dance on it is the ultimate status symbol and every young girl's dream, and Tracy improbably wins a featured spot when she infiltrates a dance contest and makes a better impression than her favored rival, the catty Amber von Tussle (Colleen Fitzpatrick). Always able to have fun, even when she's being mocked by the jealous popular girls, Tracy wins the affections of Amber's boyfriend and soon begins leading a movement to integrate the dance show, which has previously featured blacks only in a once-weekly theme night. She is arrested following a demonstration at a local theme park owned by Amber's father (Sonny Bono), who subscribes to the same theory of race relations as "The Corny Collins Show." Tracy's adventures are also filtered through her loving but eccentric parents (Divine and Jerry Stiller) and involve a humorous cultural clash with pot-smoking beatniks (Ric Ocasek and Pia Zadora). ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ricki Lake, Michael St. Gerard, (more)
