Isabel Brooke
London's most frequently eligible bachelor gets some lessons in growing up from a maladroit 12-year-old boy in this third big-screen adaptation of a Nick Hornby novel, directed and co-written by siblings Chris and Paul Weitz of American Pie fame. About a Boy concerns the parallel coming-of-age stories of the thirtysomething Will (Hugh Grant), a layabout "serial nice guy" living a posh, carefree lifestyle off his deceased father's fortune; and the preteen Marcus (Nicholas Hoult), a bright but awkward youth who's tired of his mom Fiona's (Toni Collette) depressed, boyfriend-less state. Their paths collide when Will, deciding that single mothers are the easiest romantic conquests on the dating scene, fabricates a two-year-old son and joins a group called S.P.A.T. (Single Parents Alone Together). Marcus is wise to Will's scheme, however, and through some incessant pestering and blackmail, he contrives for Will to date Fiona. Though Will doesn't hit it off immediately with either Marcus or his mother, he gradually begins to open up to the people around him -- so much so that he attracts the attention of another attractive single mom (Rachel Weisz). A U.S./U.K. co-production of Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Films and Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner's Working Title (the company responsible for the Grant-related Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridget Jones's Diary), About a Boy was co-written by What's Eating Gilbert Grape creator Peter Hedges. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hugh Grant, Nicholas Hoult, (more)
- 2002
- R
Serial killer Alex (who never appears onscreen) stalks young women, injects them with an immobilizing drug, and then has a "romantic" dinner with them, but dessert isn't very sweet as Alex inevitably loses control of the situation and things get nasty. Moreover, this story packs an interesting twist: "Alex" is actually a girl. Detective Hannah (John Shrapnel) and his rebellious rookie partner, Jen (Isabel Brook), are at a loss to find enough clues to stop the killer, so they use an unconscious surviving victim (Laurel Holloman) alone in a hospital bed as bait. But even that plan has its dangerous complications when Hannah and Jen have a disagreement at a very unfortunate moment. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide
A man goes to hell and back to avenge the death of the woman he loves in this over-the-top horror story. Troubled artist Jaspers (Mark Frost) is depressed and considering suicide after his girlfriend, an illegal alien, is killed by thugs. Before he can go through with it, Jaspers is visited by a mysterious man calling himself M (Andrew Divoff). M, which is short for Mephistopheles, is an earthly emissary of the Devil, and along with sexy Claire (Monica Van Campen) and devious Dr. Yanamoto (Junix Inocian), he leads a Satanic cult called the Hand. M and his companions persuade Jaspers to join the Hand, and soon Jaspers and other members of the Hand wreak vengeance by staging a mass murder against the men responsible for the death of Jaspers' lover. But Jaspers finds he quite likes ritual murder, and his enthusiasm leads to sloppiness that gets him arrested; he also becomes involved with Claire, which makes him very unpopular with M. As police detective Margolies (Jeffrey Combs) and psychiatrist Jade de Camp (Isabel Brook) try to get some answers about Jaspers' strange and deadly behavior, Jaspers begins to transform himself into a demonic beast in a desperate battle to defeat M before M can kill him. Faust, Love of the Damned was the first feature from the production company Fantastic Factory, formed by American filmmaker Brian Yunza and Spanish financier Julio Fernandez; the film was shot in Spain with an English-speaking cast. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mark Frost, Isabel Brooke, (more)
The story begins in 1850, when Lilith Silver (Eileen Daley) interrupts a duel between her lover and the nasty Sir Sethane Blake (Christopher Adamson). When she shoots Blake, he just smiles, and punishes her impudence by biting her on the neck when she is shot in turn by his manservant. After a nifty title sequence, the film flashes forward 150 years to watch Silver in modern London, where she hangs out at glitzy vampire bars and works as a mercenary. Lilith's biggest job involves hunting down members of the Illuminati, a sect of freemasons bent on world domination. Their ruler, not coincidentally, is Sir Sethane Blake. Clad in skintight black leather and armed with a coffin full of guns, knives, and throwing-stars, the blood-sucking hit woman uses her supernatural abilities to hunt down her targets and avoid police, at least until Inspector Price (Jonathan Coote) and a forensic scientist nicknamed "the Horror Film Man" (David Warbeck) get on her trail. Visually dazzling and loaded with sex, blood, and macabre humor, Razor Blade Smile uses an array of cinematic techniques to achieve the slick look of a glossy comic book, reminiscent of many Asian efforts in the genre, and quite unlike anything to come out of Britain in recent memory. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eileen Daley, Christopher Adamson, (more)
