Lloyd A. Silverman Movies
- 2000
Three sad sacks learn the connection between crime and auto repair in this independent comedy. Frank (Brent Florence), Neil (Christian Leffler), and Joey (Kenny Luper) are three 20-something buddies living in a one horse town in Northern California. After Frank's girlfriend gives him his walking papers, he decides to move to the big city, and Neil and Joey agree to join him. However, they don't have a bankroll for the trip, so they make plans to steal the take from the neighborhood bingo hall. The robbery barely earns the three adventurers enough money to fill up their gas tank, but they throw caution to the wind and hit the road anyway. Before long, Frank's car bites the dust, and soon the three friends are back to petty crime in order to get back on the highway. Shot on digital video, Solid Ones also features onetime musical comedy star June Allyson as Joey's grandmother; leading man Brent Florence also wrote and directed. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- June Allyson, Brent Florence, (more)
Nine years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a small town in the Pacific Northwest still struggles with the troubling legacy of U.S. policies against Asian-Americans. In December 1950, just off the shores of San Piedro Island in Washington, a Japanese-American man named Kazuo Miyamoto (Rick Yune) stands accused of murder after his close friend Carl Heine (Eric Thal) is found drowned in icy waters. As the trial gets under way, with Alvin Hooks (James Rebhorn) prosecuting Kazuo and Nels Gudmundsson (Max Von Sydow) defending him, reporter Ishmael Chambers (Ethan Hawke) covers the proceedings for the local newspaper. It's difficult for Ishmael to view the trial objectively, as his first love was a Japanese-American girl named Hatsue (Youki Kudoh), who later married Kazuo. Now, Ishmael has discovered that, when the Japanese-American residents of San Piedro Island were sent to internment camps during World War II, Carl's mother used their incarceration to scuttle a land purchase by Kazuo's family. This could suggest a motive for murder, but Ishmael is reluctant to step forward with the story. Snow Falling on Cedars was based on the best-selling novel by David Guterson, adapted for the screen by Ron Bass and writer/director Scott Hicks. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ethan Hawke, James Cromwell, (more)
Chilean Raul Ruiz directed this psychological suspense thriller which might be described as Alfred Hitchcock meets La Femme Nikita. In Seattle, hit-woman Jessie (Anne Parillaud) enters a restaurant men's room, kills a businessman, goes home, falls asleep, and awakens aboard a Jamaica-bound plane, recalling the previous event as a nightmare. When just-married Jessie and her husband Brian (William Baldwin) arrive in Jamaica for their honeymoon, it becomes evident that Brian is trying to save Jessie, a rape victim carrying suicidal wrist scars. Sleeping in Seattle, minus the scars, Jessie awakens to plot another killing. Checking out an antiques shop, she sees the man from her dream, and she's immediately attracted to him. Parillaud described her character: "She goes through different sorts of reality, dream, fantasy, and illusion," seeking an exit from the trap of her psychological labyrinth. Shown at the 1998 Montreal World Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Parillaud, William Baldwin, (more)
