Mark Lamprell Movies

Molly Ringwald stars in this Australian Scream-like horror flick that lodges a tongue in the cheek as much as a knife in the gut. The film opens in 1988 when director Hilary Jacobs (Australian uber-icon Kylie Minogue) is working on a slasher movie called "Hot Blooded" starring plucky American icon Vanessa Turnbull (Ringwald) as a teen who is being chased by a psycho with a mask and some wicked cutlery. After the climactic scene is shot, Jacobs shouts "Cut!" and then harangues the actor playing the killer. That night, the actor stabs the director and almost offs Turnbull. The film is never completed, and when a male director who takes over the project ends up dead too, "Hot Blooded" achieves a hallowed status in student film legend. Fast forward to the present -- Jacobs' assistant director Lossman (Geoff Revell) teaches at a film school and tells his favorite students -- Raffy Carruthers (Jessica Napier) and Hester Ryan (Sarah Kants) -- of his experiences on the doomed set. Raffy, who is itching to be the next Jane Campion, sets out to finish the notorious flick. She enlists Hester as a producer, assembles a crew of fellow students and manages to get Vanessa Turnbull, who hasn't worked much lately, to revisit her role as the film's main character. Of course, as soon as shooting commences, the killing begins anew. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

The 1995 Academy award-winning film Babe was Australian-made and featured the latest in talking animal anima-tronics. It told the heart-warming story of a sheepherding pig named Babe and his rise to community fame. The film was a tremendous hit, both financially and critically. Babe: Pig in the City is the higher budgeted American-made sequel that picks up where the original left off. It was directed by George Miller (Mad Max trilogy) who produced the original Babe film, and received a lot of criticism for being much darker than the original. The story owes more to George Orwell's Animal Farm or Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist than the original film. Having triumphed at the National Sheepdog trials, Babe returns home a hero. But after farmer Hoggett (James Cromwell) suffers from a farming accident, Mrs. Hoggett, a naive portly woman, is left to work the ranch alone. It's not long before the bank comes knocking. Desperate to save her farm from foreclosure, she accepts an offer for Babe to perform his sheepherding abilities at an overseas state fair. Babe, Mrs. Hoggett, Ferdinand the duck, and the singing mice travel across the ocean to a surreal metropolis, where they suddenly become stranded and separated. Soon Babe is performing with circus apes, being chased by wild strays (sounding a lot like Marlon Brando in The Godfather), and making a new wheelchair-bound canine friend (voiced by Adam Goldberg). He also is anointed leader of the animal community. What Babe lacks in street smarts he makes up for in honest goodness as he teaches audiences yet again that "an unprejudiced heart can mend a broken world." ~ Arthur Borman, All Movie Guide