Gary Adams Movies
Also released as Spotswood, The Efficiency Expert stars Anthony Hopkins as Wallace, a cold-blooded management consultant, infamous for radically "downsizing" every firm he comes in contact with. Wallace's latest assignment is to streamline a small, family-owned shoe factory in Australia. As he gets to know the eccentric (and endearingly inefficient) factory workers, Wallace undergoes a slow-but-sure "humanizing" process. Eventually realizing that he can simultaneously cut costs and preserve the dignity of the workers, he finds a way to modernize the operation without a single firing. In traditional fashion, the main story shares screen time with a romantic subplot involving the factory-owner's son and a female employee. Characterized by many critics as "Capraesque," The Efficiency Expert also bears trace of all those Ealing comedies of the 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anthony Hopkins, Ben Mendelsohn, (more)
- 1990
- R
What happens when baby-boom rock 'n rollers, having had their fleeting moment of fame and notoriety, grow up, get other jobs, and have children of their own? For one thing, if this movie is to be believed, they envy their children's musical abilities and, when the youngsters get involved in their own version of rebel-music, they re-create the famed "generation gap" all over again. Johnny (played by Australian actor John Waters) was a member of a 1960s band called the Chosen Ones and enjoyed the famed trinity of that era: sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. Now the middle-aged man is bored with his "straight" job and wants to see if he can't start a revival of his band's popularity, but his wife wants his career change to be more practical and suggests that they invest in a restaurant. At the same time, Johnny's much more talented son Paul is making waves in his own band. One highlight of this film is the surprisingly skillful music-making of the performers, none of them music pros. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Waters, Rebecca Gilling, (more)
- 1987
- R
Randy (Christopher Parker) leaves rural New Hampshire for Hollywood to become a star in this tragic drama. His best friend David (Brian Matthews) is hooked on drugs and under the spell of the sleazy dealer Bruce (Tom Badal). Randy meets pretty blond Betty (Patti Bauer) at a party but soon discovers she makes porno films with filth merchant Uncle Solly (Jack Cater). When David is killed, Randy goes after Bruce to exact revenge for his friend's death, but he heroic Randy soon finds himself surrounded by the police and caught up in the tawdry cesspool of Tinseltown's dark side. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brian Matthews, Tom Badal, (more)
- 1986
This intriguing low-budget crime-thriller is reminiscent of vintage film noir detective stories with their distinctive atmosphere and musical scores. Price (David Bradshaw) is an investigative reporter with a nose for news. His editor (John Ewart) is always on edge, but the man may have good reason to be nervous. A series of murders (and one possible suicide) lead to suspicions about the activities of the government and their connection to secret scientific experiments. As Price digs deeper and deeper into his investigation, the plot twists and turns toward an ending that offers some fast-moving action. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Bradshaw, Lian Lunson, (more)
- 1984
Technical flaws abound in this "punk" movie about an imaginary, 21st-century ghetto in Melbourne, Australia created by white-color, middle-class suburbanites to contain all the wild and wooly nonconformists in their society. At the center of ghetto life is a pub that features Sarah (Maryanne Fahey) and Bear (Michael Bishop), by night slamming the suburbanites and by day carrying out covert operations on the outside as the daring Cisco and Pancho. In that guise, the Bear dons various personas, such as that of a government minister, and announces radical changes to the citizenry: children should henceforth be painted green, family cars should be buried, and as winter chills the air, citizens are to sleep with ducks. This send-up of the middle-class is uneven and patchy, with acting that is alternately good and bad and lip-synching that is a misnomer -- but at the same time, this haphazard fluctuation in quality seems to fit right in with the theme of the movie itself -- slick just would not capture the point of it all. Future Schlock is here. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mary-Anne Fahey, Michael Bishop, (more)
- 1973
- PG
The West Coast is taken hostage when terrorists position a 40-megaton nuclear explosive on the Golden Gate Bridge. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
