Hamish McAlpine Movies
Notoriously nihilistic filmmaker Michael Haneke revisits one of his most controversial works in this remake of 1997's Funny Games starring Naomi Watts and Tim Roth. When a family of three arrives at their remote summer cabin for a quiet getaway, the sudden arrival of two psychotic men sets the stage for a harrowing life-or-death struggle that offers savage commentary on the use of violence in entertainment. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, (more)
David Mamet wrote the screenplay for this adaptation of his play about a man who suddenly stumbles into a new and dangerous life. Edmond Burke (William H. Macy) is on his way home from work one evening when he impulsively stops to have his fortune read by a woman who informs him, "You are not where you belong." When he does arrive home, Edmond soon falls into an argument with his wife (Rebecca Pidgeon), and he storms out into the city, where he stops at a bar for a few drinks. There, Edmond finds himself talking with a man (Joe Mantegna) who freely shares his racist views about the role of African-Americans in society, and suddenly Edmond begins letting go of the sense of self-control that has always governed his actions. After a crawl through the city's underbelly of watering holes, strip clubs, gambling dens, and brothels, Edmond comes face to face with the violence of this world, and unexpectedly finds himself responding in kind. Edmond also stars Julia Stiles, Denise Richards, Mena Suvari, Bai Ling, and Dylan Walsh; it was directed by Stuart Gordon, who worked often with David Mamet during their early days at Chicago's Organic Theater Company. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William H. Macy, Julia Stiles, (more)
- 2005
A man with a belief in travel between different realities encounters a woman who seems to be the living embodiment of his theories in this drama. Michael Seraph (Jamie Sives) is an astronomer and author who has a passionate interest in what he calls "quantum cosmology" -- the belief that we exist in one of several parallel universes, and that some people can move from one plane to another at will. Michael has published a book on his theories, and he also works at a state-of-the-art observatory with David (Jason Flemyng, who believes there's merit in his ideas, and Marianne (Susan Lynch), who puts little stock in them. One evening, Michael attends a screening of an art film and meets Caroline (Julie Gayet), a beautiful French woman who takes an immediate interest in him. Michael and Caroline spend the night together, but while he's keen on pursuing a relationship with her, she keeps dropping in and out of his life, and seems somehow different each time he meets her. Michael's curiosity about Caroline grows greater when his friend Hunt (Brian Cox), a doctor, tells him she was once one of his patients -- but that she was much older when he met her years before. Like director Richard Jobson's debut feature 16 Years of Alcohol, A Woman in Winter was shot using digital video technology, and transferred to 35mm film for theatrical screenings. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jamie Sives, Julie Gayet, (more)
- 2004
- R
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Actress and filmmaker Asia Argento directed this faithful screen adaptation of the fictional J.T. Leroy's fictional memoir, which documents a boy's truly harrowing road to adulthood. Jeremiah (Jimmy Bennett) is the seven-year-old son of Sarah (Asia Argento), an unstable and unwed mother who abandoned her son and left him to be raised by foster parents. Jeremiah has come to love his guardians, and is devastated when Sarah arrives at their doorstep, demanding her child back. Threatening Jeremiah with torture if he tries to run away, Sarah introduces her young son to drugs and encourages her one-night-stand paramours to help "discipline" her son when she feels his behavior is inappropriate. Sarah marries a man named Emerson (Jeremy Renner), but abandons him shortly afterward; Emerson responds by molesting Jeremiah, and soon the child is left in the care of his grandparents (Peter Fonda and Ornella Muti), members of a fundamentalist Christian sect which emphasizes child discipline that's strict to the point of abuse. After three years, Sarah returns with a new husband, Kenny (Matt Schulze), and takes Jeremiah (now played by Dylan Sprouse and Cole Sprouse) with her; Kenny spends most of his time on the road as a trucker, and Sarah supports the family at home as a stripper and a prostitute. Sarah also begins dressing her son is girl's clothing, which excites the perverse appetites of Sarah's latest boyfriend, Jackson (Marilyn Manson); she soon leaves Jackson and pairs off with Chester (Jeremy Sisto), a biker with a dangerous way of making a living. The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things premiered at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, where it was screened as part of the "Directors Fortnight" series. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Asia Argento, Jimmy Bennett, (more)
In Battle in Heaven (AKA Batalla en el Cielo), director Carlos Reygadas' searing look at the inherent hypocrisies of Mexico's social structure, Marcos Hernandez is Marcos, an overweight, poverty-stricken chauffeur who longs for a better life for his wife and young son. Desperate, the couple kidnaps an infant child for ransom. When the baby dies in their custody, this simple crime that Marcos hoped would brighten his family's future instead adds a crushing burden to his conscience and will bring dire consequences for Marcos and his wife if discovered. Meanwhile, Ana, an affluent general's daughter whom Marcos chauffeurs from place to place, secretly battles ennui by prostituting herself in a local brothel with her friends. The two confide their darkest secrets in one another, and as Marcos urges Ana to drop out of whoring, Ana tries to convince Marcos to turn himself in. Marcos, however, will not listen, insisting that true forgiveness and redemption must come from above. Batalla en el Cielo marked the second major international release for director Reygadas, after the acclaimed Japon (2002). ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marco Hernandez, Anapola Mushkadiz, (more)
A real-life series of killings that held Los Angeles, CA, in the grip of fear during the late '70s provides the inspiration for this tense crime drama. Kenneth Bianchi (C. Thomas Howell) is a nebbishy security guard who lives with his mother in Rochester, NY, and dreams of becoming a police officer. After Bianchi's application to join the Rochester police is turned town, he takes his mother's advice and moves out to Glendale, CA, where she arranges for him to stay with his cousin, Angelo Buono (Nicholas Turturro), who works in auto repair. When he's unable to get a position with the Glendale Police Department, Bianchi steps outside the law and, claiming to have a degree in psychology and a license to practice, sets up shop as a counselor. While Bianchi never had much luck with women in Rochester, Buono gives him some advice and sets him up on a few dates; soon Bianchi has a string of girlfriends, though things become complicated when one of his steady girls, Claire Shelton (Allison Lange), becomes pregnant and moves in with him. As Bianchi becomes increasingly obsessed with sex, he and his cousin join forces to set up a prostitution ring, which quickly earns them the enmity of a group of career criminals. When Bianchi and Buono discover that they have been double crossed by one of the hookers in their stable, the two men rape and murder the woman in the back of a car; Bianchi discovers he enjoys the thrill of killing, and soon he and Buono begin committing a string of sexually tinged murders throughout the Los Angeles area, with the press soon dubbing the culprit "The Hillside Strangler." The Hillside Strangler was one of two identically titled films based on the same true story that were released in 2004; the other was directed by Chris Fisher and starred Clifton Collins Jr. and Tomas Arana as Bianchi and Buono. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- C. Thomas Howell, Nicholas Turturro, (more)
Scottish writer and former vocalist for the punk band the Skids, Richard Jobson makes his directorial debut with 16 Years of Alcohol, the stylized psychological drama based on his own semi-autobiographical novel. Through voice-over narration and various flashback methods, troubled young man Frankie Mac (Kevin McKidd) recalls his childhood (played by Iain De Caestaecker as a boy) growing up in working-class Edinburgh. In the '50s, his father (Lewis McCloud) was a hard-drinking good-timer and his long-suffering mother (Lisa May Cooper) eventually gave up on the family. As a teenager in the '70s, the violent Frankie falls in with a street gang and tries to clean up to impress record store clerk Helen (Laura Fraser). After some fights with his old street thug enemy Miller (Stuart Sinclair Blyth), Frankie makes an another attempt to stop drinking at an AA meeting, where he meets Mary (Susan Lynch). ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kevin McKidd, Laura Fraser, (more)
Director Matthew Bright (Freeway) directs this tale of one of the most notorious serial killers in the annals of crime. Standing in stark contrast to the generally accepted view of serial killers, Ted Bundy (Michael Reilley Burke) was intelligent, quick-witted, and handsome. Engaged to a beautiful fiancée who never suspected his murderous tendencies, the feral Bundy develops a taste for murder that ultimately results in the deaths of at least 19 young women through the course of the 1970s. From posing as an injured driver and luring unsuspecting women to their deaths to an astonishing pair of jailbreaks and his ultimate death by capital punishment, viewers follow the murderous madman on a crime spree that shocked a nation and left the public's perception of what a serial killer is truly capable of forever changed. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Reilly Burke, Boti Ann Bliss, (more)
By day, Ed Gein was a quiet man who kept watch over the farm left to him by his late mother in Plainfield, a small rural community in Wisconsin. But by night, Gein was one of the most bizarre and dangerous psychopaths in recorded history. Raised by a violent alcoholic father and a mother with an obsessive fear of sin and hatred of sex, Gein had very few friends, and after the death of his parents, Gein was left to his own devices on the family farm (where, under a government subsidy program, he was paid not to grow crops), and his unhealthy obsessions eventually became ugly realities. Gein's crimes included murder, necrophilia, cannibalism, and grave robbing, with Gein using the flesh and bones of his victims to construct household objects, including a suit and mask made from human skin that Gein used when he wanted to dress up as a woman (it's been suggested that some of Gein's crimes stemmed from a twisted attempt to deal with his desire to change his gender). In 1957, two murders committed by Gein attracted the attention of the police, leading to Gein's arrest; near the end of that year, he was declared criminally insane and was committed for life to Wisconsin's Waupan State Hospital, where he stayed until his death in 1984. Gein's grisly story inspired a number of horror films, including Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Deranged, but Ed Gein is the first feature based strictly on the facts of Gein's case, using his real name as well as those of most of his victims. Ed Gein stars Steve Railsback in the title role, with Carrie Snodgrass as his mother Augusta, and Sally Champlin and Carol Mansell as two of his victims. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Railsback, Carrie Snodgress, (more)
In this disturbing psychological drama, Molly Parker plays Leila, a receptionist at a rundown hotel who pads her paycheck by turning tricks with the hotel's customers. When she meets Gary (Callum Keith Rennie), a brutish psycho, Leila endures his physical abuse with troubling insouciance, preferring his rough treatment to the passionless marriage waiting for her at home. Some clues to her demeanor are given in a parallel story, in which a young girl plays powerless witness to her mother's sexual encounter with the girl's violent uncle. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Molly Parker, Callum Keith Rennie, (more)
