Tim Green Movies

Some of the scariest moments in Hollywood history get a hip-hop slant in this outrageous satiric comedy. Mileek is a serial killer who stalks the streets of inner-city Philadelphia on the first and 15th days of every month; twice a month he claims his victims, and then hangs their shoes from the neighborhood's electrical lines. Mike and Laura are a couple from the suburbs who get lost in the ghetto as Mileek is making his rounds, and they have a hard time finding anyone who can help them find their way home. As Mike and Laura dodge the murderous Mileek, the killer has joined forces with Shameeka, a doll enchanted with evil spirits who preys on deadbeat dads behind in their child support. Creepin' was the first feature film from writer and director Tim Greene. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Here's a fictionalized account of Jack Ruby's perspective of the events leading up to his assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald. Danny Aiello appears convincingly as the nightclub-owner Ruby who (according to this telling) points the finger at an FBI conspiracy as the force behind the Kennedy assassination. The film includes some actual footage from Ruby's Oswald shooting. ~ Rovi

Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom's follow-up to the underrated Once Around earned far more attention than its predecessor thanks to the judicious casting of perennial thinking woman's heartthrob Johnny Depp and a certain up-and-coming thespian by the name of Leonardo DiCaprio. A prisoner of his dysfunctional family's broken dreams in tiny Endora, IA, Gilbert (Depp) serves as breadwinner and caretaker for his mother and siblings following his father's suicide and his older brother's defection. Momma (Darlene Cates) is a morbidly obese shut-in who hasn't left the house in seven years; her children include retarded Arnie (DiCaprio), who's about to turn 18 despite a host of negative medical forecasts, and terminally embarrassed Ellen (Mary Kate Schellhardt), who's emerging from an awkward adolescence. When he's not taking care of the difficult but tender Arnie, Gilbert spends his time fixing up the family's tattered farmhouse, working at a failing mom-and-pop grocery store and hanging with local misfits Bobby (Crispin Glover), an overly ambitious junior undertaker, and Tucker (John C. Reilly), a handyman who hankers after a job at the new burger franchise. Into this complicated but essentially unchanging social universe steps Becky (Juliette Lewis), a thoughtful young woman who's been escorting her nomadic grandmother from state to state in a mobile-home caravan. As Becky teaches Gilbert to finally consider his own happiness for a change, she disrupts both his family obligations and his long-running affair with a lonely housewife (Mary Steenburgen). Adapted by Peter Hedges from his own novel of the same name, What's Eating Gilbert Grape was the first and only film role for non-actress Cates, whom the filmmakers discovered on an episode of the Sally Jesse Raphael Show titled "Too Heavy to Leave Their House." ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi