Ronald Guttman Movies

In the days before Yom Kippur (aka the Day of Atonement), Zak Pikler takes his pregnant girlfriend, Delphina, to find his estranged father in the family drama Tickling Leo, written and directed by Jeremy Davidson. When they reach the man's home in the Catskills, Zak finds that his father has turned into a hermit and is suffering from dementia. But the problems in the present only mask those in the past, causing his father to revisit the Holocaust and his escape from Hungary. Produced by actress and director Mary Stuart Masterson, Tickling Leo stars Daniel Sauli, Annie Parisse, Lawrence Pressman, and Eli Wallach. ~ All Movie Guide

Sibling filmmakers Benjamin and Orson Cummings write, produce, and direct this Hitchcock-influenced noir thriller starring Bill Sage as Davis Meyers, a trophy husband who lives in the Hamptons and resorts to infidelity and murder as a means of producing a suitable heir. By the time local investigator Linus (Roy Scheider) catches wind of the scheme, the stage has already been set for tragedy. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A visitor from the mysterious East arrives in New York -- not to offer the wisdom of the ages, but to make it big as a dancer in this "fish-out-of-water" comedy. Ramu Chandra Gupta (Jimi Mistry) grew up in India on a steady diet of movie musicals, particularly local Bollywood spectaculars and vintage American song-and-dance films. Ramu grew up with the dream of one day making it big as a dancer, and in time he found a job as a dance instructor. However, Raimu believes his destiny lies in the United States, and he leaves India behind to relocate to New York City. Unfortunately, Ramu's bright new future isn't exactly awaiting him, and he's soon sharing an overstuffed apartment with distant relatives in Queens while working in an Indian restaurant. An audition for a film director named Dwain (Michael McKean) turns out to be a tryout for a porno movie -- a role Ramu does not get when he fails to rise to the occasion. However, he does make the acquaintance of one of Dwain's "starlets," Sharona (Heather Graham), with whom he soon finds himself infatuated. Ramu gets a job entertaining guests at a party catered by his relatives when the performer originally booked is incapacitated. While Ramu's Bollywood-style dancing goes over well enough, he makes a deeper impression on Lexi (Marisa Tomei), an enthusiastic but half-bright student of Eastern philosophy who regards Ramu a font of wisdom as well as a hot date. Ramu quickly becomes the toast of New York's upper crust, and scores an agent, Josh (Rob Morrow), but how long will it be before folks realize Ramu is rather low on the enlightenment scale? And can he find happiness with Sharona while Lexi is still in the picture? The Guru also features Christine Baranski and Malachy McCourt. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Two women discover new love while trying to resolve their old relationships in this stylized drama. The Girl (Claire Keim) is a beautiful, bisexual cabaret singer who one night meets The Painter (Agathe de la Boulaye), an artist who is immediately and intensely attracted to her. The Girl and The Painter spend the night together, and are soon involved in an ongoing relationship, with The Painter spending most of her time at The Girl's flat in Paris. Meanwhile, The Painter finds it's not easy to break off her relationship with Bu Save (Sandra N'Kake), while The Girl is trying to keep her boyfriend, The Man (Cyril Lecomte), from finding out to much about her new romance, since she needs to maintain their relationship for the sake of her career. The Girl is the first feature film from Sandee Zeig, who helped to open the independent distribution firm Artistic License; it's based on a novella by Monique Wittig, who wrote the screenplay with Zeig. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

When a taxi driver finds that he has a dead body in the back of his cab, detectives Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Green (Jesse L. Martin) are forced to open up a 60-year-old mystery. At the center of the intrigue is an insurance racket, which may be preying upon survivors of the Holocaust. The D.A.'s office must first tackle the old case before solving the new one. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Peter Greenaway directed this elliptical and visually intricate tale of the far side of erotic and intellectual attraction. As a girl, Nagiko would receive a special gift each year from her father: a calligrapher (Ken Ogata) who would carefully paint a poem on her face, as her aunt (Hideko Yoshida) read aloud from The Pillow Book, a classic Japanese text on the art of love. As Nagiko (Vivian Wu) reached adulthood, her father insisted on putting a stop to this ritual, and he persuaded her to marry the nephew of his publisher (Ken Mitsuishi). But Nagiko is not satisfied with her husband, and after finding success as a model, she seeks a lover who will indulge her fondness for literature by writing verse on her naked body. In time, she finds happiness with a British expatriate named Jerome (Ewan McGregor), who persuades her to use his body as paper for her poetry, but the interference of her father's publisher (Yoshi Oida) gives their relationship a tragic turn. Greenaway deliberately mistranslated some of the French and Japanese dialogue for The Pillow Book, hoping that the occasionally fractured language would give the film a "Tower of Babel" quality. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Espionage, personal integrity, and political commitment are the main themes running through this French thriller that chronicles a young man's journey from idealism to disillusionment and maturity. The story is set in the 1980's in Tel Aviv and follows the exploits and moral conflicts of Attal, a Jew who left his family in France on his eighteenth birthday to pursue a career as an agent in Israels' Institute for Intelligence, the Mossad. At first, his missions do not bother his conscience; he performs them for the good of Israel. But, as time passes, Attal must face more moral dilemmas as the work becomes more subversive and dishonest. He must ultimately decide whether to follow the his personal ideals, or be part of a system which promote immoral acts in the name of idealism. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The late journalist Randy Shilts' best-selling book on the burgeoning AIDS crisis was adapted for cable TV by Arnold Schulman. In 1981, researchers begin discerning a mysterious new disease that apparently affects only homosexual males (or so they thought at that time). Working independently, and with marked hostility toward one another, an American and a French research team manage to identify and name the dreaded HIV virus. The long-range effects of AIDS is experienced through the first- and secondhand experiences of several unfortunates, including a choreographer (Richard Gere) whose character is said to be based on Michael Bennett. The all-star cast (most of whom eschewed their usual high salaries) includes Lily Tomlin as San Francisco health official Selma Dritz, Matthew Modine as Centers for Disease Control researcher Don Francis, Alan Alda as NIH official Robert Gallo (who emerges as the villain of the piece), Ian McKellan as gay activist Bill Kraus, and Glenne Headley, Steve Martin and Anjelica Huston in cameo roles. And the Band Played On debuted September 11, 1993, on HBO. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Helen (Crystal Bernard) is convinced that her dreams of being a professional cellist will never come true after she accidentally spills soup all over the managing director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Surprisingly, this mishap turns out to be Helen's ticket to a seat with the orchestra. On the night of her debut, all of Helen's friends fly out to witness the culmination of her lifetime ambitions -- and then the plane, piloted by Joe (Tim Daly), suddenly develops engine trouble. And with this "cliffhanger," season three of Wings comes to an end. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A made for cable TV docudrama, former Carter administration aides Hamilton Jordan and Gerald Rafshoon were responsible for the production of this miniseries which recounts the 1979 humiliation of America by a handful of Iranian radicals. Told through the eyes of a U.S. Embassy official married to a Tehran woman, this story did not spare neither the aides nor President Carter in the depiction of the shortsightedness and bungled rescue attempt which led to fifty-two Americans being held hostage for over a year and eventually led to President Carter's defeat in the next election despite an otherwise powerful administrative record. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

Green Card fuses the template of a light romantic comedy with a classic fish-out-of-water scenario. In order to retain her beautiful rent-controlled Manhattan apartment, a beautiful, socially-conscious American woman (Andie MacDowell) has to be married, so she decides to marry a burly French composer (Gerard Depardieu), who is eager to earn a green card so he can stay and work in America. After the marriage, the couple doesn't live together, but when the government's Immigration agents begin to investigate the pair, they are forced to put up a charade to convince the authorities that they are truly in love. Of course, the charade eventually becomes reality. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

The third of director Barry Levinson's autobiographical "Baltimore Trilogy" (the first two entries were Diner and Tin Men), Avalon covers nearly forty years in the lives of an immigrant Jewish family. Sam Krichinsky (Armin Mueller-Stahl) emigrates to Baltimore in 1914, where Sam's brothers Gabriel (Lou Jacobi), Hymie (Leo L. Fuchs), and Nathan (Israel Rubinek) are awaiting his arrival. By and by, Sam meets his future wife, Eva (Joan Plowright). With the introduction of the Krichinsky's grown son Jules (Aidan Quinn), the film ventures into culture-clash country. Unwilling to become a manual laborer like his dad, Jules opts for the life of a door-to-door salesman. Eventually, he teams with his cousin Izzy (Kevin Pollak) to open the first TV store in Baltimore. Thereafter, the disintegration of the Krichinsky family is paralleled by the rise of TV's omnipresence in the American home. Avalon's elegiac and melancholy effect is underlined by Randy Newman's soulful musical score. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide