Martin Haber Movies
Director Robert K. Weiss gives a good accounting of himself in his first feature-length effort Amongst Friends. The film is set in an affluent Long Island neighborhood, the home of boyhood chums Patrick McGaw, Steve Parlavecchio, and Joseph Lindsey. With too much time on their hands, the kids turn to crime for "kicks". Events snowball into a climactic life-or-death drug deal, which threatens to end in disaster when one of the boys capriciously pulls a double cross. Barely released in 1993, Amongst Friends will probably get more play in future years thanks to the presence in the cast of Oscar-winner Mira Sorvino. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Parlavecchio, Joseph Lindsey, (more)
- 1988
Severance is a human interest story about a drunken drifter's attempts to reconcile with his long estranged daughter. Former Air Force officer Ray Ponti (Lou Liotta) fell apart and lost everything after the auto accident that kills his wife. As the film opens, he hasn't seen his daughter in years. She was a child at the time of the accident, and is now working as a go-go dancer, although Ray tells people she's away in college. In a moment of quirky idealism, Ray offends the members of a drug ring, and is forced to flee town in a car borrowed from a girl friend. He decides to go see daughter Cly (Lisa Nicole-Wolpe in the old family home, which she has just bought back. Their attempts at reconciliation form the focus of the story. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lou Liotta, Lisa Wolpe, (more)
- 1988
- R
A disfigured madman works as a university janitor and lives underneath the school's administration building. With an extortion plan in mind, he threatens to contaminate the university's milk supply unless he receives $1 million. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeffrey Iorio, Joe Paradise, (more)
The Working Girls in this New York-based film are laboring away at the World's Oldest Profession. Molly (Louise Smith), a Yale grad whos lives with her lesbian lover, turns tricks to keep food on the table. She approaches each day with fear and loathing, carrying out her responsibilities with crisp, businesslike efficiency. Her coworkers include Gina (Marussia Zach), who hopes to stay a hooker just long enough to finance her own business, and Dawn (Amanda Goodwin), an outspoken college student who harbors dreams of becoming a lawyer. The film covers a single day in the lives of these three ladies, neither judging nor apologizing: a job's a job, the film seems to be saying, whether it's punching a clock or rolling in the sack with an elderly stranger. Director Lizzie Borden's matter-of-fact approach to her material (based on six months' worth of interviewing genuine prostitutes) places Working Girls head and shoulders above the usual lachrymose "ladies of the evening" drama. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louise Smith, Ellen McElduff, (more)
- 1983
Copying ideas from The Gods Must Be Crazy or Ivory-Merchant Productions' Savages, the independent, low-budget comedy Luggage Of The Gods is about a neolithic tribe living somewhere in North America and the discoveries some tribe members make when suitcases accidentally fall out of the cargo hold of a jet. As two tribal members (one just ostracized because he looked up at a passing plane) go through the various devices of modern life found in the suitcases, a new world opens up -- a least a crack. While the acting is expressive and the fake monosyllabic language passable, this film needs more than suitcases to successfully entertain for its full 78 minutes. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gabriel Barre, Gwen Ellison, (more)
