Katherine Moennig Movies
Katherine Moennig has been widely recognized for her gender-ambiguous looks; while her face is aesthetically beautiful, her ultra-skinny figure and short hair make her a convincing tomboy. As the era of the waif-look amongst supermodels came to a close, tiny figures like Moennig's earned a place in the new millennium -- where the trend was to be neither too masculine nor too feminine. Indeed, on the 2000 television series Young Americans, Moennig played a young woman who dresses up like a boy. Also known as "Kate," she was born on December 29, 1977, and raised in Philadelphia, PA, where the young hoyden came to recognize herself as slightly boyish even before it became an asset to her career. She moved to New York when she was 18 to begin training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and her post-graduation work included an internship at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. She would go on to gain exposure as a model as well as an actress, and appeared in a music video for rock band Our Lady Peace's song "Is Anybody Home?" Her growing fame is notably familial, as she is the niece of actress Blythe Danner, and thus the cousin of Gwyneth Paltrow. After her rise in popularity with the teen drama Young Americans and an appearance on Law & Order in 2001, Moennig has complemented her TV career with several film appearances. In 2001, she was featured in two Sundance Film Festival movies: in Love the Hard Way as Debbie, and Slo-Mo, in the role of Raven, amidst a young man's strange psychological time warp. Additionally, that same year she appeared in The Shipping News, starring Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, and Cate Blanchett. ~ Sarah Sloboda, All Movie Guide
The fifth season of the ms.-adventures of the "bisexual and sapphically inclined ladies and their friends," as Alice (Leisha Hailey) states, once again finds them engaged in all sorts of shenanigans. In the season's ongoing story line, Jenny (Mia Kirshner) finagles a chance to direct the movie of her book and hires an assistant (Malaya Rivera Drew) whose intentions are suspect. Jenny's friends express disappointment in the actresses portraying them in the film adaptation of her roman à clef, but she already has her hands full with the problematic star (Kate French). Shane (Katherine Moennig) is involved in copious sexcapades and continues to utilize her uncanny ability to seduce any woman in the lesbian universe. Only this time, her roving libido puts a crimp in her relationship with the beautiful Paige (Kristanna Loken). Elsewhere, Max (Daniela Sea) begins a relationship with the interpreter for Jodi (Marlee Matlin); workaholic Bette (Jennifer Beals) winds up in the arms of a former lover; and dating woes plague the extremely picky Tina (Laurel Holloman), but her luck appears to change when she spends an enchanted evening with a stunner she met online. The reason why Tasha (Rose Rollins) didn't go to Iraq is revealed as she gets slapped with a discharge for homosexual conduct and saddled with a homophobic military lawyer. Club owner Kit (Pam Grier) faces several business challenges, including new competition in Shebar, "L.A.'s first superhot girls only club." And it's not long before Kit and her posse find themselves in a catfight with the cutthroat lesbians (Elizabeth Keener, Alicia Leigh Willis) who own Shebar. ~ Ray Stackhouse, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jennifer Beals, Pam Grier, (more)
THE L WORD Season 4 picks up with the women wrestling with issues close to their hearts. As with previous seasons, old demons rear their ugly heads and a host of new characters are brought into their fold, offering them access to a broader community with diverse issues. The L Word stars Jennifer Beals, Leisha Hailey, Laurel Holloman, Mia Kirshner, Katherine Moennig, Dallas Roberts, Daniela Sea, Rachel Shelley, and Pam Grier. Newest additions to the cast include Cybill Shepherd, Marlee Matlin, Janina Gavankar and Rose Rollins. Special guest stars are Rosanna Arquette, Eric Roberts, Bruce Davison, Kristanna Loken and Jane Lynch. This season, the war in Iraq becomes an integral part of Alice's (Hailey) life as she struggles to move on after the death of Dana; Helena (Shelley) tries to find financial independence and come to terms with leaving behind a world of privilege; Phyllis Kroll (Shepherd) -- who takes the courageous plunge late in life to come out of the closet -- risking everything that has defined her life up to now; and, Bette (Beals) has to deal with Jodi Lerner (Matlin), a woman who confronts her head-on about her Type-A personality.
- Starring:
- Jennifer Beals, Laurel Holloman, (more)
Filmmaker Terry Zwigoff and comic artist and screenwriter Daniel Clowes, who collaborated for the acclaimed 2001 comedy-drama Ghost World, team up once again for this offbeat satire. Jerome (Max Minghella) is an aspiring artist who arrives at a prestigious East Coast art institute to study. While Jerome enjoys daydreams of becoming the best-respected painter on Earth and winning the hearts of his female classmates, he soon learns the sad truth -- his "cool artist" act is old hat in the big city, and as he's surrounded by every art school cliché on Earth, practically nothing about him stands out. Determined to be recognized whatever the consequences, Jerome maps out a bizarre plan to become famous that has some unexpected consequences. Loosely adapted from a story in Clowes' comic book Eightball, Art School Confidential also stars John Malkovich, Jim Broadbent, Anjelica Huston, and Sophia Myles. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Max Minghella, Sophia Myles, (more)
The third season of the hit show, The L Word, follows a group of friends - both gay and straight - through stories of career, family, inner struggle, friendship and romantic relationships. Stars Jennifer Beals, Erin Daniels, Leisha Hailey, Laurel Holloman, Mia Kirshner, Katherine Moennig, Sarah Shahi, Rachel Shelley and Pam Grier.
- Starring:
- Jennifer Beals, Laurel Holloman, (more)
Season two of Showtime's lesbian-oriented seriocomedy series The L Word finds the formerly blissful relationship between control-freak Bette (Jennifer Beals) and supplicative Tina (Laurel Holloman) on hiatus due to Bette's infidelity, with Tina hiding the fact that she is once again pregnant. Having come out of the closet, Jenny (Mia Kirshner) splits with her husband, Tim (Eric Mabius). Wisecracking Alice (Leisha Hailey) and hyper-defensive Dana (Erin Daniels), who is engaged to her new manager, Tonya (Meredith McGeachie), try to hide their affair from their tongue-clucking friends. And the footloose Shane (Katherine Moennig) avoids getting serious with seductive deejay Carmen (Sarah Shahi), despite secretly harboring feelings for her. In other developments, Bette's straight half sister, Kit (Pam Grier), opens up her own nightclub, The Planet, and urges Bette to mend fences with their father, Melvin (Emmy nominee Ossie Davis), who is dying. Tina, who is disenchanted with Bette, nonetheless enters into a relationship with another domineering woman, Helena (Rachel Shelley), the daughter of influential philanthropist Peggy Peabody (Holland Taylor) and a professional rival of Bette. Jenny begins to date Carmen, thereby unintentionally cultivating Shane's jealousy. And a number of surprises are in store for certain of the characters as the 2005 Gay Pride Festival. The season ends with a funeral, Tina's painful labor throes, and various piquant moments of truth for Bette, Jenny, and Alice. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jennifer Beals, Laurel Holloman, (more)
The opening season of American television's first lesbian comedy drama series, The L Word, finds longtime partners Bette (Jennifer Beals) and Tina (Laurel Holloman) deciding to start a family -- and since it is out of the question for the domineering Bette to be weighed down with the burden of pregnancy, it is up to "happy housewife" Tina to be artificially inseminated. Meanwhile, the couple's next-door neighbor, Tim (Eric Mabius), has invited his fiancée, Jenny (Mia Kirshner), an aspiring writer, to live with him. Fascinated by Bette and Tina's circle of gay friends, Jenny begins seriously questioning her own sexual orientation. Elsewhere, the eternally wisecracking Alice (Leisha Hailey) disappoints her friends by entering into yet another dead-end romance. Tennis pro Dana (Erin Daniels) continues to put off telling her parents that she's a lesbian. And promiscuous hairdresser Shane (Katherine Moennig) continues to leave a trail of broken hearts as she woos women everywhere and beds some of her more vulnerable female customers. By the end of the first season, Jenny has had her first lesbian affair with Marina (Karina Lombard), whereupon Tim kicks her out of the house -- and worse, Marina has not informed Jenny that she already has a lover. And, in the emotional aftermath of Tina's miscarriage, Bette succumbs to the temptation of cheating on her with another woman. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jennifer Beals, Laurel Holloman, (more)
Writer-director Loren Marsh's black comedy Invitation to a Suicide - an official selection at the AFI Fest and HBO Comedy Festival - concerns the plight of Kaz Malek, a witless young man raised in a Polish enclave of Brooklyn. In a (very) misguided attempt to escape from his dead-end life as a baker's son, Kaz slyly lifts $10,000 from a Russian mobster, but is promptly caught. The mobster threatens to kill Kaz's father if he can't come up with the payola. To escape from this plight, Kaz devises a wild yet workable scheme: he'll publicly hang himself and sell tickets for the show, thus raising the money to pay off his creditor but dying in honor instead of living in shame over his father's death. To his utter shock, everyone - his father and the Mafioso included - wholeheartedly applauds the idea. But it remains unclear whether Kaz will follow through and off himself. Marsh pulled influence for the film from such classic films as Harold and Maude and King of Hearts. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by E. Annie Proulx becomes this drama from director Lasse Hallström. Kevin Spacey stars as Quoyle, a struggling, emotionally drained newspaper reporter suffering through a wretched marriage with the abusive Petal (Cate Blanchett), a promiscuous wild woman who tries to sell their daughter, Bunny, into adoption before she's killed in a car wreck. Retrieving his daughter, Quoyle sets out for Newfoundland, his ancestral home, with his long-lost Aunt Agnis (Judi Dench). Although he initially finds life on the island to be as forbidding and severe as Agnis herself, Quoyle gets work as a shipping columnist for the local newspaper "The Gammy Bird," owned by eccentric fisherman Jack Buggit (Scott Glenn). Quoyle's work soon finds an appreciative audience and he begins to rebuild his life, dating local single mother Wavey (Julianne Moore), learning some sea craft, discovering his family's dark history, and finally earning some self-respect. Agnis, in the meantime, starts her own successful business and faces a traumatic incident from her childhood involving Quoyle's late father. The Shipping News (2001) co-stars Rhys Ifans and Pete Postlethwaite. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, (more)
This contemporary film noir is an international endeavor with key creative forces hailing from China, Germany, and the United States. It is based on the Chinese novel Yoban shi huoyan she hai shu (Fire and Ice) by subversive writer Wang Shuo, who has been called a "corruptor of youth" by critics in his native land. German screenwriter/director Peter Sehr fell in love with the novel and chose to adapt it as a film set in New York City. For Sehr, the location best represents a contrast of "people and light" that compliments the film's subject matter, a dark love story between a brilliant biology student and a master swindler. Claire is a good girl living a mundane lifestyle until she meets literature-quoting con man, Jack. Although Jack normally despises relationships, he's attracted to Claire's innocence and allows a romance to blossom. But when a detective begins closing in on a his latest caper, he's forced to give Claire the cold shoulder. Heartbroken, Claire starts down a spiraling road of self-destruction that's often painful to watch. Performance highlights are Adrien Brody as Jack, and Pam Grier in a tough-lady role reminiscent of Jackie Brown. ~ Connor McMadden, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Adrien Brody, Charlotte Ayanna, (more)
- 2001
A paroled hitman turns up murdered. The detectives have every reason to believe that the victim had been hired by wealthy widow Lorraine Cobin (Cathy Gentile-Moriarty) to kill an unwanted relative. Once the case goes to trial, the D.A.'s office is presented with seemingly irrefutable proof that they've been barking up the wrong tree. The viewer is advised to pay close attention to this episode until the very last scene. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
