Rossie Harris Movies

Music video director Steven Hanft makes his feature debut with the digital video project Southlander, an absurd independent film starring various beloved indie pop musicians. Rory Cochrane stars as Chance, a musician who loses his extremely rare magical synthesizer which takes the form of a white 1969 Moletron keyboard. He looks for it by wandering around a de-glamorised Southern California with pal Rossangeles (co-writer Ross Harris from DJ Me DJ You and Sukia). They sometimes find clues in the local classified newspaper called the Southlander, which leads them to meet interesting folks.Their adventures eventually lead them to the home of former funk legend-turned-tennis player Mother Child (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs from Welcome Back Kotter) and his blonde girlfriend Snowbunny (Meghan Gallagher). Beth Orton stars as Chance's love interest Rocket and the leader of the band Future Pigeon. Beck plays Bek, his younger pre-stardom self, back when he was into drugs and recording music by himself in a shack. Also starring Ione Skye, Hank Williams III, Richard Edson, and Elliot Smith. Southlander was shown at the 2001 South by Southwest Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

The sequel to Zapped!, this comedy follows the wacky events that occur when a mysterious formula endows a geeky high school boy with telekinetic abilities. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

This children's biopic offers a Disneyfied excerpt from the life of infamous Harry Houdini, who apparently ran away from home at age 12 to join a wandering medicine show so he could fulfill his dream of becoming a magician. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Director Lynne Littman has created an effective, understated portrayal of the cost of a nuclear war in human terms, in a film as far removed from the fake hyperbole of action and disaster movies as the natural world is from cartoons. Set in the small California town of Hamlin, the Wetherly family and their everyday concerns open the story. The trivia that fills their secure, ordinary existence disappears when a TV show is interrupted with the announcement that nuclear bombs have exploded in the major cities on the East Coast, and then the entire scene is erased in an increasingly white, blank movie screen -- meant to show that nuclear blasts have been detonated in California as well. Over 1000 people die in the first month from radiation sickness, but the mother in the Wetherly family (Jane Alexander) displays great inner strength as she cares for orphaned children the family has taken under its wing and goes on sustaining those that remain in her own family. At one point, she quietly conveys to her daughter the happiness of intimacy between two adults, knowing her daughter will not live to experience adult love. As these individuals and the children cope with day-to-day existence, there is never any intrusion of overt horrors, the focus remains on the individuals and the way in which they adjust to the inevitable. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Real-life father and son Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez star in the made-for-TV In the Custody of Strangers. Blue-collar Sheen and his wife Jane Alexander attempt to instill discipline in their three growing children. But their 16-year-old son Estevez chafes at their authoritative attitudes, and runs seriously afoul of the law. Picked up on a drunk-driving charge, Estevez is charged with assault and battery when he fights off the sexual advances of his cellmate. His release continually delayed by judicial red tape, Estevez holds his parents, who are virtually helpless within the strictures of the Law, responsible for the mess he's in. But the real villain of the piece is not a person but an entity: The juvenile justice system, which is overworked, understaffed and swamped with dead-end bureaucracy. Scripted by Jennifer Miller, In the Custody of Strangers debuted on May 26, 1982. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A 1962 novel by Edward Abbey was the source for this 1981 TV movie. Buddy Ebsen plays a stubborn oldster who refuses to leave his mountain property when it is targeted for a government missile base. Not even a promised $100,000 compensation will induce Ebsen to leave. Young land developer Ron Howard is sent to vacate Ebsen, but soon Howard joins the older man in defying the military. Soon it boils down to a battle of wills between Ebsen and the equally bullheaded army officer Michael Conrad. Fire on the Mountain may have your typical "all-TV" cast, but it's a good one. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally known as Christmas Miracle in Caulfield, USA, this made-for-TV film concerns the true story of striking coal workers who are imprisoned in a collapsed mine on Christmas Eve, 1951. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

George Romero's The Crazies involves a biochemical warfare virus code-named "Trixie" that gets into the water supply of Evans City, Pennsylvania. It has two equally unpleasant effects, either killing its victims outright or driving them hopelessly insane. The military descends on the town like a plague of locusts, quarantining the area and dragging the frightened citizens from their homes to be corralled at the local high school while the "powers that be" figure out what to do. Human interest revolves around firefighting Nam vet David and his pregnant wife Judy, who try to escape the quarantine, the virus, and the militant redneck locals whom Romero portrays as even more fearsome than the soldiers. There's also an infected father and daughter, played by Richard Liberty (Day of the Dead) and pretty Lynn Lowry (Shivers), who gives the film's best performance as an innocent waif who mourns the passing of her own sanity. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

When unexpected radiation raises the dead, a microcosm of Average America has to battle flesh-eating zombies in George A. Romero's landmark cheapie horror film. Siblings Johnny (Russ Streiner) and Barbara (Judith O'Dea) whine and pout their way through a graveside visit in a small Pennsylvania town, but it all takes a turn for the worse when a zombie kills Johnny. Barbara flees to an isolated farmhouse where a group of people are already holed up. Bickering and panic ensue as the group tries to figure out how best to escape, while hoards of undead converge on the house; news reports reveal that fire wards them off, while a local sheriff-led posse discovers that if you "kill the brain, you kill the ghoul." After a night of immolation and parricide, one survivor is left in the house.... Romero's grainy black-and-white cinematography and casting of locals emphasize the terror lurking in ordinary life; as in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963), Romero's victims are not attacked because they did anything wrong, and the randomness makes the attacks all the more horrifying. Nothing holds the key to salvation, either, whether it's family, love, or law. Topping off the existential dread is Romero's then-extreme use of gore, as zombies nibble on limbs and viscera. Initially distributed by a Manhattan theater chain owner, Night, made for about 100,000 dollars, was dismissed as exploitation, but after a 1969 re-release, it began to attract favorable attention for scarily tapping into Vietnam-era uncertainty and nihilistic anxiety. By 1979, it had grossed over 12 million, inspired a cycle of apocalyptic splatter films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and set the standard for finding horror in the mundane. However cheesy the film may look, few horror movies reach a conclusion as desolately unsettling. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide