Dianne Heatherington Movies

The surreal and the supernatural join forces in this extremely unusual "AIDS musical." The story features the ghost of the French-Canadian airline steward (played by Normand Fauteux) who, according to And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts' book about the AIDS epidemic, was the origin of one of the largest outbreaks of HIV. Known as "Patient Zero" by the Centers for Disease Control, the handsome and promiscuous steward was basically the "Typhoid Mary" of the AIDS phenomenon. In the story, Patient Zero comes back from limbo as a ghost to see his friends suffering from the syndrome: some dying, the rest protesting at ACT-UP rallies. He realizes that his memory has been vilified as the extremely promiscuous source of all this suffering. However, it is only when he becomes aware of an exhibit being prepared at the Toronto Natural History Museum, one which singles him out yet again as the villain, that he becomes aware that the exhibit's curator is an unusual being in his own right. In fact, the show is being put together the famous nineteenth-century explorer of the upper Nile, Sir Richard Burton (John Robinson), inexplicably still living, working at the museum, and filled with misguided homophobia. Though no one else can see Zero, Burton can, and eventually the two become lovers and the ancient explorer comes to view "Patient Zero" as "the heroic slut who inspired safe sex." Musical numbers include a high-camp underwater ballet production of Tell Me The Story of My Life. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This lively and off-beat Canadian comedy tells the tale of a regular Joe whose life is turned topsy turvy when he teams up with a strange restaurateur who convinces the fellow to invest in his latest project: an Italian restaurant with operatic waiters. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Tom Cruise juggles Martini shakers and ice cubes as the materialistic Brian Flanagan, a bartender who drops out of school to search for the perfect "rich chick" who will bankroll him into luxury. Brian meets up with bar veteran Doug Couglin (Bryan Brown) and they put together a dance-duo bar-tending act, taking five minutes to a mix a drink as they dance and toss gin bottles behind the bar to cutting-edge rock music circa 1988. The patrons, instead of demanding the booze, are dazzled by their antics and cheer them on. As a result, the bartenders become wildly popular -- in particular, Brian, who finds the bar babes falling all over each other to hop into the sack with him. As a result of their bar-tending success, they get hired to tend bar at a swanky disco, but there Brian and Doug have a falling out, and Brian takes off for Jamaica. There he meets vacationing New York City waitress Jordan Mooney (Elisabeth Shue) and the two fall in love. But then Brian meets rich New York fashion executive Bonnie (Lisa Banes) who wants to take Brian back to Manhattan with her to become her drink-mixing stud. When Jordan sees this, the love affair is put on hold. But not for long, as pangs of consciousness begin to filter through Brian's drunken haze. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi