David Oyelowo Movies
- 2008
A married couple locked in separate realities is faced with the most difficult decision of their lives after learning that their son, who loses his ability to hear at age four, could potentially regain his hearing with the help of cochlear implants. Dan Miller (Jeff Daniels) and his wife Laura (Marlee Matlin) may be husband and wife, but they're also best friends. Laura is deaf, while Dan has always been able to hear. When their four year old son Adam (Noah Valencia) suddenly loses his hearing, Dan and Laura find themselves hopelessly at odds over how to handle the situation. Laura has dealt with deafness her entire life, and believes that her son's handicap is only a minor obstacle. Dan, on the other hand, is determined to give his son a shot at living a more normal life, and becomes staunchly convinced that modern technology can make that possible. But the more research Dan conducts into cochlear implants, the clearer Laura makes it that she is completely opposed to the idea of surgery for their son. As the conflict between the couple comes to an impassioned head, Laura and Dan struggle to put aside their differences decide which option would be best for Adam's future. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeff Daniels, Marlee Matlin, (more)
Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, Sanaa Lathan, and John Stamos all return to reprise the roles they originally played on Broadway in this made for television take on Lorraine Hansbury's timeless play about a 1950s-era Chicago family longing for a better life. Walter Lee has died, and now his widow Lena Younger (Rashad) is about to receive a $10,000 check from her late-husband's insurance company. Everyone in the family dreams about the ways their lives will be changed with the arrival of the money, family matriarch Lena - who longs to retire from her job as a domestic servant for a wealthy white family - in particular. Having lived in a one room tenement apartment ever since she and her late husband originally married, Lena is eager to purchase a house of her own and provide her family with a real home. Lena's son Walter Lee, Jr. (Combs), currently employed as a chauffer, and has recently become taken with the idea of purchasing a liquor store as a means of solving his family's financial woes. Like her mother-in-law, Walter's wife Ruth (McDonald) is also a domestic servant for a white family, and dreams of the day she can walk away from her job. While Walter's sister Beneatha (Lathan) strives to become a medical professional, tuition is expensive and she is currently being pursued by two men - wealthy but superficial George Murchison (Sean Patrick Thomas) and intellectual classmate Joseph Asagai (David Oyelowo). Much to everyone's surprise, Lena uses the lion's share of the money to purchase a home in the all-white residential neighborhood of Cllaybourne, splitting the remainder between Walter (for his entrepreneurial endeavor) and Beneatha (for tuition). Around the same time Walter loses his share of the inheritance to a smooth talking con man who claimed he could help finance the liquor store, the Claybourne "home improvement" association makes the discovery that the Youngers are black and sends emissary Mr. Lindner (John Stamos) to try prevent their neighborhood from becoming integrated by buying the house back. Now faced with the prospect of losing it all, Walter considers making a deal with Mr. Lindner in order to recover his losses. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sean Combs, Audra McDonald, (more)
- 2008
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Anthony Minghella teams with Oscar-nominated screenwriter Richard Curtis to adapt author Alexander McCall Smith's best-selling series of novels in this film concerning Botswana's only female-owned detective agency. The first feature film shot entirely in the south-central African country of Botswana, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency follows seasoned sleuth Precious Ramotswe (Jill Scott) as she investigates cases, assists the locals in solving various personal problems, and falls for the prominent owner of a successful garage. Anika Noni Rose co-stars as Ramotswe's quirky assistant, Mma Makutsi, in a feature intended to spark a full series. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jill Scott, Anika Noni Rose, (more)
Set over the course of five 24-hour periods, the television miniseries Five Days follows the case of a young mother (Christine Tremarco) who vanishes under mysterious circumstances while driving her children to visit their grandfather (Edward Woodward). When the children set out in search of their missing mother, they too seem to disappear without a trace. As a high-profile police investigation begins to make headlines across the country, it appears that everyone involved with the case, including the woman's grieving husband (David Oyelowo), has something to hide. Soon it begins to appear that even Detective Barclay (Hugh Bonneville) and Sergeant Foster (Janet McTeer), the two authority figures in charge of the investigation, are operating on some secret agenda. As the missing mother's parents (Penelope Wilton and Patrick Malahide) step up the pressure to solve the case before too much time passes, a stranger named Sarah (Sarah Smart) gradually works her way into the investigation while gradually ingraining herself with the frustrated family. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hugh Bonneville, Janet McTeer, (more)
Director Kenneth Branagh tackles the works of William Shakespeare for the fifth time in his career as a filmmaker with this adaptation of one of The Bard's most accessible works. Rosalind is the daughter of a banished duke, and lives among a community of Westerners living in 19th century Japan. When her father, the duke, is suddenly banished, the frightened girl is forced to flee for the Forest of Arden lest she risk being executed by her malevolent uncle. Joining Rosalind on her flight to the forest is her sympathetic cousin Celia, who helps to pass her incognito kin off as a man in order to avoid detection. Later, Rosalind's clever ruse begins to serve a dual purpose when she determines to use the disguise to gauge the devotion of Orlando, yet another exile, while making her way to the Forest of Arden. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brian Blessed, Bryce Dallas Howard, (more)
- 2006
One man's attempt to help the less fortunate drives him to the edge of madness in this satiric comedy drama from director Ngozi Onwurah. Joe Pascale (David Oyelowo) is an intelligent and idealistic black man living in London who has a high-paying job with a bright future ahead of him. Joe, however, believes he has a responsibility to people less fortunate than himself, and he quits his job to take a position as a teacher in a rough-and-tumble neighborhood dominated by poor blacks. Naïvely assuming his new students will welcome him with open arms, Joe quickly discovers most of his charges have little interest in learning and don't much care for him, thinking of him as a slumming yuppie whose demeanor is more "white" than "black." Joe gets tough with his students through techniques he calls "enforced education," with detention and harsh punishments doled out to kids who refuse to obey. But one of Joe's students, Germal (Charles Mnene), decides to turn the tables by accusing Joe of beating him up. Joe is outraged when most in the community supports Germal rather than himself, and he's fired by the school once the story becomes a cause célèbre in the media. Joe starts losing touch with reality and blames all of his problems on blacks, who he feels have turned their back on him and his talents. After ending up homeless, Joe begins facing his problems by seeing a counselor named Heather (Nikki Amuka Bird), but falling in love with her leads to a new set of emotional dilemmas for him. Shoot the Messenger was screened in competition at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Oyelowo, Nikki Amuka-Bird, (more)
Director Kevin MacDonald teams with screenwriter Jeremy Brock to adapt Giles Foden's novel detailing the brutal reign of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin as seen through the eyes of his personal physician. James McAvoy stars as the doctor who slowly realizes that he is trapped in an inescapable nightmare, and Forest Whitaker assumes the role of the notorious despot. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, (more)
- 2006
Dominic Savage is a filmmaker known for exploring the subject of social inequity in contemporary England. In this film focusing on the country's homelessness problem Savage follows the lives of several characters who are struggling to survive in a shelter for those with no place to live and no one to turn to. Michelle is a single mother who is pregnant and desperate to escape her husband Robert - a violent ex-convict who was only recently released from prison. Yemi is a journalist who, along with his terrified wife, was recently forced to flee from Nigeria in fear of his life. Meanwhile, wealthy, forty year-old father-to-be Mark (Colin Firth) feels profound guilt over his good fortune in life, and selflessly determines to give back to the community by becoming a street worker. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Colin Firth, Robert Carlyle, (more)
A seemingly insignificant act may cause the fabric of history to unravel in this sci-fi adventure. Charles Hatton (Ben Kingsley) owns and operates a successful firm known as Time Safari. Thanks to time travel technology developed by Hatton's employee Sonia Rand (Catherine McCormack), Time Safari allows big game hunters to journey back to prehistoric days and shoot living, breathing dinosaurs. Rand picks out the dinosaur in question, who is soon to die, and creates a floating walkway for the hunters, so the impact of their presence will not be felt by the land around them. But on one expedition, things go horribly wrong when a nervous hunter steps off the walkway and crushes a butterfly, a tiny act that proves to have massive consequences over the course of several million years. As the earth's climate and animal life begin to mutate due to this shift in natural history, Time Safari's leading hunting guide, Travis Ryer (Edward Burns), works beside Rand in a desperate attempt to halt the "ripples of time" before modern civilization completely collapses. A Sound of Thunder was based on a classic short story by pioneering science fiction author Ray Bradbury. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edward Burns, Catherine McCormack, (more)
- 2002
Premiering May 13, 2002, on BBC1, the British espionage-adventure series Spooks pitted undercover agents of the country's MI-5 squad (the U.K. equivalent of the NSA) against international troublemakers and terrorists. Though extremely violent and almost unbearably tense, the series scored its biggest points by dramatizing the pressures brought to bear against "average" people engaged in a top-secret profession: For example, one of the many plot threads involved the love life of Senior Case Officer Tom Quinn (Matthew MacFadyen), whose girlfriend was convinced that Tom was merely a lower-level computer tech. Other members of the "Spooks" team included Quinn's second-in-command, Zoe Reynolds (Keeley Hawes), technical genius Danny Hunter (David Oyelowo), reckless Tessa Phillips (Jenny Agutter), and department head Harry Pierce (Peter Firth). During the series' first season on the air, Spooks made headlines throughout the British Isles by virtue of its explosive second episode, in which a popular soap opera actor, misleadingly advertised as one of the series' "stars," was abruptly and nastily killed off; thereafter, audiences could never take anything that happened on the series for granted -- and the viewership soared. Spooks debuted over the American A&E cable network under the title MI-5 on July 22, 2003. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matthew MacFadyen, Keeley Hawes, (more)
- 2002
The feature-length debut of Francesca Joseph, Tomorrow La Scala!, is about an unusual production of a musical. Victoria (Jessical Stevenson) is the head of a small opera company that goes to maximun-security Seaworth Prison to mount a staging of Sweeney Todd. Gurad Kevin (Shaun Dingwell) warns the troupe of the restrictive behavior expected from them. Janey (Samantha Spiro) is in charge of costumes and she resists the tamping down of her natural flamboyance. The inmates and the theater group learn from each other during the rehearsals. Tomorrow La Scala! was screened in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jessica Stevenson, Samantha Spiro, (more)
