Frankie J. Holden Movies
An already-unstable household becomes a virtual battle zone when the son of a risqué comedienne and a has-been singer finds mom meddling in his love life in director Cherie Nowlan's dysfunctional romantic comedy. Twenty-one-year-old Tim Dwight (Khan Chittenden) comes from a peculiar family; his mother, Jean (Brenda Blethyn), is a bawdy stage comic renowned for her scatological sense of humor and his father, John (Frankie J. Holden), is a faded country-music star who now works as a low-rent security guard. While dad is busy trying to revive his flat-lined career, mom spends most of her time doting on Tim and his developmentally disabled brother, Mark (Richard Wilson). Upon meeting the beautiful Jill (Emma Booth), Tim believes his may have finally found the woman of his dreams. Unfortunately in Jean's eyes there is only room for one woman in Tim's life, and that woman is his mother. As Tim's relationship with Jill grows increasingly serious, the stage is set for a battle royal between the woman who once gave him life and the prospective mother of his future children. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brenda Blethyn, Khan Chittenden, (more)
Set in New York and New England (but filmed in Newfoundland), Behind the Red Door stars Kyra Sedgwick as Manhattan-based photographer Natalie Haddad, who enjoys success with her strangely gloomy and foreboding camerawork. When her agent and best friend Julia (Stockard Channing) arranges for her to accept a lucrative contract with a Boston ad agency, Natalie discovers that she will be working for her own gay brother Roy (Kiefer Sutherland), whom she hasn't seen in a decade. Although Roy is insufferably snobbish and manipulative, he manages to exert a curious control over Natalie, forcing her to confront several disturbing, long-suppressed memories of her past (shown in black-and-white flashbacks). Before the film is over, Natalie is made to realize why Roy's behavior is so overbearing -- and also, the viewer learns just how intimately Julia is involved in the lives of both siblings. Underwritten by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation as part of an ongoing program to heighten HIV/AIDS awareness, Behind the Red Door made its Showtime cable-network bow on January 12, 2003. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kyra Sedgwick, Kiefer Sutherland, (more)
- 1993
Blood, sweat, and betrayal in the South East Asian jungles is what drives this action thriller about sleazy Canadian diplomat Carl Pimmler (Michael Ironside), who sends Peter Kernan (Matt Salinger) and his wife Johanna (Sam Jenkins) into deepest, darkest Cambodia to deliver "medicine." When the two realize the true nature of the items they are toting, they struggle to flee for their lives. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- 1992
This leisurely drama explores the developing friendship between Charlie, a designer-builder in Melbourne and one of his workmen, a single father. The designer has a good relationship with his girlfriend Julie, who has a career of her own as a television news reporter. She has received a job offer which would advance her career but must move to Canberra if she accepts. The builder is not entranced with the idea of moving but knows that good relationships don't grow on trees. Meanwhile, Russell is an ex-con single parent, whose ever-widening search for employment has landed him as a laborer on the project Charlie's putting together. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matthew Fargher
This drama concerns a small period in the life of its central figure, Alan Marshall (Alexander Outhred), a young man living in rural Australia in 1910, who was crippled by polio years before. Because he hasn't the strength or coordination to perform most chores and enter fully into the life of his family and friends, much that he experiences comes to him vicariously. In the story, he witnesses many dramatic events happening to others. Several of them concern the romantic trials and tribulations of the women and men he knows. However, the story which concerns him the most is somewhat sad: despite the best efforts of his father, Alan is unable to ride a horse. The screenplay of the movie is based on a collection of Marshall's autobiographical stories. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charlotte Rampling, Russell Crowe, (more)
Jocelyn Moorhouse's feature-film debut is a jet-black comedy starring Hugo Weaving as Martin, a paranoid blind man, made so because he is convinced that his mother, when he was a child, lied to him about the sights she described to him. As an adult, Martin is reclusive and ill-tempered. Perversely, Martin is also a photographer -- he takes the pictures, has them developed, asks friends to describe the pictures to him, and then labels them in Braille to make sure no one is tricking him. His housekeeper, Celia (Genevieve Picot), is also a photographer. Obsessed with Martin, she papers the walls of her home with pictures of him. But this obsession doesn't carry through to their relationship, which is a far from cordial one -- Celia torments Martin and Martin humiliates her. One day at a restaurant, after a nasty confrontation with a waitress who ignores him, Martin makes friends with the dishwasher, Andy (Russell Crowe). Martin invites him home to describe his photographs to him. Back at Martin's home, Andy meets Celia and he immediately falls in love with her. Jealous of Andy, Celia seduces him in an effort to discredit Andy with Martin and drive Martin into her arms. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hugo Weaving, Genevieve Picot, (more)
- 1990
Australian cinematographer Ray Argall made his directorial debut with this low-key drama about a man coming back to his hometown and trying to make a new start. Dennis Coard is Noel, a successful insurance broker from the city who decides, after a brutal divorce, to forsake city life and return to his boyhood home. Moving back to the seaside town of Adelaide, he re-experiences the old gas station that his father once owned. Now his older brother Steve (Franklin J. Holden) is running things in partnership with his wife Judy (Micki Camilleri). Noel also meets Steve's prize mechanic Gary (Ben Mendelsohn), an awkward teenager who has just had a nasty separation from his girlfriend Wendy (Rachel Rains). As Noel observes the hometown folk and their daily troubles, he realizes what he has been missing in the mad, big-city rush. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frankie J. Holden, Ben Mendelsohn, (more)
- 1990
The husband and wife team of Nadia Tass and David Parker concocted this charming teen comedy concerning a disappointing birthday present. Ben Mendelsohn plays Danny Clark, a shy 18-year old who only wants two things out of life: to go out with Joanna (Claudia Karvan) and to own a sleek new Jaguar. When Danny's father Desmond (Marshall Napier) comes through with a birthday gift for Danny, it's a car but it's not what Danny had hoped for --it is the family's old 1963 Nissan Cedric. Disappointed, Danny decides to trade the car in for a 1973 Jaguar before he goes out on his first date. Danny makes a deal with sleazy car dealer Gordon Farkes (Steve Bisley) for the 1973 Jaguar -- but Farkes switches engines on poor Danny. While Farkes is having a good time at a sex club, Danny decides to retaliate by gathering together a few of his friends to help him steal the engine from Farkes' Jaguar. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ben Mendelsohn, Claudia Karvan, (more)
A barely recognizable Meryl Streep plays the real-life Lindy Chamberlain, who for a long period in the early 1980s was the most hated woman in Australia. While visiting the Ayers rock monument in the Outback with her husband Michael (Sam Neill), Lindy notices a dingo creeping into the tent where her baby lies sleeping. Seconds later, the horrified woman discovers that her child is gone. Despite Lindy's anguished insistence that the dingo killed her baby, the Australian public is of the opinion that Lindy herself is the murderer. This lynch-mob atmosphere is fueled by the press, which insists upon crucifying the Chamberlains in print on a daily basis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lewis Fitz-Gerald, Meryl Streep, (more)
- 1987
- PG13
Gillian Armstrong directed this powerful and moving film containing a brilliant performance by Judy Davis. The story takes place in the small New South Wales seaside village of Eden. Davis is Lillie, who is renting a run-down trailer as she waits for her car to be repaired. One night, when Lillie is drunk and cannot walk from the toilet block back to her trailer, a teenage girl, Ally (Claudia Karvan) -- who lives with her free-spirited grandmother Bet (Jan Adele) in another trailer in the trailer park -- helps her back home. Lillie and Ally become good friends, and it is only when Lillie finally meets Bet that she realizes that Ally is, in fact, her own daughter, who she abandoned years earlier after the death of her husband. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Judy Davis, Jan Adele, (more)
- 1985
Nick Mancuso stars in the made-for-TV Embassy. Cast as an American ambassador stationed in Rome, Mancuso's life is thrown into turmoil by a crucial computer chip. When not trying to keep U.S. defense secrets from falling into the wrong hands, he must juggle the affections of his press-attache-girlfriend, (Mimi Rogers), and his girlfriend's chief rival (Blanche Baker). Embassy was intended as the 2-hour pilot for a weekly series; it didn't sell, but Nick Mancuso's next venture in the TV-pilot field, Stingray, proved successful. Embassy was initially telecast on April 21, 1985. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1980
- R
The Chain Reaction is an Australian-made drama about a nuclear accident and its effect on the workers of the plant. Oates (Patrick Ward) knows of the accident and the eventual effects it will have on the workers and the surrounding community, and he tries to tell them but the owners of the reactor try to have him eliminated before he can do so. The cast includes Mel Gibson in an uncredited role as a mechanic. Also released as Nuclear Run, this thriller, with an intelligent script by Ian Barry, is worth a view. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- 1979
In this slight, relatively charmless comedy, Australian television notable Jack Thompson plays Simon Morris, a recently separated journalist with two major problems: he is a girl-magnet and he can't tolerate pomposity. The first problem doesn't cause him much difficulty, as he likes the girls right back. The second, though, results in all sorts of difficulties when he is saddled with a pompous new boss, resigns from the paper he has been working with, and can't find a new job. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1979
- R
Based on a true story, this drama stars Michelle Fawdon as Cathy Baikas, a woman of Greek heritage who lives in Sydney, Australia with her three-year-old daughter. When the girl's father kidnaps the child and takes her back to Greece with him, Cathy discovers the authorities can do little to help her, so she turns to the media, hoping that taking her story to the people will help bring her daughter back to her. The outwardly-crusty editor of a major daily newspaper proves sympathetic to Cathy's problem and begins giving her case press coverage. Fawdon won an Australian Film Institute award for Best Actress. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michelle Fawdon, Alan Cassell, (more)
- 1979
In The Odd Angry Shot director Tom Jeffrey provides a cathartic Australian answer to Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter. Australia's participation in the Vietnam War was as much of an alienating and soul-searching experience for Australians as for Americans, and Jeffrey's frank portrayal of a group of Australian volunteers casts the war in a different light from the perspective of a Cimino or Oliver Stone. The story concerns a corp of Australian elite soldiers -- the Special Air Service troops (the equivalent of the United States' Special Forces group) -- and the elite group's more pragmatic and hopeful attitudes -- whiling away the time in mindless diversions and cracking jokes. Then one of their own is killed and their feelings about the war suddenly change. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Graham Kennedy, John Hargreaves, (more)
