Ian Barford Movies
Thirteen-year-old Jenna (Shana Dowdeswell) has had enough with the trials of adolescence. In addition to being saddled with a devoted-but-nerdy best friend, Matt (Sean Marquette), she falls victim to one of the dangers of playing Seven Minutes in Heaven with the coolest kids in school: being stranded without a willing make-out partner. Humiliated, Jenna buries herself in the aformentioned make-out closet, wishing she could skip the whole adolescence bit and move straight into adulthood, and miraculously wakes just weeks away from her 30th birthday. Of course, a lot has changed since going to bed the night before, not the least of which being an impressive set of womanly curves. The new, older Jenna (Jennifer Garner) is a successful magazine editor with friends in high places and a lion's share of potential suitors -- including a hockey-playing boyfriend and a swarthy married man. The problem is that her mind hasn't matured with her body; Jenna not only finds living on her own more terrifying than cool, but is quick to dismiss any male over the age of 14 as "gross." Half excited, half mortified, Jenna seeks out Matt (Mark Ruffalo), whom she learns she had spurned as a teenager in an effort to join the popular crowd. Gary Winick directed, from a script by Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa; Gina Matthews produced. Choreographer Michael Peters - who died in 1994 - received posthumous credit, as his choreography from the Michael Jackson Thriller video is used in one scene. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, (more)
The acclaimed graphic novel from crime writer Max Allan Collins becomes this big budget Dreamworks drama from director Sam Mendes and screenwriter David Self. Tom Hanks stars as Michael Sullivan, a morally conflicted Depression-era hit man committing murder in the name of his employer, John Rooney (Paul Newman). A kindly, aging Irish crime boss who raised Sullivan as his surrogate son, Rooney is affiliated with Al Capone in Chicago and thus wields great power in the "Tri-Cities" of Moline, IL; Rock Island, IL; and Davenport, IA. Curious about his father's mysterious profession, Sullivan's son, Michael Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin), stows away in his father's automobile one night and witnesses the execution of a man at the hands of Sullivan and Rooney's biological son, Connor (Daniel Craig). Although Michael keeps his promise to remain silent about what he's seen, the paranoid and unstable Connor tries to wipe out the entire Sullivan clan anyway, succeeding only in killing Sullivan's wife, Annie (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and youngest son, Peter (Liam Aiken). Enraged at this and another surprise betrayal by the Rooneys, Sullivan embarks on a path of bloody retribution, Michael in tow. Although he intends to leave his boy with relatives in the rural town of Perdition once the coast is clear, he ends up exposing Michael to the goriest aspects of his talents, slaughtering former associates as he dodges contract assassin Maguire (Jude Law) and cripples the cash flow of the Rooney and Capone organizations through a series of bank robberies, attempting to force either mob family to offer up the sequestered Connor as a sacrifice. Inspired by the popular Japanese comic book series Lone Wolf and Cub and based loosely on an episode from the life and career of notorious real-life crime figures John and Connor Looney, Road to Perdition co-stars Stanley Tucci as legendary Chicago mobster Frank Nitti. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, (more)
