Adam Coleman Howard Movies

Adam Coleman Howard wrote, directed, and stars in this gallows-comedy misfire as Ari Rose, an unsuccessful would-be actor whose treatment by Hollywood has driven him quite mad. He falls for a beautiful woman named Helen-Catherine (Anne Parillaud from La Femme Nikita and Innocent Blood) but strangles her when she rejects him. Quite demented, Ari takes the dead woman home, makes love to her corpse, and comes to the belief that she is still alive and very much in love with him. Soon, he's taking her around in public without anyone seeming to notice her condition. Indeed, in what was probably intended as the film's satiric highlight, Ari takes Helen-Catherine's body to an audition where her supposed intensity lands her the role. If any of this sounds remotely amusing, it isn't, and at 108 minutes takes an unfunny situation to nearly epic depths of tasteless boredom. What is more astonishing than the fact that this pedantic, necrophilic take on Weekend at Bernie's was made at all is the quality of the supporting cast. Amanda Plummer (who was in the equally perverse Hysteria the same year), Emily Lloyd, Val Kilmer, Famke Janssen, and Seymour Cassel are among the actors far too talented for this dreck, and it isn't so much the subject matter which is at fault. Certainly Very Bad Things and Dead-Alive, among other films, have proven that tasteless material can be funny, and even -- as in the wonderfully morbid The Loved One -- satirical. The real problem here is that Adam Coleman Howard is equally inept in all three of his capacities on this film. His script is poor (satirizing Hollywood even less incisively than the wretched Burn, Hollywood, Burn), his direction is hamfisted and self-indulgent, and his onscreen persona is completely devoid of charisma or interest. It is usually the case that when tasteless subject matter is handled poorly, it seems even more offensive than it really is. In this case, however, it is handled so poorly as to merely provoke yawns. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

French actress Sophie Marceau made her American film debut in this story in which she plays Bernadette, a woman from Paris who comes to the U.S. after being promised a job. However, upon her arrival, Bernadette learns that she's fallen victim to a hoax; stuck in America, she looks for work while staying with her close friend Shirley (Anne Curry), who is looking for her break as an actress. Their friendship faces a considerable challenge when Bernadette finds herself falling for Shirley's boyfriend. Pacific Pallisades also features Toni Basil, the actress, dancer, and choreographer best known for the hit song "Mickey". ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This actioner is set in a remote, heavily forested area in Northern California where marijuana growers raise their illegal crops and run whole communities with their terrorist tactics and wealth. The tale centers on the efforts of a fearless New York cop to free one such community from the tyranny of the pot growers. It begins with a surveyor who is leading the town's crooked sheriff to a small marijuana field he has just discovered. The surveyor is killed before he can get there. Joshua, a small boy, sees the execution and tries to get back in time to tell his parents. Unfortunately, the killers murder his family and throw him off a cliff. The boy's aunt, worried at not hearing from her family, gets suspicious and asks an old flame, NY cop Joe Dillon, to investigate. The town sheriff is not pleased by his intrusion and warns him to stay out of it. Dillon disobeys, and that is where all the action comes in. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi