Holly Hunter

Filmmaker Rodrigo García takes an unusual look into the lives of nine different women in this episodic drama. Each of the film's nine sequences has been staged as a single shot, using the Steadicam system to allow the camera to follow the action fluidly and without cuts. In these short episodes (lasting between ten and 14 minutes), Holly (Lisa Gay Hamilton) has a brief moment of reverie while confronting the specters of her past in her old neighborhood. Maggie (Glenn Close) escorts her young daughter Maria (Dakota Fanning) to a cemetery as they visit the graves of their family members. Ruth (Sissy Spacek) is a married woman contemplating an affair while visiting Henry (Aidan Quinn) in his hotel room. Diana (Robin Wright Penn) unexpectedly runs into an old boyfriend, Damian (Jason Isaacs), while shopping for groceries. Camilla (Kathy Baker) is a hospital patient awaiting surgery for cancer. Samantha (Amanda Seyfried) is a teenage girl who helps look after her handicapped father Larry (Ian McShane). Sandra (Elpidia Carrillo) is a female prison inmate who is expecting a visit from her children. Sonia (Holly Hunter) lashes out at her boyfriend Martin (Stephen Dillane) when she finds out he's been cheating on her. And Lorna (Amy Brenneman) has an unexpectedly moving encounter with her ex-husband Andrew (William Fichtner) as she pays her respects to his second wife, who has just passed away. Nine Lives premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Directed by Nick Hurran, Little Black Book follows Stacy (Brittany Murphy), an associate producer of a popular daytime talk show starring Kippie Kann (Kathy Bates), as she tries to figure out the root of her boyfriend's (Ron Livingston) commitment-phobic nature. Rather than continue to fruitlessly question Derek (Livingston) regarding his slew of failed relationships, Stacy sneaks into his Palm Pilot and begins interviewing his ex-girlfriends under the pretense of gathering information for a future show. Though she justifies the deception with her need to find out whether or not Derek can be trusted for a long-term relationship, complications arise when Stacy becomes good friends with one of Derek's former flames. Holly Hunter makes an appearance as Stacy's boss (the show's senior associate producer), while Josie Maran, Julianne Nicholson, Rashida Jones, Sharon Lawrence, and Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale are featured in supporting roles. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Frequent television director Brad Silberling directs the romantic drama Moonlight Mile. Set in a Massachusetts town in the early '70s, Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhaal) is distraught after the death of his fiancée. He moves in with her parents, Ben (Dustin Hoffman) and JoJo (Susan Sarandon), while trying to sort out all of the legal troubles and painful details of the wedding cancellations. While trying to locate the wedding invitations in the mail, Joe meets Bertie (Ellen Pompeo), whose boyfriend has been MIA in Vietnam. Despite his growing relationship with his late fiancée's parents, Joe begins to foster a romance with Bertie. Also starring Dabney Coleman and Holly Hunter. Moonlight Mile is based on Brad Silberling's real-life situation following the murder of his TV-star girlfriend Rebecca Schaeffer. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

This is the final part of a three-video, six-hour program that originally aired February 19-21, 2001, as a presentation of the acclaimed PBS series The American Experience. The program focuses on the marriage of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln, and is one of the first documentaries to do so. In the third part, a series of tragedies overwhelms Mary. Lincoln's urgent need to manage the war hurts the marriage, leaving Mary feeling isolated, especially in light of the death of their son Willie. Often accused of being a Confederate sympathizer, Mary ultimately loses three brothers in battle against the Union. After the president is assassinated, she's devastated. Six years later, after her son Tad dies young of tuberculosis, she loses her sanity and spends the last 17 years of her life institutionalized. Narrated by David McCullough, the program also features interviews with scholars and readings by actors David Morse and Holly Hunter. Highlights include period photographs. ~ Steve Blackburn, All Movie Guide

This is the first part of a three-video, six-hour program that originally aired February 19-21, 2001, as part of the acclaimed PBS series The American Experience. The program focuses on the marriage of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln, and is one of the first documentaries to do so. This documentary postulates that Mary was indeed a key to Lincoln's success. The first part deals with Abraham's and Mary's early years and with their vastly different backgrounds. Lincoln was born to poverty and had less than a year of formal schooling, while Mary Todd grew up in luxury and got more schooling than most girls in that time. Narrated by David McCullough, the program also features interviews with scholars and readings by actors David Morse and Holly Hunter. Highlights include period photographs. ~ Steve Blackburn, All Movie Guide

For those who enjoy discovering or learning more about directors with unique or even bizarre filmmaking interests, David Cronenberg is a true find. His movie Crash tells the story of a group of people who think sex is best when it involves violent car accidents, his remake of The Fly is an eerie masterpiece combining the disturbing with the comedic, and his film Scanners is a witty satire about the relative madness of society at large. This video, produced by the American Film Institute, includes an interview with Michael Ironside, an actor who appears in at least one of Cronenberg's films. Ironside provides some interesting insights into the "real" David Cronenberg.
~ Elizabeth Smith, All Movie Guide

Although Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her does bear some similarities to Short Cuts and Magnolia in its setting (Southern California) and mood (modern malaise), and its multiple story format, its focus is exclusively on female characters, and it's possible to view each story on its own. The film begins with a prologue: Police detectives are investigating the apparent suicide of a Hispanic woman (Elpidia Carillo). "This Is Dr. Keener" deals with Dr. Elaine Keener (Glenn Close), a single professional woman attempting to care for her aging and infirm mother and deal with her own loneliness. She invites Christine (Calista Flockhart), a tarot card reader, into her home to make some sense of her life. "Fantasies About Rebecca" profiles a successful bank manager (Holly Hunter) involved with a married man (Gregory Hines). When she learns that she is pregnant, he coldly advises her to take care of the "problem." Before she visits Dr. Keener to have an abortion, she impulsively has a fling with a colleague (Matt Craven). She is also confronted by a female street person in the bank's parking lot. "Someone for Rose" is about a single mother (Kathy Baker), a writer of children's books. She is attracted to a new neighbor, a dwarf (Danny Woodburn), and he catches her spying on him in his house. She's also amazed to find that her son is more sexually active than she knew -- and more than she is herself. "Good Night Lilly, Good Night Christine" details the relationship between the tarot card reader Christine and her lover, Lilly (Valeria Golino), who is critically ill with an unnamed disease. The final story, "Love Waits for Kathy," concerns two sisters, Carol (Cameron Diaz), a lovely blind woman with an active social life, and her police detective sibling, Kathy (Amy Brenneman), one of the detectives who appeared in the prologue. Kathy is attracted to the medical examiner in the suicide case, and her story ends with him taking her out on a date. In an epilogue, Dr. Keener drops in to a bar, where she meets a male character from one of the earlier stories. Debuting director Rodrigo Garcia, a noted cinematographer, is the son of writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Things You Can Tell made its debut on cable television, although it was originally intended to be a theatrical release. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide

The writing, directing, and producing team of Joel Coen and Ethan Coen created this picaresque comedy (inspired in part by Homer's The Odyssey) set in the Deep South during the Depression. Suave and fancy-talking Everett Ulysses McGill (George Clooney), dim-witted Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson), and easily-excitable Pete (John Turturro) are serving time together on a prison chain gang. Everett knows where $1.2 million is hidden that's theirs for the taking, and the three manage to escape; however, a stranger soon warns them that they'll find treasure, but not the sort they're looking for. As Everett and his partners hit the road, they happen upon a gluttonous bible salesman, Big Dan Teague (John Goodman); meet up with Baby Face Nelson (Michael Badalucco) as he robs a bank; encounter three Sirens doing their washing; run into Everett's estranged wife Penny (Holly Hunter), who has told everyone her husband was killed in a train wreck; find themselves in the middle of a heated campaign between political boss Pappy O'Daniel (Charles Durning), and reformist candidate Homer Stokes (Wayne Duvall); and even find time to make a hit record as The Soggy Bottom Boys. Noted songwriter T-Bone Burnett helped compile the songs (combining vintage country blues tunes with originals in the same style), while Carter Burwell composed the background score. Incidentally, the title O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a reference to the classic Preston Sturges comedy Sullivan's Travels, in which a director plans to make a serious "message picture" with that name. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

An orange day. A black day. A blue day. These are some of the colors the hero of this Dr. Seuss poetry program goes through, as the young boy and his dog experience the changing colors of moods. The Minnesota Orchestra provides the music that goes with these moods. Set to state-of-the-art animation, the orchestral arrangements perfectly reflect the changing colors and shapes that represent the changes people go through as they face the ups and downs of life. Narrated by Holly Hunter, the educational program is aimed at sensitizing children to their emotional lives and how music and color can affect them. ~ Rose of Sharon Winter, All Movie Guide