Pablo Schreiber Movies
Woody Allen's romantic drama Vicky Cristina Barcelona stars Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson as best friends Vicky and Cristina. As the movie opens, the pair of twentysomethings travel to Barcelona so that Vicky can work on her post-graduate degree. The two meet the charming artist Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), who offers to take them on a vacation and make love to them. Vicky, being a happily engaged young woman, refuses, but Cristina is eager for this life experience. A love triangle begins to coalesce, and things grow more complicated when Juan Antonio's passionate, unstable ex, Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz), arrives to stay after a suicide attempt. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Scarlett Johansson, Penélope Cruz, (more)
A man who can't walk meets a woman who envies his condition in this offbeat black comedy. Isaac Knott (Nick Stahl) lost the use of his legs when he was eight years old in an auto accident that also claimed the lives of his parents. Despite being confined to a wheelchair, Isaac has enjoyed a successful career as the host of a talk show on a New York City public radio outlet. One day, Isaac is told an odd story about a man who arrived at a local hospital and demanded to have his legs amputated; the man was part of a secret subculture of able-bodied folks who wish to be paraplegics, using wheelchairs when they can and attempting to deaden their legs through artificial means. Isaac becomes fascinated with the idea of these wannabes, and begins studying the phenomenon for a piece on his show. Isaac's research leads him to Fiona (Vera Farmiga), a sexy but mysterious blonde who collects and restores Chinese art. Fiona is also the owner of a wheelchair she doesn't really need, and Isaac, who is increasingly attracted to her, wants to know all about her role in the fake-paraplegic underground. However, Fiona isn't about to give away any of her secrets for free, and Isaac discovers that the exchange of information and trust goes deeper the longer they know one another. The first feature film from writer and director Carlos Brooks, Quid Pro Quo received its premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nick Stahl, Vera Farmiga, (more)
Adapted from author Nicholas Sparks' popular romance novel, director George C. Wolfe's Nights in Rodanthe tells the tale of a doctor (Richard Gere) en route to reconcile with his estranged son when his benevolent mission is sidelined upon checking into a North Carolina beach-town inn. When the doctor arrives at the inn, he enters into a passionate affair with an unhappily married woman (Diane Lane) who is currently considering divorce. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Gere, Diane Lane, (more)
David Simon's masterful social commentary went back to school, quite literally, in the fourth season, which focuses on Baltimore's crumbling education system. A relevant link to its first three seasons is supplied by Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski (Jim True-Frost), who left the police department to become a teacher at Edward Tilghman Middle School, a hardscrabble institution on life support that services a low-income, drug-infested neighborhood. (Incidentally, Prez's career path is similar to one of the series' producers, Ed Burns). His eighth-grade math class includes a close-knit quartet of friends -- Randy Wagstaff (Maestro Harrell), Michael Lee (Tristan Wilds), Duquan "Dukie" Weems (Jermaine Crawford) and Namond Brice (Julito McCullum). The wisecracking Brice is ignominiously selected to be part of a university experiment studying at-risk kids, which counts a former police commander, Bunny Colvin (Robert Wisdom), as a consultant. Out on the corners, Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector) strengthens his grip on the city's West Side narcotics trade once dominated by the Barksdale gang, and with his cold-blooded lieutenants, Chris (Gbenga Akinnagbe) and Snoop (Felicia Pearson), devises an ingenious method to hide the collateral damage of his ascent from the law. This sleight-of-hand bedevils detectives Freamon (Clarke Peters), Greggs (Sonja Sohn) and Bunk (Wendell Pierce). The trio are flummoxed by the lack of victims that would surely coincide with Marlo's ever-widening domain, a savage power grab that also threatens the relative peace of the New Day Co-Op under East Side pooh-bah Proposition Joe (Robert F. Chew). Meanwhile, the Democratic primary in the city's mayoral campaign pits the entrenched African-American incumbent, Clarence Royce (Glynn Turman), against Councilman Tommy Carcetti (Aidan Gillen), a scrappy politico with a savvy campaign manager in Norman Wilson (Reg E. Cathey), but a long shot to become Charm City's first white chief executive in years. ~ Joe Friedrich, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dominic West, Clarke Peters, (more)
The true story of the kids who created modern skateboard culture is recreated in this drama. In the early '70s, skateboards were seen as a fad of the 1960s that had all but died out, but in a rough-and-tumble Venice, CA, community known as "Dogtown," that was about to change. Tony Alva (Victor Rasuk), Stacy Peralta (John Robinson), and Jay Adams (Emile Hirsch) were three guys who liked to surf the rugged beaches around Venice and hung out at the Zephyr Surf Shop, a store run by Skip Engblom (Heath Ledger) that stocked gear for adventurous surfers and skateboarders. With the advent of new urethane wheels that connected with concrete in a way old metal and rubber wheels could not, Tony, Stacy, and Jay began exploring ways to translate radical surf style to skateboarding, and the guys invented a new way to skate inside the smooth, round surfaces of empty pools, employing vertical moves and edge flips that added a new and dramatic spin to skating. It didn't take long for word to spread about the wild new style of the Z-Boys, and they quickly became local celebrities, and later nationwide skating stars, though sudden fame took its toll on these young men. The true story of Lords of Dogtown was previously the basis of the acclaimed documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, directed by former Z-Boy Stacy Peralta, who like Tony Alva served as a consultant on this project. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emile Hirsch, Victor Rasuk, (more)
Writer-director Loren Marsh's black comedy Invitation to a Suicide - an official selection at the AFI Fest and HBO Comedy Festival - concerns the plight of Kaz Malek, a witless young man raised in a Polish enclave of Brooklyn. In a (very) misguided attempt to escape from his dead-end life as a baker's son, Kaz slyly lifts $10,000 from a Russian mobster, but is promptly caught. The mobster threatens to kill Kaz's father if he can't come up with the payola. To escape from this plight, Kaz devises a wild yet workable scheme: he'll publicly hang himself and sell tickets for the show, thus raising the money to pay off his creditor but dying in honor instead of living in shame over his father's death. To his utter shock, everyone - his father and the Mafioso included - wholeheartedly applauds the idea. But it remains unclear whether Kaz will follow through and off himself. Marsh pulled influence for the film from such classic films as Harold and Maude and King of Hearts. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
A man who has spent much of his life dealing with grief finally has more than he knows what to do with in this independent drama. Walter Hartwig Jr. (Sean Patrick Flanery) is a New York City cop who is haunted by the death of his sister, who drowned at Coney Island when he was a boy. Hartwig saw his sister die and has felt responsible ever since. Every year on her birthday, he has himself thrown into the ocean as penance, and works with the NYPD Harbor Unit in hope of someday paying back his act of childhood negligence. After a passenger jet crashes into the ocean near the city, Hartwig is sent out to help, and is mesmerized by the sight of Sabrina Hampton (Melina Kanakaredes), a musician who died in the accident. Sabrina reminds him of his sister, and he sets out to find her twin sister, who worked as a teacher but has been traumatized by her loss and now refuses to leave her apartment. As Hartwig begins losing touch with reality, he finds solace when he strikes up a friendship with June Sickles (JoBeth Williams). June lost her son, who was a police officer, on September 11, 2001, and since then has been raising his daughter, giving her plenty of experience in dealing with the harsh side of fate. Into the Fire was the first feature film from writer and director Michael Phelan. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sean Patrick Flanery, Melina Kanakaredes, (more)
Based on John Grisham's semi-autobiographical novel (which he regarded as his favorite because it "contains no lawyers"), A Painted House is set in the rural community of Oak Park, AR, in 1952. The story is told through the eyes of ten-year-old Luke Chandler (Logan Lerman), who lives and works on a rundown cotton farm with his parents (Robert Sean Leonard and Arija Bareikis) and grandparents (Scott Glenn and Melinda Dillon). It is Luke's personal mission to earn enough money picking cotton to be able to afford a new coat of paint for the Chandler house. But as harvest time approaches, a number of plot complications distance Luke from his goal, including failed crops, dangerous weather, periodic run-ins with a family of migrant workers, and -- this being a John Grisham story -- a murder to which Luke is the sole eyewitness. Filmed on location in the Arkansas town of Lepanto, A Painted House first aired April 27, 2003, as a CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Logan Lerman, Scott Glenn, (more)
Writer/director Michael Burke makes his feature-length debut with the coming-of-age drama The Mudge Boy. Known as a weird kid, Duncan Mudge (Emile Hirsch) is a naïve 14-year-old farm boy with an aging father, Edgar (Richard Jenkins), and very little social life. When Duncan's mother suddenly dies, he develops a strange fascination with her clothes, speaks in her voice, and spends his time with his pet chicken. His father and the other people in the town just don't understand his behavior, while the other kids make fun of him. A drunken group of older boys call him names, but they eventually allow him to hang out with them if he provides beer money. Duncan admires one of the boys, Perry (Tom Guiry), who reveals some hidden truths about himself. As the relationship between the two deepens, it begins to take on darker, more ominous shadings. The Mudge Boy premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emile Hirsch, Tom Guiry, (more)
