Andras Jones Movies

Chi Y. Lee directed this low-budget legerdemain about Los Angeles magician Nick (Andras Jones), who has an adroit sleight-of-hand maneuver go awry when he's caught doing non-conjugal conjuring -- she's not his wife but is instead married to a rival magician. More rough magic is revealed when Nick next lands behind bars, accused of a crime he didn't commit. Here his luck goes on an upswing, as he shares his cell with hulking Pet Boy (Derek Mears), a childlike clairvoyant with a strong sense of smell and the mind of a ten-year-old. The two become close friends. Springed from the slammer, they set forth on a magical mystery tour, traveling cross-country in a bus with a psychedelic paint job. Along the way, they brake for cute hitchhiker Milla (Mirand Viscoli), a stop that adds spice, sex, and jealousy to their jitney jaunt. With Pet Boy's mind-reading skill as a bargaining chip, their destination of dreams is an Atlantic City magician's festival where Nick hopes to generate grand illusions. Shown at the 1998 Dances With Films Festival of the Unknowns (Santa Monica). ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

An obsessed government agent and a ruthless terrorist have some grudges to settle in this intense actioner. ~ Kristie Hassen, Rovi

This fourth trip down Freddy Lane was the most successful at the box-office, but although it has some impressive visuals, it is mostly an empty film. Credit must go to the effects team for some fine work, but otherwise, this entry from the director of Cutthroat Island (Renny Harlin) is extremely weak. Roland Kincaid falls asleep and awakens in the Springwood junkyard, where his dog -- named "Jason" in a sad foreshadowing of the film's giggly tone -- pees fire on Freddy's grave. The pyro-urinary baptism causes Krueger (Robert Englund) to reassemble from bones outward in an admittedly impressive sequence. Predictably, Freddy guts Kincaid, then appears in Joey's waterbed as a naked pinup girl (Hope-Marie Carlton) before slicing him to ribbons. And so it goes. The film has a few interesting ideas kicking around, but no real identification points. This is a video game, not a movie, and the characters seem to exist only in order to move the film from one effects sequence to another. There is a lot to be said for special effects, and the ones here are extraordinary and vivid. However, the wonderfully grim mood and subtle performances of Chuck Russell's outstanding third entry in the series are gone, abandoned by Harlin in favor of a splashy, comic book approach which would, unfortunately, dominate the series' later installments. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

Canadian filmmaker Andy Jones both directs and stars in the whimsically acid Adventures of Faustus Bidgood. Faustus (Jones) is a clerk in the St. Johns, Newfoundland department of education. He dreams of becoming ruler of Newfoundland and staging a secession from Canada (the film is rife with pointed comments about the island province's governmental travails). Back in the real world, Faustus' boss Robert Joy plans to indoctrinate the citizenry of Newfoundland with a cultish geometric theory known as Total Education, but Joy may be foiled at any minute by the revelation of his earlier career as a flamenco dancer. Greg Malone pops in and out of the proceedings as a combination angel/demon who acts as everyone's conscience. It took Andy Jones ten years to finance and film The Adventures of Faustus Bidgood, which may explain why the film mounts its horse and rides madly off in all directions at once. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi