Darien Takle Movies

A man whose life has finally hit bottom tries to crawl back up to respectability, but few believe he can carry the weight in this drama from New Zealand. Gary Cradle (Gareth Reeves) is a loser in his late twenties who still lives with his father, can't hold a job and spends his days in a haze of marijuana and amphetamines. Gary's lack of self-esteem is fueled by his family's distrust of him and the fact his friends are just as unreliable as he is. When Denis (Matthew Sunderland), Gary's drug dealer (who also happens to be his ex-brother in law) refuses to extend him credit, he decides to raise some cash by robbing his next door neighbor, Mrs. Esckleson (Darien Takle); the heist goes horribly wrong, and Gary rapes the woman in the midst of the confusion. In the aftermath of the crime, Gary is shocked by his own actions and makes a decision to change his life. Gary gives up drugs, gets a job at a hamburger stand, and tries to mentor his nephew, whose mother makes a living as a prostitute. However, Gary's family is wary of his attempts to turn over a new leaf, and his friends aren't sure what to make of his new dedication to a clean life. A Song of Good was an official selection at the 2008 Rotterdam Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

En route to her home town of Amphipolis in the company of her daughter, Eve (Adrienne Wilkinson), and her friend Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor), Xena finds that it has become literally a ghost town, populated by corpses, wraiths, and ghouls. In trying to find out what had happened, Xena and her friends are besieged by all manner of horrors, not the least of which is a swarm of flesh-eating maggots. Meanwhile, watching from their heavenly perch, two archangels observe Xena dispassionately and discuss what may become her ultimate destiny -- ascending to the hellish throne of Mephistopheles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Taking her newborn baby, Eve, on a visit to her mother, Xena (Lucy Lawless) enters the village of Amphipolis. Here Xena, Eve, and Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor) are surrounded by the armies of the warrior Athena (Paris Jefferson), who intends to kill Eve to appease the Olympian Gods. To extricate herself from her present dilemma, Xena must pull the wool over the eyes of war god Ares (Kevin Smith), who is a notoriously bad sport whenever someone tries to deceive him. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The third season of Xena: Warrior Princess gets off to an ominous start when war god Ares (Kevin Smith) demands that Xena (Lucy Lawless) stand judgment before the Furies, charged with the "terrible crime" of leaving her father's murder unavenged. Her sentence: Giggling insanity and endless persecution. It is up to Xena's traveling companion, Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor), to rescue the Warrior Princess by identifying the murderer -- but before this can happen, the crazed Xena may well kill her own mother (Darien Takle). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this suspense thriller, a missing anthropologist is given up for lost by his wife (Darien Takle) and twin brother Edward (John Bach), but his daughter (Emma Takle) is convinced something odd is involved in her father's disappearance. Events conspire to put the three people together on a manhunt for the anthropologist -- among a "lost" tribe in the southern part of New Zealand that is not going to cooperate in the trio's search. If the wife, daughter, and uncle are extremely lucky, everyone will be able to escape intact. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide