Emile Sherman Movies
- 2012
Acclaimed New Zealand director Jane Campion re-teams with her Piano lead, Holly Hunter, for this ambitious seven-part television miniseries, with thematic echoes of David Lynch's Twin Peaks. The saga opens on a tragic note: in a beautiful but isolated mountain town, Tui Mitcham, an expectant 12-year-old girl, inexplicably walks into a freezing lake and vanishes. A professional detective from the said town, Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss) , returns home and begins to tap into the community's evil undercurrents. As she inches ever closer to determining Tui's whereabouts, so Robin also comes face to face with dark secrets from her own past, including men she abandoned, who now seem to prevent her from solving the central mystery. In addition to directing, Campion also authored the original screenplay. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- 2011
- R
Director Jim Loach and screenwriter Rona Munro collaborate to adapt Nottingham social worker Margaret Humphreys' autobiographical account of her noble effort to expose the systematic deportation of British children to Australia, and to reunite them with their devastated families. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Hugo Weaving, David Wenham, (more)
- 2011
- NC17
- Add Shame to Queue Add Shame to top of Queue
An outwardly ordinary man must come to terms with his inner compulsions in this powerful drama from filmmaker Steve McQueen. Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is a successful businessman in his early thirties who lives in New York. To most around him, Brandon seems cool and introverted, but inside he is wrestling with a powerful sexual appetite; he's obsessed with pornography and prefers short-term relationships with women that allow him to keep the world at arm's length. The grim routine of Brandon's life is upended when his sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) stops by for an extended visit without prior notice. While Brandon is reserved, Sissy is an outgoing and flashy musician, and she doesn't seem to care about her brother's need for privacy. When Sissy forces Brandon to look closely at his life, he comes to understand the circumstances that made him the man he is today as his veneer of calm begins to crack. Shame won the Firpresci Award (presented by the International Federation of Film Critics) at the 2011 Venice Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, (more)
Emmy Award-winning director Tom Hooper (John Adams) teams with screenwriter David Seidler (Tucker: A Man and His Dreams) to tell the story of King George VI. When his older brother abdicates the throne, nervous-mannered successor George "Bertie" VI (Colin Firth) reluctantly dons the crown. Though his stutter soon raises concerns about his leadership skills, King George VI eventually comes into his own with the help of unconventional speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). Before long the king and Lionel have forged an unlikely bond, a bond that proves to have real strength when the United Kingdom is forced to flex its international might. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, (more)
John Malkovich stars in director Steve Jacobs' adaptation of J.M. Coetzee's Booker Prize-winning novel concerning a Cape Town educator whose flight from scandal leads him into a direct confrontation with the lingering demons of apartheid. Fastidious Cape Town college professor David Lurie (Malkovich) may see himself as somewhat impervious, but he's about to bring about his own downfall due to a selfish and foolhardy relationship with a student who isn't afraid to drag their clandestine affair screaming into the light. When controversy erupts on campus as a result of the affair, David beats a hasty retreat to the countryside in order to lie low on his daughter Lucy's (Jessica Haines) remote farm in the Eastern Cape. However, David's fears for his daughter's isolation are soon confirmed when father and daughter are violently attacked by three black youths. In the aftermath of the horrific siege, David is deeply shaken to learn that one of their assailants is in fact a relative of trusted worker Petrus (Eriq Ebouaney), who lives peacefully alongside Lucy in the South African brush, and has even begun constructing a home at the edge of her property. Can these people somehow find grace in a country that's still struggling with its tragic history, or is that history destined to repeat itself forever into the future? ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Malkovich, Jessica Haines, (more)
A jobless 28-year-old residing in an apartment with his single father discovers the meaning of life for a bargain-basement price in this stop-motion animation film featuring the voices of Ben Mendelsohn, Barry Otto, Anthony LaPaglia, and Geoffrey Rush. Dave has made it his mission to discover the meaning of life, so when he stumbles across a book claiming to answer just that question for the low, low price of just $9.99, he can't help but make an impulse purchase. Much to his surprise, the book contains all the answers he's been searching for, a revelation that compels him to share this newfound information with his neighbors -- an eccentric bunch whose stories gradually intertwine to offer a revealing portrait of their hopes, loves, and spiritual beliefs. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Geoffrey Rush, Anthony LaPaglia, (more)
When the imaginary friends of a young girl living in Australia's Lightning Ridge opal-mining town go missing, the inexplicable illness that befalls her soon prompts her brother to organize a desperate search for his sister's transparent pals in director Peter Cattaneo's adaptation of Ben Rice's popular children's novella. Kellyanne is a young girl with a vivid imagination and two invisible friends named Pobby and Dingan. Though her brother, Ashmol, was never the affectionate type, his concern at seeing his little sister become ill after Pobby and Dingan disappear quickly sets into motion an incredible journey that will serve as a transformative rite of passage for not just Ashmol, but the whole town of Lightning Ridge as well. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sapphire Boyce
A free-spirited art student and a roguish poet find their addiction to each other taking a back seat to their taste for heroin in director Neil Armfield's intensely personal tale of recreational drug use gone bad. When Candy (Abbie Cornish) and Dan (Heath Ledger) first fell in love, they both thought they had found all they ever needed in life. Despite financial hardships, the pair sustained themselves on the vibrant life force that burned blindingly bright as it promised an invincible future. Their intoxicating romance a blissful altered state of which heroin played only a minor role in the beginning, Candy and Dan soon decide to strengthen their bond by marrying and starting a family. Their manufactured Eden gradually becomes an uncontrollable inferno, however, as Candy's parents slowly pull away due to the pain of witnessing their daughter's slow slide into oblivion, and even chemistry professor Casper (Geoffrey Rush), who was at first complicit in their experimentation, admits that Candy and Dan's blind devotion to the drug is now forever ingrained into their commitment to one and other. As the marriage deteriorates right along with Candy's increasingly fragile mental state, Dan must make the difficult decision to either rescue her or pull away in hopes that the clarity of separation will finally empower her to break free of the addiction that binds her. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Heath Ledger, Abbie Cornish, (more)
A young man has a hard time getting crime to pay better than honest work in this comedy-drama from Australia. When Jack Flange (Alex O'Lachlan) gets word that his sister Nikki (Claudia Harrison) has been in a serious auto accident, he leaves his home in Sydney and travels to the small seaside community where she lives. Money is tight for Nikki, so Jack looks for a job to help out; however, the best he can do is working for Brownie (David Field), who runs an oyster farm with his father Mumbles (Jim Norton). Jack soon learns that oyster farming is tough, physically punishing work, and while Brownie would be a difficult boss on the best of days, the fact that his ex-wife Trish (Kerry Armstrong) has opened a competing business has made matters significantly worse. Wanting more money and less labor, Jack steals a cache of money from an armored car, and to help cover his tracks mails the cash to himself. However, when the money never arrives in the mailbox, Jack wonders if someone has made off with his ill-gotten gains -- and if the law might be after him. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Alex O'Lachlan, Jim Norton, (more)
- 2003
Australian filmmaker Ted Emery directs the fish-out-of-water comedy The Honourable Wally Norman. Kevin Harrington stars as the down-to-earth Wally Norman, a foreman at a meat-packing plant who generally gets along with everyone in the small town of Givens Head. The upcoming election for the county seat involves the conservative Total Country Party member F. Ken Oats (played by comedian Shaun Micallef) and the Australian People's Party member Willy Norman (Alan Cassell). Due to a corrupt government scam, Wally's name appears on the ballot and he is approached to run for Federal Parliament. He decides to run just for the heck of it and brings his entire family along with him. Melissa Madden-Gray plays political reporter Rebecca Jane Thompson and John Singleton appears in a cameo role as the Prime Minister. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kevin Harrington, Alan Cassell, (more)
Australian filmmaker Paul Goldman directs the comedy The Night We Called It a Day, based on the actual events during Frank Sinatra's 1974 tour stop in Sydney. Joel Edgerton plays Rod Blue, a long-haired rock promoter in Australia during the '70s. He hopes to save his floundering career by spending all his money booking Frank Sinatra (Dennis Hopper). But when Sinatra arrives with his girlfriend Barbara Marx (Melanie Griffith), he insults the locals by calling reporter Hilary Hunter (Portia de Rossi) "a two-dollar whore." Union leader and future Australian prime minister Bob Hawke (David Field) tries to cancel the tour unless he apologizes, and it's up to Rod and his assistant Audrey (Rose Byrne) to step in and save the tour. Tom Burlinson performs Sinatra's vocal parts. The Night We Called It a Day was shown at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dennis Hopper, Melanie Griffith, (more)
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