Sean Dugan Movies
Two couples demonstrate that breaking up can be just as hard as staying together in this romantic comedy drama. Rebecca (Julianne Moore) and Tom (David Duchovny) are a seemingly happy married couple living in New York City -- she's a successful actress, while he stays home with the kids. However, beneath the surface, things are not going well. Rebecca is no longer amused with her husband's appetite for porn and constant sexual demands, while he's seriously considering having an affair. Rebecca's brother Tobey, (Billy Crudup), is in a more openly dysfunctional relationship; he's been dating Elaine (Maggie Gyllenhaal) for seven years but has no interest in marriage, while she's desperate to settle down and start a family. Tobey and Elaine decide to call it quits, as Tobey hooks up with an old friend from college (Eva Mendes) who is looking to cheat on her husband, and Elaine starts dating a handsome musician (James LeGros) who may be in need of a green card. Meanwhile, Rebecca and Tom go into couples therapy, which creates as many problems as it solves. Trust the Man also features Ellen Barkin, Garry Shandling, and Bob Balaban. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Duchovny, Julianne Moore, (more)
Director/screenwriter Robert Collector adapts Newberry Award-winning author Harold Keith's fact-based tale about a 1960s-era girl's basketball coach who inspired his athletes to believe in themselves and always strive to reach their greatest potential. Clayton Driscoll was an assistant boy's basketball coach when he accepted his first official coaching assignment in the tiny, backwater Oklahoma town of Middleton. An urbanite whose devoted wife Jean is wholly supportive of the move, Clayton hopes that the peace of the country will give the couple the opportunity to start a family. Upon discovering that the team he is set to coach is a girl's team, however, Clayton's enthusiasm immediately sours. In the mid 1960s, in the middle of nowhere, girl's athletics could barely qualify as an afterthought to sports fans. The Middleton Lady Cyclones in particular, were an unmitigated laughing stock. Though Clayton is at first flushed by the ineptitude of his young players, his dubiety is soon tempered by the remarkable character displayed by the girls who want nothing more than to shine in the eyes of their coach. Upon recognizing the decency and resiliency displayed by his tough-minded team, Clayton gives the girls permission to become as passionate about the game as any boy would be. But not everyone in Middleton is so eager to see these young women behaving as aggressively and competitively as their male counterparts, and as Clayton liberates the girls in an attempt to take the state championships and in the process finds himself emancipated by his love for the team, town rainmaker Ellis Brawley launches a bitter campaign to bring about the progressive-minded coach's downfall. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeffrey Donovan, Bruce Dern, (more)
Independent filmmaker Glen Trotiner wrote and directed this look at the struggles of an independent filmmaker (at least he knows the subject) in this satiric comedy. Matthew Wells (Sean Dugan) is an aspiring filmmaker who has had about as much as he can take of his job as a production assistant for a major Hollywood producer. Like nearly every other struggling filmmaker in America who is trying to get a project off the ground, Matthew heads to Park City, UT, for the Sundance Film Festival, where he runs into an old college buddy, Rick Foster (Seth William Meier). Rick thinks Matthew's script has potential, and offers to help him shop the project in exchange for being brought aboard as producer if he can make a sale. Matthew agrees, and as Rick and veteran agent Abe Pollard (Mark Goddard) set out to sell Matthew's script, Matthew gets an idea -- he cuts up a copy of his screenplay into large jigsaw puzzle pieces, and sends them around to producers with a note saying that whoever can put the puzzle together gets first shot at financing his project. The stunt works, as Matthew's fragmented screenplay is suddenly the talk of the Festival, but Matthew soon has to ask himself if he's ready for what happens next as a handful of sleazy industry types beat a path to his door. Overnight Sensation features a cameo appearance by Edie Falco as one of the Sundance Festival staff. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
