David McCallum Movies
- 2007
They say that love makes the world go around, but finding the significant other to help keep that globe moving isn't always an easy task, and filmmaker Alan Zweig, who previously offered a look into his cranky soul with the films Vinyl and I, Curmudgeon, examines his problems with the opposite sex in Lovable. As Zweig discusses his dilemma -- he wants to get married and have kids, but can't find a woman with whom he could consider having a long term relationship -- he interviews a handful of single women who air their own frustration with love and courtship, as they express similar feelings about edging into middle age alone and the unfortunate selection of single men. Zweig also reveals how the death of his mother has had an impact on his feelings about wedlock, and plays a tape of his favorite love songs to put himself and his interview subjects in the mood to discuss romance. Lovable received its world premiere at Toronto's 2007 Hot Docs International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Released from prison after serving ten years for pummeling his opponent to the point of inflicting severe brain damage, working class pugilist Donnie Rose (Rossif Sutherland) finds his efforts to start life anew complicated by simmering racism and long-suppressed vengeance. In the aftermath of Donnie's notorious bout with aspiring boxer Charlie Carvery (K.C. Collins), racial tensions in Halifax, Nova Scotia sharply divided the community between black and white. During his sentence Donnie not only honed his boxing skills to near perfection, but he also entered into a furtive affair with his black cellmate - a fact which he struggles to keep from his deeply prejudiced brother Keith (Greg Bryk. Though Charlie's vengeful father George (Danny Glover) has long looked forward to the day he will take revenge on the man who destroyed his son's life, the conflicted father discovers that he simply isn't a killer when finally given the opportunity to pull the trigger on Donnie. Subsequently offered $20,000 to step into the ring with fearsome local boxing champion Ossie Paris (Flex Alexander) for a high profile grudge match that will surely spell his doom, Donnie soon finds help coming from the most unlikely of places. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rossif Sutherland, Danny Glover, (more)
- 2005
On the eve of the release of actress Isabella Rossellini's book In the Name of the Father, the Daughter, and the Holy Spirits: Remembering Roberto Rossellini, the famous daughter of the acclaimed filmmaker teams with Canadian director Guy Maddin to pay loving homage to the man who crafted such cinematic classics as Viaggio in Italia and Roma, Città Aperta. In addition to crafting an affectionate portrait to her father, Rossellini and Maddin attempt to capture the cinematic feel of the filmmaker's most prolific period by incorporating the influences of such key figures as Federico Fellini, Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, David O. Selznick, and, of course, the legendary Ingrid Bergman into the film as well. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabella Rossellini
- 2005
A young woman who's formed her sexual identity around anonymous one-night-stands considers the option of a committed, monogamous relationship in this erotic psychological drama. Introduced in voiceover, the twentysomething Leila (Lauren Lee Smith) makes clear her preferences for picking up guys based on mutual, animal attraction, as well as her desire to exhibit power over men. But when she locks eyes with the tall, dark, and handsome David (Eric Balfour), her priorities begin to change, and she finds herself wanting more from a man than just hot sex. Each partner has his or her own baggage -- David is taking care of an ailing father, while Leila is caught in the middle of her parents' messy separation. Already familiar with the concept of sexual liberation, Leila finds she has to be emotionally vulnerable as well if she wants to hang on to David. Directed by Canadian independent filmmaker Clement Virgo, Lie With Me had its world premiere at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eric Balfour, Lauren Lee Smith, (more)
One of the oldest epic poems in the English language gets a robust visual interpretation in this historical epic shot on location in Iceland. Hrothgar (Stellan Skarsgård) is a Danish king who murders a troll that has been terrorizing his countryside. But Hrothgar spares the life of the troll's strange young son, who with the passage of years grows to become Grendel (Ingvar Sigurdsson), a fearsome warrior intent upon avenging his father's death. As Grendel begins his slaughter of the king's closest confidants, Hrothgar realizes his life is in danger, and he calls upon the brave and fearless Beowulf (Gerard Butler) to track down and kill Grendel. As Beowulf and his band of warriors search for the vicious and elusive Grendel, he crosses paths with Selma (Sarah Polley), a beautiful and sensuous witch whose alliances are divided between Beowulf and his archenemy. Produced by Canadian, British, and Icelandic concerns, Beowulf & Grendel was a major box-office success in Canada before crossing south to American theaters in the summer of 2006. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gerard Butler, Stellan Skarsgård, (more)
Canadian filmmaker Scott Smith directs the black comedy Falling Angels, based on the novel by Barbara Gowdy and adapted for the screen by poet and author Esta Spalding. Set in the late '60s and filmed on-location in Saskatchewan, this dark family drama focuses on the three teenaged daughters of the Field household. Callum Keith Rennie plays Jim Field, the loud-mouthed, domineering patriarch who has intimidated his wife Mary (Miranda Richardson) into a catatonic state of alcoholism and depression. Norma (Monté Gagné) is the oldest, most responsible daughter; she is overburdened and preoccupied by events from the past. Middle child Lou (Katharine Isabelle) chooses the rebellious path in order to escape her father's unreasonable demands. Youngest daughter Sandy (Kristin Adams) aspires to maximum femininity, engaging in an affair with an older, married man (Mark McKinney) in the process. Falling Angels was shown at the 2003 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miranda Richardson, Callum Keith Rennie, (more)
Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin directs The Saddest Music in the World, reworked from an original screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro. Set in Winnipeg during the Great Depression, the film involves a contest announced by the legless and glamorous Lady Port-Huntly (Isabella Rossellini) to find the saddest music in the world. She's hoping the contest will result in increased sales of her company's brand of beer. American theatrical producer Chester Kent (Mark McKinney) shows up to win the contest with his kooky show-business idea, while brother Roderick Kent (Ross McMillan) returns from the war. Maria de Medeiros plays Narcissa, a sleep walker romantically linked to both brothers. Their father, the alcoholic doctor Fyodor Kent (David Fox), is tortured by his role in Lady Port-Huntly's leg amputation, so he makes her a new glass pair filled with beer. The Saddest Music in the World was shown at the 2003 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mark McKinney, Isabella Rossellini, (more)
In the wake of his rise to power, Adolf Hitler became known as perhaps the most villainous and destructive political leader of the 20th century. But what was he like before he formed the Nazi party? Screenwriter and director Menno Meyjes explores that question in this drama, a work of fiction keyed to the fact that Hitler unsuccessfully pursued a career as an artist following World War I. In 1918, Max Rothman (John Cusack) is a former artist who lost an arm during the war. While Max can no longer create, his eye for talent is as keen as ever, so he has become a successful art dealer, specializing in Modernists such as George Grosz. Max's success has brought him a fine home and a beautiful wife, Nina (Molly Parker); he's also acquired a mistress, Liselore (Leelee Sobieski), a lovely young woman with artistic aspirations of her own. One day, Max meets Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor), an emotionally intense, fellow war veteran who has found himself penniless in Munich. Adolf fancies himself an artist, and while Max isn't especially impressed with his technique, he sees in him a burning passion and a desire to communicate, so he encourages Adolf to express his demons through his art. While Adolf takes Max's advice to heart and strikes up a friendship with him, Max's friends find Adolf's open advocation of anti-Semitism rather troubling; Max, who is Jewish, simply chalks Adolf's attitudes up to unpleasant wartime experiences. But as Adolf immerses himself more deeply into his political interests and his thoughts on social engineering, he begins to leave painting behind in favor of a more interesting art form, the political arena. Max marked the first directorial effort of noted screenwriter Meyjes. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
In the generic Canadian suburb of Bailey Downs live Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins), 15-year-old sisters committed to introversion, menstruation anxiety, and terminal misanthropy. Three years late for their first period, they spend their time staging gruesome death scenes for their own amusement, amidst the willful ignorance of their relentlessly perky mother (Mimi Rogers). On the night Ginger finally gets her period, the sisters are attacked in the woods by a ferocious creature that may have some connection to "The Beast of Bailey Downs," a predator currently disemboweling its way through the local dog population. The girls survive the attack, and Ginger's wounds heal quickly, but her attitude grows even more bizarre, as hair sprouts from her scars and a tail grows from her spine. Adding to the terror, she starts dating boys. A panicked Brigitte forces herself to befriend Sam (Kris Lemche), the high school pot supplier, whose brand of ganja may be the only cure for Ginger's troubling ailment. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emily Perkins, Katharine Isabelle, (more)
Bret Easton Ellis' dark and violent satire of America in the 1980s is brought to the screen in this unsettling drama with black comic overtones. Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), the son of a wealthy Wall Street financier, is pursuing his own lucrative career with his father's firm. Bateman is the prototypical yuppie, obsessed with success, fashion, and style. He is also a serial killer who murders, rapes, and mutilates both strangers and acquaintances without provocation or reason. Donald Kimble (Willem Dafoe), a police detective, questions Bateman about the disappearance of Paul Allen (Jared Leto), whom Patrick murdered several days earlier. As Kimble stays on Bateman's trail, Bateman's mask of studied, distant cool begins to fall apart. American Psycho also features Reese Witherspoon as Bateman's girlfriend, as well as Samantha Mathis, Chloe Sevigny, and Guinevere Turner; the latter also co-authored the screenplay. Controversy followed the production from the start, when speculation that Leonardo Di Caprio would play Bateman sparked concerns that he would lure preteens to an R-rated movie. Di Caprio soon bowed out of the project, and original leading man Bale was reinstated. Later, a group of Toronto residents attempted to block filming in that city after Canadian serial killer Paul Bernardo claimed that Ellis' novel inspired his murder spree. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, (more)
An aspiring comic, Neville (Larenz Tate) is burdened by drug abuse and memories of childhood traumas. He and his older half brother Matthew (Martin Cummins), a boxer, are unable to escape from the painful repercussions of their past, which includes their mother serving a prison sentence for killing Neville's father. Things seem to look up for Neville when he becomes involved with a gifted singer (real-life R&B chanteuse Deborah Cox), but still he must struggle to surmount a family legacy that has resulted in so much anger and emotional ruin. Screened at the 2000 Vancouver International Film Festival, Love Come Down features renowned Canadian actress Sarah Polley in a role as an unconventional nun. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Larenz Tate, Deborah Cox, (more)
The fortunes of a family of Hungarian Jews are followed over the course of nearly 150 years in this epic historical drama, with leading man Ralph Fiennes playing three different roles. The story begins in the late 18th century, as Aaron and Josefa Sonnenschein (the name means "Sunshine" in German) die in an explosion while making an herb tonic for sale in their village. Their son Emmanuel (David de Keyser), the only survivor of the tragedy, travels to Budapest, carrying the recipe for the medicine with him. He's able to parlay the formula into a successful business, and Emmanuel and his wife Rose (Miriam Margolyes) raise two sons, Ignatz (Ralph Fiennes), who becomes a successful lawyer, and hot-tempered Gustave (James Frain). The Sonnenscheins also make room in their home for Valerie (Jennifer Ehle), but Emmanuel and Rose become furious when Valerie becomes romantically involved with Ignatz. Eventually, Valerie and Ignatz raise two children, Istvan (Mark Strong) and Adam (Ralph Fiennes), and the family changes its name to Sors in hopes of avoiding the anti-Semitism sweeping Europe. In time, Adam goes so far as to convert to Catholicism, and he marries another Catholic, Hannah (Molly Parker). He soon begins an affair with his brother's wife, Greta (Rachel Weisz), who is unable to persuade Adam to leave as the Nazis rise to power. Adam and Hannah have only one son, Ivan, who is fated to watch his father die in a concentration camp; as Ivan grows to adulthood (now played by Ralph Fiennes), he swears revenge on the forces of fascism and embraces Communism. Ivan throws in his lot with Communist leader Andor Knorr (William Hurt), but a liaison with the wife of a party official (Deborah Kara Unger) leads Ivan to tragic consequences and a jail term. In time, Valarie and Gustave are reunited at the family's estate as the only two members of the Sonnenschein clan who survive to witness the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. Hungarian director Istvan Szabo co-wrote Sunshine's original screenplay in collaboration with American playwright Israel Horovitz. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ralph Fiennes, Rosemary Harris, (more)
- 1999
- R
Actor Kiefer Sutherland directed this drama about a housekeeper who tries to keep the peace between a widower and his grown-up son. Sutherland also co-stars, along with Holly Hunter, ichael Moriarty and Christopher Plummer. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Holly Hunter, Kiefer Sutherland, (more)
A group of ten men come together for a bachelor party that goes horribly wrong in this made-for-TV drama. Mario Van Peebles and John Stockwell star as old friends Michael and Victor, both of them successful, well-off young professionals. The latter is about to be married, so Michael throws him a lavish party complete with booze, drugs, a pair of stripper sisters and some old friends that Michael would actually rather not see, including Pete (Andrew McCarthy), a street-smart drug dealer. When one of the girls is accidentally killed and her handler is shot in the ensuing confusion, the group of men reacts in completely different ways. Timan (John Henson) becomes completely unraveled, while others like Pete and Daniel (Kevin Dillon) keep their cool and try to come up with a viable plan to handle their new "problem." A next door neighbor (Jerry Stiller) who comes over to investigate the noise only compounds the problem. Stag bore almost precisely the same plot as Very Bad Things (1998), a more comic take on the story that was released theatrically one year later. The surviving stripper was played by former pop music star Taylor Dayne. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andrew McCarthy, John Stockwell, (more)
The Canadian sketch-comedy masters hit the big screen with Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy, their send-up of psychopharmacology and its social ramifications. Each "kid" plays a plethora of roles; in fact, nearly every character in the film is played by one of the five "kids". When Roritor Pharmaceuticals finds itself on the verge of bankruptcy, research chemist Chris Cooper (Kevin McDonald) finds himself pressured to push his latest development to market without adequate testing at the risk of losing his job. The product -- Gleemonex, an anti-depressant bearing more than a slight resemblance to Prozac -- seems at first to be a wonder drug; users find themselves in a perpetual state of bliss as they relive their fondest memories time and again. Success goes awry, however, when a fatal side-effect surfaces -- users become catatonics. The craze has caught on, however, and the entire world seems to be taking Gleemonex, forcing Dr. Cooper to fight his employers and warn the masses before disaster strikes. The plot is really just an excuse for a series of funny, hallucinogenic sketches involving the memories and fantasies of its users; the funniest include a grandmother's all-too brief holiday visit with her family, and a married man's homoerotic experiences in the military. Another winning scene: a brooding grunge-rock idol (Bruce McCulloch) who's taken the drug unexpectedly changes his tune at a concert to the bewilderment of his angst-hungry fans. Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy is hit-or-miss satire, but much of the humor finds its mark in this humble, surprisingly intelligent film. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, (more)
A peaceful Nebraska town on a sweltering summer day becomes the setting for an unprecedented disaster when it is struck by a deadly series of strong tornados. The story is told from the viewpoint of a 12-year-old boy who is forced to overcome his own terror to save the lives of friends and family in the horrifying aftermath. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Devon Sawa
After being saved from execution at the hands of a vengeful Native American tribe by Powhatan princess Pocahontas, an explorer in the New World finds his relationship with the beautiful Pocahontas fueling the rage from both sides in this take on the classic tale starring Tony Goldwyn, Miles O'Keeffe, and Sandrine Holt. John Smith (O'Keeffe) was an explorer seeking adventure in a new land, but soon after being captured by the Powhatan Confederacy, the brave adventurer is sentenced to death by his captors. As the moment of Smith's execution draws near, a young Powhatan princess named Pocahontas (Holt) saves his life by adopting him under tribal tradition. Though the act of compassion saves Smith's life, it also draws the wrath of both Pocahontas' tribe and Smith's mortal enemy Sir Edwin Wingfield (Goldwyn) -- who views his old nemesis' alignment with the tribe as an act of treason. As the simmering tension between the settlers and the Native Americans breaks into a boil, blood will be spilled and history will be made. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sandrine Holt
A beautiful but reserved criminal psychiatrist must deal with the obsessive stalking of a dangerous killer in this erotically charged thriller. The film's central tension emerges from the relationship between Dr. Sarah Taylor (Rebecca DeMornay), a highly professional psychologist, and a handsome stranger, Tony Ramirez (Antonio Banderas). After randomly encountering Tony in a supermarket, the normally aloof Sarah lets her guard down and embarks on a passionate sexual affair with the Latino charmer. Soon afterward, however, Sarah receives a series of disturbing threats from an unknown stalker. Her suspicions immediately fall on Tony, as she realizes how little she knows about her new lover. Her fear throws a shadow over their relationship, and her doubts increase as she learns more about Tony's dangerous past. Director Peter J. Hall maintains a fast pace and attempts to keep audiences guessing, introducing additional suspects from an imprisoned serial killer (Harry Dean Stanton) to the next-door neighbor (Dennis Miller). The characters rarely transcend standard thriller types, and the uneven screenplay does not have a satisfying ending, but the chemistry between DeMornay and Banderas may keep their fans interested along the way. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rebecca De Mornay, Antonio Banderas, (more)
- 1995
- R
The first feature-length Canadian drama to be created by an all-black team of filmmakers, this inner city film from writer-director Clement Virgo tracks the lives and struggles of several urban minorities during one Easter weekend. As the pirate radio disc jockey known as Rude (Sharon M. Lewis) broadcasts throughout a Toronto project, an artist named General (Maurice Dean Witt) arrives at the home of his wife Jessica (Melanie Nicholls-King) after serving several years in jail for drug dealing. He's there to reconcile with Jessica, who is now a police officer, and with the ten-year-old son, Johnny (Ashley Brown), whom he didn't help raise. Impeding his progress is General's brother Reece (Clark Johnson), who covets his brother's wife and still works for the neighborhood's racist white drug lord Yankee (Stephen Shellen) -- who in turn wants General back in charge of the drug trade. Meanwhile, the young boxer Jordan (Richard Chevolleau) reluctantly accompanies his fellow athletes on a testosterone-fueled gay-bashing spree, even though he is beginning to believe that he may be homosexual. As all of this is happening, the heart-broken window dresser Maxine (Rachel Crawford) faces the dissolution of her relationship with her boyfriend after she has an abortion. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maurice Dean Wint, Rachael Crawford, (more)
