Judd Payne Movies
- 2010
David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees) directs this politically minded romantic comedy starring Jessica Biel as a small-town waitress who heads to Washington, D.C., to lobby for health care after getting a nail shot in her head. Jake Gyllenhaal co-stars as a dimwitted congressman, with the rest of the cast headed by James Marsden, Catherine Keener, and Tracy Morgan. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jake Gyllenhaal, Jessica Biel, (more)
A grief counselor (Anne Hathaway) begins to suspect foul play when the six airplane crash survivors she is tending to mysteriously begin to disappear and the truth behind the tragedy grows ever more clouded in Nine Lives director Rodrigo García's conspiratorial supernatural thriller. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Hathaway, Patrick Wilson, (more)
Albino Alligator screenwriter Christian Forte pulls double duty as writer and director of this fantasy comedy concerning two friends who enter a mysterious video booth and find themselves suddenly transported to an alternate dimension in which the entire world has taken on the traits of an adult film. Chris Pratt and Brendan Hines star in a film featuring Denise Richards, Scott Caan, Tracy Morgan, and Chris McDonald. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chris Pratt, Brendan P. Hines, (more)
- 2007
- R
The feature debut from writer/director Jess Manafort, this bittersweet teen comedy centers on a group of kids on the last day of school in 1999. With an ensemble cast featuring Lyndsy Fonseca, Amber Heard, and Alexa Vega, the film follows several students as they relish the advent of summer vacation and struggle with drugs, sex, and the unpredictability of the future before them. The Beautiful Ordinary screened at the 2007 Los Angeles Film Festival. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Amber Heard, Alexa Vega, (more)
California is at the epicenter of a political and environmental disaster that threatens to destroy the world in this ambitious fusion of comedy, drama, dystopian science fiction, and music from writer and director Richard Kelly, his first film after gaining a cult following with Donnie Darko. In the year 2005, a nuclear attack wipes out part of the state of Texas, and three years later America is a virtual police state, with the government taking control of nearly every part of people's lives, supposedly for their own good. A German firm has found a way to generate energy using seawater, but both public and private concerns are desperate to prevent the new technology from being introduced in the gasoline-starved United States. A Marxist underground based on the West Coast is determined to bring down the federal government through violent revolution.
In this midst of this chaos, we follow a number of stories that continually return to three principle characters. Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock) is an actor famous for his role in action films; he's trying to secure financing for a new project, but reality keeps mirroring the events in his script and he struggles to hold on to his identity following a bout with amnesia. Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is a porn star who is reinventing herself as a television pundit offering her views on politics, contemporary culture, and teenage sex. And Roland Taverner (Seann William Scott) is an L.A. police officer whose identity has mysteriously split in two, and he struggles to track down his other half. Featuring a massive supporting cast which includes Mandy Moore, Miranda Richardson, Wallace Shawn, Jon Lovitz, Kevin Smith, Amy Poehler, and Justin Timberlake, Southland Tales received its world premiere at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival; director Kelly also created an accompanying series of three graphic novels that chart these events and characters prior to this story. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
In this midst of this chaos, we follow a number of stories that continually return to three principle characters. Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock) is an actor famous for his role in action films; he's trying to secure financing for a new project, but reality keeps mirroring the events in his script and he struggles to hold on to his identity following a bout with amnesia. Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is a porn star who is reinventing herself as a television pundit offering her views on politics, contemporary culture, and teenage sex. And Roland Taverner (Seann William Scott) is an L.A. police officer whose identity has mysteriously split in two, and he struggles to track down his other half. Featuring a massive supporting cast which includes Mandy Moore, Miranda Richardson, Wallace Shawn, Jon Lovitz, Kevin Smith, Amy Poehler, and Justin Timberlake, Southland Tales received its world premiere at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival; director Kelly also created an accompanying series of three graphic novels that chart these events and characters prior to this story. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, (more)
Desperate circumstances force a man to make a terrible choice in this period drama. It's 1957, and Walker Payne (Jason Patric) is a good but troubled man who struggles to keep his appetite for whiskey and women under control for the sake of his two daughters after breaking up with his wife (Drea de Matteo). Like most of the men in the small Illinois town he calls home, Payne provides for his daughters by working in a nearby coal mine, and when the mine suddenly closes, jobs become all but impossible to find. Payne's money problems come to a head when his ex-wife, who has decided to leave town and attend nursing school, demands 5,000 dollars or otherwise she will take custody of their children and he'll never see them again. Opportunity comes to Payne in the form of Syrus (Sam Shepard), a charming but unscrupulous man who offers Payne the chance to make some big money fast. Syrus runs an illegal dog-fighting circuit outside of town, and he's certain Payne's pooch Brute, a good-natured but massive animal, has the stuff to be a champion. Can Payne sacrifice his loyal canine friend to maintain the custody of his daughters? Walker Payne also stars Bruce Dern as Walker's friend Chester and KaDee Strickland as Audrey, a divorcée with an unpleasant past who falls for Payne. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jason Patric, Drea de Matteo, (more)
Can a young man win the hand of the girl of his dreams by convincing her that he prefers the company of men? That's the dilemma facing the protagonist of this independent comedy. Clay (Sam Huntington) was a big man on his high-school campus, but he discovers he's just another nobody when he starts his first year of college, and while he expected to be making time with lots of pretty coeds, most of the girls on campus could care less about him. As Clay hopes to improve his social status by rushing a fraternity after his dorm roommate unexpectedly dies, Amanda (Kaitlin Doubleday), another incoming freshman, is similarly hoping to join a sorority, and as part of her initiation she and the other pledges are each instructed to pick up a certain type of "loser" guy for a party where the boys will be humiliated as part of the evening's entertainment. Amanda is supposed to find a guy who is obviously gay, and her friend Jessica (Heather Matarazzo) mistakenly thinks Clay fits the bill. It doesn't take long for Clay to realize what's going on, but he decides to play along if it means going out with a pretty girl, and he gives himself a crash course in gay behavior in hopes of winning Amanda's heart with some help from amiable queer bartender Rodney (John Goodman). Produced under the title Home of Phobia, Freshman Orientation was the first feature film from writer and director Ryan Shiraki. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sam Huntington, Marla Sokoloff, (more)
Screenwriter Richard Alfieri and director Arthur Allan Siedelman adapt Anton Chekhov's classic stage play The Three Sisters to the screen in this film starring Mary Stuart Masterson, Maria Bello, and Erika Christensen as the titular siblings. Upon departing from Charleston, SC, to further their education at a prestigious Manhattan college, sisters Marcia (Bello), Olga (Masterson), and Irene (Christensen) soon become lost in fantasies of what their lives may have been to the point where they are unable to affect change in their real lives. As the three sisters gradually open up to each other and their brother, Andrew (Alessandro Nivola), the specter of their deceased father soon lifts, leaving the nostalgic siblings to realize that the only way to confront the brutal realities of life is through honesty and understanding. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maria Bello, Mary Stuart Masterson, (more)
Commercial director Christian Johnston makes his feature film debut with the dramatic thriller September Tapes. The story takes place in Afghanistan, one year after the events of September 11. American journalist Don Larson (George Calil) and his two companions travel to Kabul in order to investigate the search for Osama bin Laden. After meeting with members of the Northern Alliance, he is arrested for taking photographs. While he's incarcerated, Don learns about a bounty hunter named Babak who may be able to help them. September Tapes premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 as part of the American Spectrum competition. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Calil, Sunil Sadarangani, (more)
