Dean Wareham Movies

The uncomfortable merger of art and commerce leads to an unstable romantic triangle in this satiric comedy from director Jonathan Parker. Madeleine (Marley Shelton) is a beautiful young woman who runs an upscale art gallery in New York City. While Madeleine prides herself on exhibiting the most daring and cutting-edge work on the East Coast, her dirty little secret is that she's able to keep the place open by selling the bland but accessible work of her boyfriend (Eion Bailey), whose paintings are quite popular with corporate clients. However, Madeleine is drawn to moody creative types, and her boyfriend makes the mistake of introducing her to his bother (Adam Goldberg), an avant-garde composer whose music is built around breaking glass and the clatter of metal objects. Before long, Madeleine has fallen for the pretentious composer and has to choose between him and the man who can keep her gallery in the black. Also starring Vinnie Jones and Zak Orth, (Untitled) received its world premiere at the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A petty criminal's attempt to turn his life around takes both him and a young boy on an unexpected journey in this independent drama. Twentysomething Daniel Carter (Mark Webber) has been in trouble with the law ever since he was a kid, and his latest misadventure has led him to performing community service at a grade school in the East Village. Daniel strikes up a close friendship with one of the students he's working with, Boone (Antonio Ortiz), an eight-year-old who has shown surprising resilience despite a blighted home environment. When Boone doesn't show up for school one day, Daniel asks some questions and learns his mother has become seriously ill and a foster family has taken him in. Boone is eventually put up for adoption, and Daniel hopes to gain custody of the boy, convinced helping the boy will give him a chance to turn his life around. However, his age and criminal record make Daniel an unfit father in the eyes of the court, and when Daniel's father refuses to help, he has a brainstorm -- Boone has mentioned that he has an older sister in Dallas, so Daniel snatches the boy from his foster parents and hits the road for Texas, planning to reunite Boone with his family. Just Like the Son received its world premiere at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Two boys learn the hard way about how a marriage falls apart in this independent comedy drama. Bernard (Jeff Daniels) is a novelist whose career has gone into a slow decline as he spends more time teaching and less time writing. His wife, Joan (Laura Linney), meanwhile, has recently begun publishing her own work to widespread acclaim, which only increases the growing tension between them. One day, Bernard and Joan's two sons -- 16-year-old Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and 12-year-old Frank (Owen Kline) -- are told that their parents are separating, with Bernard renting a house on the other side of their Park Slope, Brooklyn, neighborhood. As the parents set up a schedule for spending time with their children, Walt and Jesse can hardly imagine that things could get more combative between their folks, but they do, as Joan begins dating Ivan (William Baldwin), Frank's tennis instructor, and Bernard starts sharing the house with Lili (Anna Paquin), one of his students. Meanwhile, the two boys begin taking sides in the battle between their parents, with Walt taking after his father and Frank siding with his mom. Based on writer/director Noah Baumbach's own childhood experiences with his parents' divorce, The Squid and the Whale won prizes for writing and direction at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A strange teenager becomes obsessed with a man who has a dangerous past in this independent drama. Fannie (Savannah Haske) is a slow-witted young woman living with her father (Robert John Burke) on a small farm in upstate New York. Fannie's only friends are her pet pig and an elderly woman who she tends to after a fashion, but Fannie wants to have a boyfriend, and often writes clumsy songs about the subject that she performs for the benefit of her cassette recorder. Nile (Dean Wareham) is a second-rate rock musician with a drug habit who moves in next door to the old woman; Fannie is immediately smitten with him, and follows him constantly until he agrees to go out on a date. But Nile makes no secret of his disinterest in Fannie, and ditches her for another woman before the end of the evening. As Fannie wonders how to win Nile's affection, the musician is confronted by a small-time gangster (John C. Reilly) who has some old business with Nile. Piggie was the first directorial credit for Alison Bagnall, who co-authored the screenplay for the cult favorite Buffalo '66. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide