Robert W. Castle Movies
- 1995
- NR
Director Abel Ferrara applies his eccentric vision to the vampire genre with this cerebral "Art" film about graduate philosophy student Kathleen Conklin (Lili Taylor), who is bitten by an aggressive female vampire (Annabella Sciorra) and soon spirals into a nightmarish world of blood addiction and existential angst. Driven by her merciless condition, she attacks several of her pretentious friends and classmates (even her professor) and mainlines their blood like heroin. Just as she becomes more bold in seeking prey on the streets of New York, she is waylaid by a potential victim -- actually a sophisticated vampire himself named Peina (Christopher Walken), who chooses to control his own blood addiction through fasting and meditation. Seeming to regain her self-control, she eventually completes her graduate thesis (helped by a bit of vampire nepotism) and holds a party to celebrate, inviting the entire faculty as well as members of her new "family" to join in the festivities. Although the parallels to heroin addiction are in plain view, this is also a study in the essential evil of humankind -- a theme evident in much of Ferrara's work. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lili Taylor, Christopher Walken, (more)
At the time of its release, Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia was the first big-budget Hollywood film to tackle the medical, political, and social issues of AIDS. Tom Hanks, in his first Academy Award-winning performance, plays Andrew Beckett, a talented lawyer at a stodgy Philadelphia law firm. The homosexual Andrew has contracted AIDS but fears informing his firm about the disease. The firm's senior partner, Charles Wheeler (Jason Robards), assigns Andrew a case involving their most important client. Andrew begins diligently working on the case, but soon the lesions associated with AIDS are visible on his face. Wheeler abruptly removes Andrew from the case and fires him from the firm. Andrew believes he has been fired because of his illness and plans to fight the firm in court. But because of the firm's reputation, no lawyer in Philadelphia will risk handling his case. In desperation, Andrew hires Joe Miller (Denzel Washington), a black lawyer who advertises on television, mainly handling personal injury cases. Miller dislikes homosexuals but agrees to take the case for the money and exposure. As Miller prepares for the courtroom battle against one of the law firm's key litigators, Belinda Conine (Mary Steenburgen), Miller begins to realize the discrimination practiced against Andrew is no different from the discrimination Miller himself has to battle against. The cast also includes Antonio Banderas as Andrew's partner, Joanne Woodward as Andrew's mother, and Stephanie Roth as Joe's wife. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, (more)
- 1992
- NR
Episcopal priest Robert Castle is the subject of this documentary, whose title refers to his relation to the film's director, Jonathan Demme. Best-known for his Oscar-winning work on Silence of the Lambs (released the same year as this film), Demme is no stranger to nonfiction filmmaking, with one of the great rock concert films Stop Making Sense on his filmography. He had lost touch with his cousin for many years, so making this film was an excuse to get reacquainted. Castle was born in 1929 in Jersey City, where he was assigned to his first parish, St. John's, in 1960. As the racial makeup of his parish slowly changed from mostly white to mostly black, Castle became a lightning rod for the burgeoning civil rights movement, taking to the streets during one of the long hot summers of the mid-'60s to calm his parishioners and prevent a full-scale riot. The church hierarchy was not in tune with his activism, so he dropped out of the priesthood in the '70s and moved to Vermont to raise his family. He had trouble finding work because of his alleged connections to radical groups such as the Black Panthers, so he returned to the church, to serve as pastor of St. Mary's in Harlem. Demme shows his cousin speaking out at a neighborhood rally, leading protests to have a giant pothole at 125th Street and Broadway filled and a stoplight installed at another intersection near a school, and joining the family for a reunion at his former farm in Vermont. Castle comes off as a genuinely idealistic and committed man in this informal yet loving portrait. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
