Melissa Leo Movies

An ageing Seattle rocker takes a pair of teens on a camping trip in this warm-hearted coming of age story starring Mark Duplass and Academy Award-nominee Melissa Leo. Sam Bryant (Duplass) isn't exactly the kind of guy a parent would recruit to take their kids on a camping trip; he doesn't have a job, he's still searching for a record deal, and he was nearly homeless until he moved into his aunt's house in the suburbs. But perhaps a change of scenery will do Sam well, and when Oliver (Bret Loehr) and Jake (Carr Thompson) need an adult to supervise their camping trip, Sam reluctantly obliges. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

An orphaned boy is thrown head-first into a new and different life in this drama. Twelve-year-old Hector (Jacob Kiron Shalov), who has lived all his life in New Jersey, is riding in the car with his mother when they're struck by another driver; Hector receives only minor injuries, but his mother is killed. With nowhere else to go, Hector is forced to take up an offer to stay with his grandmother, who lives in the Philippines and has never met him. Hector can't speak Tagalog and his grandmother Lita (Angie Ferro) knows no English; not only can't they communicate, but Hector and Lita soon discover they don't much like one another. The teeming slums of Manila are like no place Hector has ever seen, and with few other options he falls in with a gang of teenage thugs led by Miguel (Pierro Rodriguez), who goads him into breaking into a house in a well-to-do neighborhood. Hector is caught red-handed by the owner of the house, Jose (Jaime Tirelli), a photographer who speaks fluent English. Jose insists that Hector work off the damage he's done, but he soon takes the boy under his wing, teaching him a bit about photography and giving him chores to keep him out of trouble. Hector also attracts the attention of a pretty girl, Sel (Maria Lopez), but while they're clearly fond of one another, Hector soon discovers Sel already has a boyfriend -- Miguel. Santa Mesa was the first feature film from writer and director Ron Morales. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Writer-director Ian Olds's fourteen-minute short Bomb begins with a situation that feels deceptively sweet, and cloaked in innocence, as two adolescents flirt with one another on the rim of a now-defunct bombing range. As the two head home, however, they run head-first into bitter disillusionment, engendered by adult attempts to undo the strands of their friendship. Melissa Leo, John Magaro and Naomi Aborn co-star. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

After twenty years spent literally waiting in the wings, perpetual off-Broadway understudy Ann (Andrea Powell) has reached the end of her emotional tether. If her professional existence is headed down the fast track to nowhere, her private life teeters on the verge of destruction, given her decision to nurture an ill-fated marital engagement to thesp Guy (Jonathan Marc Sherman). Ann's current stage work posits her as an understudy to diva-hopeful K.C. (Melissa Leo of Henry Jaglom's Always), and the former spends most of her days in the green room, killing time with understudies Shelly (Richard Vetere) and Russell (Zack Griffiths). The production takes an unusual and unanticipated twist, however, when Russell is thrown into the production to replace one of the actors, and must perform a scene that requires him to simulate the rape of K.C.'s character. The confused K.C. simultaneously believes she's falling in love with Russell, and believes that he is actually sexually abusing her during the sequence; the combined effect rips her apart emotionally and ultimately requires Ann to replace her in the production - which moves Ann's multilayered relationship with Russell center stage. Debra Eisenstadt (Daydream) directs, and co-authored the original screenplay with Jill Eisenstadt. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

A despondent Brooklyn housewife whose life has become a boring and predictable routine finds her entire perception of the universe changed upon experiencing a close-encounter in her very own kitchen. Joanne Schwartzbaum (Cara Buono) has been sleepwalking her way through life for as far back as she can remember, but when an alien force reveals itself to her she is instantly snapped out of her complacent existence. Upon seeing a flier for a UFO support group during her weekly outing to the grocery store, Joanne determines to attend the meeting in hopes that it will provide her with a better understanding of her strange experience. When Joanne strikes up a friendly conversation with African immigrant Abraham Kanga (Isaach De Bankole) and realizes that they have both been branded by their extraterrestrial abductors, she enlists the aid of the amiable cab driver and market worker in solving the perplexing mystery. In the days that follow Joanne's frantic sleuthing activities become increasingly troubling to her incredulous husband Brain (David Lansbury), who soon begins to suspect that his wife is having an affair. Later, when Joanne sees a television news broadcast announcing the discovery of an unusual papyrus Egyptian scroll, she enlists the aid of her UFO support group to break into the Brooklyn Art Museum, snatch the curious artifact, and save the human race. Director Barry Strugatz helms a sci-fi spoof that gleefully pays homage to the B-movie hits of yesteryear while offering an absorbing tale of one woman's quest to stave off an impending alien invasion. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Some six months after the cancellation of the popular, hard-hitting TV cop series Homicide, most of the cast members were reunited for a two-hour TV movie, which deftly (and somewhat surprisingly) combines stark, raw realism with Sartre-esque flights of fantasy. Several members past and present of the Baltimore Police Department's homicide squad are brought back together when their former skipper and current mayoral candidate, Al "G" Giardelli (Yaphet Kotto), is gunned down by a would-be assassin. As former partners Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor) conduct their own personal search for the perpetrator, the comatose "G" discovers that not all police review boards are conducted by the living. Like its weekly predecessor, Homicide: The Movie was co-produced by Baltimore native Barry Levinson. The film made its first NBC network TV appearance on February 13, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the seventh and final season of Homicide: Life on the Street, Baltimore detectives Pembleton (Andre Braugher) and Kellerman (Reed Diamond) have resigned in the wake of the bloody shoot-out between the homicide cops and the minions of criminal mastermind Georgia Rae Mahoney (though Kellerman will return in a later episode as a private detective). Seriously wounded in the fray, detectives Bayliss (Kyle Secor) and Ghary (Peter Gerety) eventually return to work, but it is clear that some emotional scars will never heal. Former recurring character Det. Terri Stivers (Toni Lewis) has become a regular, while new cast members include Michael Michele as Detective Rene Sheppard, a former beauty queen, and Giancarlo Esposito as FBI agent Mike Giardello, the long-estranged son of homicide lieutenant Al Giardello (Yaphet Kotto). Before the year is out, Mike will make Al a grandfather; Detective Munch (Richard Belzer) will finally propose to his long-suffering girlfriend, Billie Lou McCoy (Ellen McElduff); detectives Det. Laura Ballard (Callie Thorne) and Falsone (Jon Seda) will enter into a romance so torrid that Giardello is forced to warn them to cool things down or they'll be suspended; and Rene Sheppard will endure both a serious injury and a humiliating suspension. Episode highlights include yet another crossover with Law & Order, this one involving an investigation conducted by a Kenneth Starr-like special prosecutor and appropriately titled "Sideshow," and the devastating "Line of Fire," in which the homicide cops try and fail to negotiate with a reluctant murderer. Homicide caps its seven-season run with good news for Giardello; the unauthorized shootdown of a killer who has managed to slip through the legal cracks; and a literal "full circle" for Bayliss (Kyle Secor), whose career with the Baltimore PD began with the series' first episode...and ends with the last one. ~ All Movie Guide

In the final episode of Homicide: Life on the Street's fifth season, a grieving Howard (Melissa Leo) wants to be primary investigator of the death of her former colleague (and intimate) Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin), but Giardello (Yaphet Kotto) insists upon placing a more objective individual in charge. Elsewhere, Kellerman (Reed Diamond) and Cox (Michelle Forbes) are forced to confront their inner demons; Bayliss (Kyle Secor) continues appearing and disappearing from view without warning; and Pembleton (Andre Braugher) offers to give up his job for the sake of his marriage. As the episode ends, a number of radical changes are promised for the series' next season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Munch (Richard Belzer) suffers a crisis in faith when a middle-aged woman whom he had pined over in high school is found murdered. As he investigates the case, Munch flashes back to his mixed-up youth, yielding few answers but plenty of questions. Meanwhile, Mary Pembleton (Ami Brabson) walks out on her husband, Frank (Andre Braugher), when he shows up for their daughter's baptism. Among its many other virtues, "Kaddish" is the only cop-series episode in living memory to invoke the title of the long-forgotten 1959 private-eye TV show Johnny Staccato (an early John Cassavetes effort). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When one of drug kingpin Luther Mahoney's "heroin mules" is found dead, Lewis (Clark Johnson) and Kellerman (Reed Diamond) mount an elaborate sting operation to bring down Mahoney (Erik Todd Dellums) once and for all. Elsewhere, Bayliss (Kyle Secor) finally patches up his differences with Pembleton (Andre Braugher), then braces himself for a meeting with the relative who sexually abused him as a child. And Munch (Richard Belzer) is informed that the so-called victim in an old murder case may still be alive -- little realizing that he is being set up as a pawn for a vengeful gangster. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide