Ross McCall Movies
Born in Scotland, actor Ross McCall moved with his family to England as a child, and it was there that he trained at Redroof's Theater School in Maidenhead. As a child, he began acting on stage in plays like Les Misérables, and had the immense honor of playing rock legend Freddie Mercury as a child in Queen's music video for the song "The Miracle." In early adulthood, he began making guest appearances on TV shows and, as he amassed more and more roles on his resumé, he began snagging better roles in feature films. In 2007, he became engaged to actress Jennifer Love Hewitt. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide
An American abroad is introduced to the heady but dangerous pleasures of violence in this powerful drama from Great Britain. Matt Buckner (Elijah Wood) is a journalism student from America who is expelled from college when his roommate sets him to take the fall after drugs are found in their dorm room. Needing time to sort out what his next move should be, Matt travels to London to visit his sister Shannon (Claire Forlani), who has married British Steve Dunham (Marc Warren). As it happens, Matt arrives at a less than opportune moment, and he ends up spending his first evening in the U.K. with Steve's brother Pete (Charlie Hunnam). Pete hangs out with a "firm" of friends who call themselves "the Green Street Elite" and are passionate fans of the West Ham United football club (Matt quickly discovers calling British football "soccer" is an easy way to get your teeth knocked out). Pete has little use for Matt until the Green Street Elite get into a dust-up with another firm; Matt turns out to be a fierce if inexperienced fighter, and discovers he enjoys the kick of street brawling. Matt is cautiously accepted by Pete and the other members of the firm, and is soon absorbed into the very British world of violent football fandom. But when Pete and his friends learn that Matt studied journalism, they begin to suspect he's a reporter doing an undercover piece on hooliganism, and they set out to teach him an ugly lesson about loyalty. The debut feature film from British director Lexi Alexander, Green Street Hooligans (initially shown simply as Hooligans) was the first film ever to win both the Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the South by Southwest Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elijah Wood, Charlie Hunnam, (more)
The low-budget indie feature EMR weaves several of the most notorious and oft-told urban myths into the narrative of a single thriller. It begins with Englishman Adam (Adam Leese) regaining full consciousness after a seizure - tens of thousands of miles from home - only to discover that someone has surgically extracted one of his kidneys. All roads lead to a shady drug company called Phenal, which Adam believes is plotting against him, systematically. As Adam's paranoia builds, he realizes that no one around him can be fully trusted. Gil Bellows, Guy Henry and Whitney Cummings co-star; newcomers James Erskine and Danny McCullough co-direct. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Adam Leese
As the latest volume in the Nature Unleashed series of high-adrenaline, direct-to-video thrillers (all built around natural disasters),Nature Unleashed: Fire concerns an inexperienced park ranger, Jake (Terminal Virus'sBryan Genesse). The young man's first mission -- to rescue a group of lost hikers in mid-forest -- takes a deadly and potentially fatal turn when he unknowingly leads the pack into a methane filled cave and the group finds itself not only ensconced by flames, but overcome by deadly gas. Jam-packed with pulse-pounding suspense and cliffhanging action, Nature Unleashed: Fire co-stars Ross McCall and Melanie Lewis. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bryan Genesse, Ross McCall, (more)
Executive produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks for HBO, Band of Brothers is a ten-part miniseries based on the book Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne From Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest by Stephen E. Ambrose. The series dramatically re-creates the path of Easy Company, an elite paratrooper unit, from their basic training at Camp Toccoa in Georgia in 1942, to D-Day, to their critical involvement in the Battle of the Bulge, through their triumph at the close of the war. The unit was one of the best trained and most productive in American military history, but it also suffered immense casualties. The series is an ensemble piece, involving dozens of characters, and cast with relative unknowns. To the extent that there is a central character, it is Dick Winters (Damian Lewis), who went to Toccoa as a lieutenant and was promoted, over the course of the war, to battalion commander. Each episode includes brief excerpts from present-day interviews with some of the surviving members of the company. While the series is not a hagiography, Winters is depicted as a brave, resourceful, and humane leader. It's clear that the men revered him, and that he genuinely respected and cared about them. There are a few other members of the unit that make a strong impression. Sobel (David Schwimmer of Friends), their C.O. at Toccoa, is depicted as a petty tyrant whose men bond together in their hatred of him. Nixon (Ron Livingston of Office Space) is Winters' fellow officer and best friend, and an alcoholic. Carwood Lipton (Donnie Wahlberg) is a decent, hard-working man, and a tremendous soldier who earns a battlefield commission for his exemplary leadership. Bill Guarnere (Frank John Hughes) fears nothing, and is known for his wise-guy attitude and hot temper. The series dramatizes the courage and fortitude of many others, but it's clear that Winters sets the tone for his men, and plays a pivotal role in the unit's success. The project involved several screenwriters, including Graham Yost (Speed) and E. Max Frye (Something Wild). Eight different directors were called upon for the ten installments, including Hanks, David Frankel (Miami Rhapsody), Mikael Salomon (Hard Rain), and Phil Alden Robinson (Field of Dreams). Still, the tone and style of the series remains fairly consistent. While the story of Easy Company has been condensed and altered in some minor ways for dramatic purposes, and much of the dialogue was, by necessity, invented, the producers placed a strong emphasis on accurately depicting the conditions under which these men lived, fought, and died. Several survivors from the company consulted on the project, and an enormous amount of money was spent on sets, costumes, and special effects in order to re-create their experience. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Damian Lewis, Donnie Wahlberg, (more)
- 1993
First telecast by the BBC on November 14, 1993, the two-part British TV movie The Return of the Borrowers is a sequel to the classic children's book by Mary Norton. Real-life husband and wife Ian Holm and Penelope Wilton head the cast as Pod and Homily Clock, a pair of teeny-tiny people who, with their equally microscopic daughter, Arietty (Rebecca Callard), live beneath the floorboards of a Victorian house. In order to survive, the Clock family must "borrow" various necessities from normal-sized people -- or as they're known to the trio, "Human Beans." Forced to move from their familiar digs, the Clocks stumble across a miniature model house that proves to be just right for their needs, and in the bargain they befriend a youthful Human Bean named George (Paul Cross). Alas, the well-being of the diminutive brood is threatened by the evil designs of one Mrs. Drivers (Sian Phillips). In America, The Return of the Borrowers was first seen over the TNT cable network on June 4 and 5, 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ian Holm, Penelope Wilton, (more)
Based on the novel by Graham Swift, this drama follows the past and present crises of schoolteacher Tom Crick (Jeremy Irons), who attempts to resolve the problems in his own life and the apathy of his students by relating stories of his troubled childhood in the English Fens (a marshy region in Britain). ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeremy Irons, Ethan Hawke, (more)
