Tim Blake Nelson Movies
An accomplished playwright, screenwriter, director, and actor, former classics major Tim Blake Nelson is perhaps most familiar to the movie audience as the hilariously dim Delmar in Joel and Ethan Coen's goofy Oscar-nominated comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000).Born in Oklahoma, Nelson attended college at Brown University where he became a Latinist in the classics department. Opting for the arts over academia, Nelson headed to New York after college, studying acting at Juilliard and embarking on an Obie Award-winning career as a stage writer. After making his film debut in Nora Ephron's freshman directorial effort This Is My Life (1992), Nelson occasionally appeared in films throughout the 1990s, playing small roles in Hal Hartley's Amateur (1994), the Al Pacino/Johnny Depp mob drama Donnie Brasco (1997), and Terrence Malick's radiant anti-war anti-epic The Thin Red Line (1998). Along with film acting, Nelson turned to filmmaking with the screen adaptation of his play Eye of God (1997), a somber rural drama about a woman's marriage to a pious ex-con with a violent past, which earned positive notice at the Sundance Film Festival. Because of his ability to handle difficult questions of violence and create an ominous mood out of the everyday, Nelson was asked to helm the modernized, teen version of Shakespeare's Othello, retitled O (2001). Shot in 1999, O languished on the shelf in the wake of a series of high school shootings, deemed an inappropriate release because of its violent denouement.
In the meantime, Nelson's friend Joel Coen offered him one of the starring roles in O Brother, Where Art Thou?. As comfortable playing rural comedy as directing rural drama, Nelson shined as the dimmest of a trio of hare-brained fugitives in the Coen brothers' shaggy-dog 1930s Southern Odyssey. After his successful stint with the Coens' light-hearted movie, Nelson returned squarely to downbeat material, directing the screen adaptation of his play The Grey Zone (2001). A drama about the only armed revolt at Auschwitz, The Grey Zone was already hitting the film-festival circuit when Lionsgate removed O from its Miramax purgatory, releasing it in August 2001. Impressing some critics with its central performances and evocative Southern Gothic atmosphere (if not always with all aspects of the adaptation), O confirmed Nelson's ability to translate his concern with the complex motivations for (and fall out from) violence to the film medium.
Back to being an actor for hire, Nelson scored a summer 2002 hat trick with roles in one glossy big studio blockbuster and two well-regarded independent releases. In Steven Spielberg's Minority Report (2002), Nelson stood out (albeit a bit too much for some critical tastes) as the oddball, organ-playing guardian of the imprisoned "pre"-killers captured by Precrime hotshot Tom Cruise. Refraining from such theatrical eccentricity, Nelson garnered more positive reviews for his turn as a shy technician charged with servicing house arrestee Robin Tunney's ankle bracelet in the singular indie romance Cherish (2002), and as John C. Reilly's doltish, stoner best friend and co-worker in Miguel Arteta's dark comedy The Good Girl (2002).
Nelson's roles proliferated through the first years of the new millennium -- he averaged around six to eight A-list features per year, the number doubtless heightened by Nelson's status as a character actor and his resultant tendency to gravitate to bit parts in lieu of leading roles. For the first several years after The Good Girl, Nelson's roles included, among others: Dr. Jonathan Jacobo, the "pterodactyl ghost" in Raja Gosnell's Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004); Danny Dalton, a representative of the oil company Killen, in Stephen Gaghan's muckraking drama Syriana (2005); and Tom Loyless, the supervisor of a polio treatment center revitalized by F.D.R., in Joseph Sargent's superior telemovie Warm Springs (2005). Nelson then appeared as Curly Branitt, an entrepreneur determined to build a pancake house and expel the resident animals at the location, in the Jimmy Buffett-produced, family-oriented comedy Hoot (2006). He plays Kevin Munchak in Michael Polish's drama The Astronaut Farmer (2006), starring Billy Bob Thornton, Virginia Madsen, and Bruce Dern; and The North Beach Killer in Finn Taylor's fiendish black comedy The Darwin Awards (2007). Nelson is married to the actress Lisa Benavides; they reside in Southern California. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
In the tradition of Dore Schary's Sunrise at Campobello, the made-for-cable biopic Warm Springs focuses on one of the least publicized aspects in the life of America's most-publicized (and longest-serving) president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, here played brilliantly by British actor Kenneth Branagh. Like Sunrise, Warm Springs uses as its starting point the year 1921, when the 39-year-old Roosevelt was permanently paralyzed from the waist down by an attack of polio. But whereas the earlier film concentrated on FDR's battle to return to public life despite his handicap, this film zeroes in on Roosevelt's efforts to cure himself of his affliction. Having heard of the therapeutic value of the waters of Warm Springs in rural Georgia, Roosevelt makes a pilgrimage to the area, which is little more than a swamp surrounded by dilapidated shacks. Though he never experiences the "miracle" cure that he so desperately seeks, Roosevelt is instrumental in the conversion of Warm Springs from a backwater hellhole to a streamlined, efficiently managed polio-treatment center, a virtual mecca for hundreds of thousands of others who had been crippled by the debilitating illness. And in the process, he also brings hope, optimism, and racial enlightenment to the poverty-stricken, multiethnic citizens of Warm Springs. Even more significantly, FDR removes the stigma of polio from the public consciousness, forever abolishing the misguided notions that the disease adversely affected the brain, that it could be spread merely by physical contact, or that it represented celestial "punishment" of the victim (it is noted, however, that Roosevelt was always careful never to reveal the true extent of his immobility nor his atrophied legs in public, feeling that it might diminish the nation's image of an "invulnerable" Commander in Chief). Also in the cast are Cynthia Nixon as Roosevelt's devoted wife, Eleanor; Jane Alexander (who'd previously played Eleanor Roosevelt in two TV miniseries) as his over-protective mother Sara; David Paymer as his crusty chief aide Louis Howe; Kathy Bates as his no-nonsense physical therapist Helena Mahoney; and Tim Blake Nelson as Tom Loyless, the man in charge of Warm Springs. Originally telecast by HBO on April 30, 2005. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kenneth Branagh, Cynthia Nixon, (more)
Two men look for a wife -- just one will do, thank you -- in this offbeat comedy. Jake (Tim Blake Nelson) and Josh (David Arquette) are two brothers who live and work in a vegetable farm somewhere in the Midwest, where they're looked after by their Ma (Lois Smith), who cooks, cleans, and keeps the guys company. When Ma dies, Jake and Josh find they're a bit lonely all by their lonesome, and more importantly, they're not much good at everyday domestic activities, so they decide to do the sensible thing -- one of them will get married so they'll have someone else to talk to and handle things in the kitchen and the laundry room. Woefully naïve, socially clumsy, and less interested in romance than day-to-day practicalities, Jake and Josh decide to head out on a matchmaking tour to St. Petersburg, Russia, where they're promised introductions to hundreds of women over the space of two weeks, in hopes that they'll find an understanding, old-fashioned wife who doesn't mind having a third wheel around at all times. A Foreign Affair was shot on location in St. Petersburg in the former Soviet Union, and in Chihuahua, Mexico, which stood in for the United States. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tim Blake Nelson, David Arquette, (more)
- 2010
- R
Edward Norton handles dual acting duties in Tim Blake Nelson's Leaves of Grass, a comedic thriller that finds the thesp portraying identical twins on opposite sides of the social spectrum -- one being a free-wheeling criminal, while the other is a respected professor with an Ivy League background. Nelson co-stars in the Barbarian Films production, for which he also accepts the producing, writing, and directing responsibilities. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edward Norton, Tim Blake Nelson, (more)
- 2009
- R
A compulsive gambler attempts to cure his addiction by moving from Las Vegas to Albuquerque and working at an auto insurance company, only to find old temptations cropping up once again when he's sent out to investigate a dubious car accident just outside of Sin City. After a string of bad luck at the tables, John (Steve Buscemi) decides to give up gambling and take a shot at a "normal" life. Arriving in Albuquerque and landing a job at an auto insurance company, John goes to work for Mr. Townsend (Peter Dinklage), who pairs him with the company's top fraud debunker, Virgil (Romany Malco), and sends them out on an investigation together. While John is eager to get a promotion, he's reluctant to go anywhere near Las Vegas, and before he leaves he strikes up a tenuous romance with his eccentric co-worker Jill (Sarah Silverman). On the road, Virgil and John encounter a series of offbeat characters including a nude militant (Tim Blake Nelson), a wheelchair-bound stripper (Emmanuelle Chriqui), and a carnival human torch (John Cho). But while Virgil is the one with the experience, John gradually begins to assert himself and soon his efforts begin to pay off as the case moves closer to conclusion. As John's confidence grows, he becomes increasingly aware of the fact that running away from his gambling problem is not the solution, and that he'll only be able to move forward by returning to Las Vegas to face his demons head on. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Buscemi, Romany Malco, (more)
When a San Francisco homicide detective with a keen eye for criminal profiling is fired for botching the arrest of a notorious serial killer, his subsequent effort to reinvent himself as an insurance claims case-investigator leads him to study a series of perplexing wrongful deaths in this comedy starring Joseph Fiennes, Winona Ryder, Tim Blake Nelson, and Wilmer Valderrama. Michael Burrows (Fiennes) isn't your typical detective. Though Detective Burrows is a paranoid obsessive-compulsive who faints at the sight of blood, his remarkable insight into the criminal mindset has nevertheless made him a valuable asset to the San Francisco Police Department. When Detective Burrows' idiosyncrasies allow the feared "North Beach Killer" to elude capture, however, he is fired by his superiors. Upon offering his unique skills to a doubting insurance company, Burrows is given 30 days in which to prove he can sort out the legitimate claims from the false ones. Now, as Burrows makes for the Midwest in the company of hard-nosed field agent Siri Tyler (Ryder), the film student (Valderrama) who has been following the former detective for his thesis follows the pair as they investigate a series of forehead-slapping deaths, including that of a powerful executive who attempts to prove that his high-rise window is unbreakable and a pair of English tourists who fatally misinterpret the "cruise control" function on their rented RV. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joseph Fiennes, Winona Ryder, (more)
A Southern beauty whose habit of waking up in strange beds with head-ringing hangovers is beginning to wear thin determines to uncover her secret shrouded family past in hopes of discovering the truth about the woman she has become in the feature filmmaking debut of actor-turned-director Joey Lauren Adams. Lucy (Ashley Judd) is a small town thirtysomething who seems to have fallen into a downward spiral of alcohol-fueled benders and spontaneous one-night stands. In order to begin the transformation necessary to help her overcome her self-destructive ways, however, Lucy will have to look deep into her familial past and seek out the true weight of the burden that has led her down the darkened path she currently walks. Diane Ladd, Tim Blake Nelson, and Laura Prepon co-star in an intimate personal drama that made its premiere at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ashley Judd, Jeffrey Donovan, (more)
In a 1950s-era alternate universe where domesticated zombies play a functional role in society by delivering the milk, carrying the mail, and even helping out with household chores, one boy is about to find out just how big of a personal responsibility "pet" ownership truly is. When the Earth passed through a cloud of space dust and the dead arose from their graves to devour the flesh of the living, it first seemed that all hope for humanity was lost. Society's rapid slide into chaos, however, was soon halted when scientists at a company called ZomCom created a special collar that turned the rampaging animated corpses docile. Now, thanks to ZomCom, everything is under control -- or is it? Timmy Robinson (K'Sun Ray) isn't quite convinced. Quiet and withdrawn, the skeptical young boy spends so much time locked away in his room that he's almost become invisible around the household. His mother Helen (Carrie-Anne Moss) has recently purchased a zombie to help keep things tidy around the house though, and when the creature attempts to engage the curious youngster in a game of catch, a friendship is forged between boy and zombie that finds the amiable gut-muncher nicknamed Fido (Billy Connolly) practically becoming a part of the family. Things take a turn for the worse however, when Fido's collar malfunctions and Timmy's neighbors begin dying in droves. When ZomCom's top zombie control specialist Mr. Bottoms (Henry Czerny) moves in across the street from Timmy, the increasingly complicated situation threatens to place a serious stumbling block in the path of human-zombie relations. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Kaye, Jan Skorzewski, (more)
A man down on his luck hatches a different kind of get-rich-quick scheme in this independent comedy. Andy Sargentee (Jeff Bridges) is a middle-aged divorcé who is down in the dumps after the departure of his wife, Thelma (Jeanne Tripplehorn), and son, Billy (Alex D. Linz). The fact that Thelma's new hubby is quite wealthy only makes things more troubling for Andy, and he keeps thinking that if he had more money he could be back in her good graces. One night, while knocking back drinks with his friends, Andy has a brainstorm -- pornography is big business these days, so why not round up the local talent and make an adult movie? Andy persuades his friend Barney (Tim Blake Nelson) to sign on as co-producer, and they start putting together a crew, including Emmett (Patrick Fugit), a kid with a video camera who becomes director of photography, Otis (William Fichtner), who volunteers to be the gofer who doesn't really do anything, and as director a guy known only by his nickname, Some Idiot (Joe Pantoliano). Casting proves to be a bit more problematic, especially after they discover that Moose (Ted Danson), who has been cast in the male lead, may be gay when he repeatedly fails to rise to the occasion. The Amateurs also stars Lauren Graham, Valerie Perrine, and Glenne Headly as some of the local women drafted into appearing in the movie; the picture was released in the United Kingdom under the title The Moguls. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeff Bridges, Ted Danson, (more)
A travel agent in deep debt attempts to swindle a by-the-books insurance agent by claiming the corpse of a gangland hit as his long-missing brother in director Mark Mylod's dark crime comedy. Paul Barnell (Robin Williams) is in trouble. Saddled with a cantankerous wife (Holly Hunter) and unable to convince ambitious insurance company agent Ted (Giovanni Ribisi) to pay off the one-million-dollar claim on his brother, who has been missing for five years, Paul's debts are mounting as fast as his life is crumbling. When Paul discovers the corpse of a nameless man who ended up on the wrong side of the mob, desperation drives him to stage a grizzly death scene and make it look as if his brother has suffered a horrible fate. Though the local police force is easily taken by Paul's elaborate ruse, it's going to take a little more convincing before Ted is willing to sign off on the hefty insurance payment. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robin Williams, Holly Hunter, (more)
Oil drives greed in Oscar-winning Traffic screenwriter Stephen Gaghan's labyrinthine sophomore directorial effort that traces the corruption of the global oil industry from the backrooms of Washington, D.C., to the petroleum-rich fields of the Middle East. Based in part on the writings of former CIA case officer Robert Baer, Syriana combines multiple storylines to explore the complexities that befall a proposed merger between two U.S. oil giants. Reform-minded Gulf country prince Nasir (Alexander Siddig) is in favor of making his nation more self-sufficient rather than U.S.-reliant, and his money-minded Western connections couldn't be less pleased. Before settling into a cushy desk job for the remainder of his career, CIA agent Bob Barnes (George Clooney) is sent on one last assignment -- to assassinate Prince Nasir and reinstate U.S. ties in the oil-rich region. Though his loyalty dictates that Barnes carry out his current mission despite lingering doubts of a previous blunder, his mission goes horribly awry when his field contact goes turncoat and Barnes becomes a CIA scapegoat. Meanwhile, up-and-coming Washington attorney Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright) attempts to walk a fine line in overseeing a tenuous merger between two oil giants that's plagued with shady business dealings. Hotshot energy analyst Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon) is in talks to form a lucrative partnership with Prince Nasir, though the death of his son during a party at the prince's estate makes him question his loyalty to business over family. Back in Washington, D.C., Bennet's boss Dean Whiting attempts to undermine Prince Nasir's attempts to make his country less reliant on the U.S. dollar by planting the seeds of dissonance between the progressive prince and his money-minded younger brother Prince Meshal (Akbar Kurtha). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Clooney, Matt Damon, (more)
A woman has a hard time embracing reality after a personal tragedy in this made-for-cable drama. Molly (Vinessa Shaw) is a young widow having a hard time putting her life back together after her husband's death. Molly obsesses over the leftover artifacts of his life, and she believes that his spirit walks the house they used to share, though her attempts to photograph the ghost are a failure. Molly supports herself by working at a photo shop, where the manager (Amy Van Nostrand) is convinced Molly needs to remarry, and isn't shy about dropping hints. But Molly seems to have built an emotional wall around herself until she meets an uncouth neighbor (Tim Blake Nelson) who lives in the neighborhood with his uncle. While she doesn't think much of him at first, Molly in time makes friends with the man, and under his spell, she develops a daring and impulsive streak. Bereft was directed by Tim Daly, who also appears in a supporting role; the cast also includes Edward Herrmann and Marsha Mason. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vinessa Shaw, Tim Blake Nelson, (more)
Directed by Jeff Nathanson, The Last Shot follows what happens when, like so many aspiring entertainers, the FBI gets caught up in the grandeur of showbiz. When Agent Joe Devine (Alec Baldwin) is given a key role in an elaborate scheme to take down the infamous mob boss John Gotti, he gladly accepts the assignment and goes undercover as a Hollywood producer. Before long, he has assembled an unwitting cast, including aspiring director Steven Schatz (Matthew Broderick), who agrees to direct for Devine without realizing the entire production is merely a front for the investigation. As Agent Devine and several of his cohorts from the bureau begin enjoying their lives as self-appointed industry players, however, justice takes a backseat as the would-be law-enforcement operatives put all of the passion into turning what began as a sham movie project into a true Hollywood contender. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matthew Broderick, Alec Baldwin, (more)
James Cox directs the sleazy Hollywood murder tale Wonderland, starring Val Kilmer as legendary porn star John Holmes. Using a non-linear plot structure, the film explores different perspectives of the quadruple homicide that occurred on July 1, 1981, in the Hollywood Hills. At the lowest point of his career and the height of his drug addiction, Holmes was implicated in the murders of the Wonderland gang: Ron Launius (Josh Lucas), Billy Deverell (Tim Blake Nelson), Barbara Richardson (Natasha Gregson Wagner), and Joy Miller (Janeane Garofalo). Launius' wife, Susan (Christina Applegate), was the only survivor. Led by Detective Sam Nico (Ted Levine), the police investigation reveals a dark criminal underworld surrounding Holmes, his disapproving wife, Sharon (Lisa Kudrow), and his innocent teenage girlfriend, Dawn Schiller (Kate Bosworth). Eric Bogosian stars as notorious Hollywood nightclub owner Eddie Nash. Wonderland premiered at the 2003 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Val Kilmer, Kate Bosworth, (more)
Finn Taylor's quirky comedy Cherish concerns Zoe (Robin Tunney), a woman unlucky in love. She is berated at work and always seems to strike out with the opposite sex. After being asked by an attractive co-worker (Jason Priestley) to dance at a party, Zoe is kidnapped by a stalker who has fallen in love with her. During a scuffle, they accidentally kill a police officer. The stalker disappears and Zoe is charged with the crime. Soon she is under house arrest. The technician in charge of her ankle bracelet (Tim Blake Nelson) is as socially awkward as she is. Soon they grow close and he gets her a nine-hour window in which the pair tries to find the stalker and clear her name. Rocker Liz Phair and Saturday Night Live alumnus Nora Dunn round out the cast of this film that was screened at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robin Tunney, Tim Blake Nelson, (more)
Director Miguel Arteta and writer Mike White, who had previously collaborated on Chuck and Buck, turn an eye toward suburban boredom with the quirky comedy The Good Girl. Jennifer Aniston stars as Justine, a woman who is feeling constrained by her life. Her husband, Phil (John C. Reilly), is a house painter who spends the majority of his time smoking marijuana with his friend Bubba (Tim Blake Nelson). Longing for something more in her life, Justine becomes involved with a younger co-worker named Tom (Jake Gyllenhall), but because of his fascination with The Catcher in the Rye, he likes to be called Holden. Her new sense of freedom and release are threatened when a co-worker dies, and when Bubba learns of her infidelity. This film was screened at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jennifer Aniston, Jake Gyllenhaal, (more)
A modernized retelling of William Shakespeare's Othello, O changes its setting to an elite private school in the American South. Odin (Mekhi Phifer) is the only black student at Palmetto Grove and also the star basketball player, with hopes of reaching the NBA. A popular student, he is dating Desi Brable (Julia Stiles), the daughter of the school's dean (John Heard), and they are deeply devoted to each other despite their different backgrounds. His best friend Hugo (Josh Hartnett) is a starter on the basketball team, and the son of the hard-driving coach Duke Goulding (Martin Sheen), who considers Odin as much his son as Hugo. Hugo is jealous of Odin's widespread popularity, so he hatches a scheme to ruin Odin's reputation with the help of Roger (Elden Henson), his rich roommate who will do anything to be popular and get Desi's attention. Through carefully planned revenge, he begins to make Odin believe that Desi is carrying out an affair with teammate Michael (Andrew Keegan). As Odin begins to receive merely coincidental signs to prove it, he begins to slowly lose his grounding and turns to Hugo for help, not knowing that he is being set up. As the basketball season comes to a close, Odin's jealousy begins to consume him, resulting in the loss of everything he cares about the most. O was sometime actor Tim Blake Nelson's directorial follow-up to his well-received debut Eye of God. ~ Jason Clark, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mekhi Phifer, Josh Hartnett, (more)
Actor, writer, and director Tim Blake Nelson adapts this grim look at the Holocaust from his own play, based on Miklós Nyiszli's book, Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account. The film centers on the Sonderkommando: Jewish concentration camp prisoners whose job was to herd their fellow Jews into the gas chamber, and to dispose of the bodies following the execution. In return, these prisoners received food and a little more time before their own executions. As the members of the sonderkommando struggle to orchestrate what would be the only armed insurrection in Auschwitz, a group of them discover a 14-year-old girl who somehow survived the gas chamber. The girl becomes a symbol for their own spiritual salvation and they become obsessed with keeping the girl alive, even if it endangers the uprising that could save thousands. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Arquette, Daniel Benzali, (more)
The return of director Terrence Malick to feature filmmaking after a twenty year sabbatical, this World War II drama is an elegiac rumination on man's destruction of nature and himself, based on James Jones' semi-autobiographical novel, his follow-up to From Here to Eternity. James Caviezel stars as Private Witt, a deserter living in peace and harmony with the natives of a Pacific island paradise. Captured by the Navy, Witt is debriefed by a senior officer (Sean Penn) and returned to an active duty unit preparing for what will be the Battle of Guadalcanal. As Witt goes ashore in the company of his fellow soldiers, they meet diverse fates. Sergeant Keck (Woody Harrelson) is killed by an exploding grenade. Captain John Gaff (John Cusack) is an intelligent, sober leader facing the destruction of his command because his commanding officer Colonel Tall (Nick Nolte) is bucking for a general's star. Sergeant McCron (John Savage) loses his mind. Private Bell (Ben Chaplin) gets a "Dear John" letter from his beloved wife. However, as the U.S. troops advance up grassy slopes toward entrenched Japanese positions, it is Witt's voiced-over ruminations on life, death, and nature that are the real heart and soul of The Thin Red Line (1998). Adrien Brody appears as Private Fife, the major character of Jones' novel and the author's alter-ego, although Fife has been relegated to a minor supporting role by Malick's filmed adaptation. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, (more)
Ainsley Dupree (Martha Plimpton) is a short-order cook at a diner in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, a country town in the middle of nowhere. Lonely and bored, Ainsley becomes pen pals with Jack Stillings (Kevin Anderson), who is currently serving time in prison. When Jack is released, he immediately asks Ainsley to marry him, and she impulsively agrees. Jack embraced Christianity while behind bars, and he encourages his wife to attend church with him each Sunday. However, Jack's requests soon become demands, and before long, she's forbidden to leave the house while he's at work pumping gas. Ainsley quietly rebuffs Jack's demands, slipping into town to a convenience store while he's away, but she soon learns, after Jack's parole officer pays a visit to their home, that his crime was more serious than she imagined; he beat a woman so brutally that she nearly died. Meanwhile, Sheriff Sam Rogers (Hal Holbrook) finds a 14-year-old boy, Tom Spencer (Nick Stahl), wandering dazed in ragged and bloody clothes along a lonely road. Tom leads Sam to the scene of a violent crime he has just witnessed, while telling him of the traumatic events in his family that led to an act of shocking brutality. Writer and director Tim Blake Nelson adapted Eye of God from his own stage play. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martha Plimpton, Kevin Anderson, (more)
- 1994
- R
Hal Hartley's fourth feature is a significant break from the quirky romantic comedy territory of his previous work -- though all of the deadpan idiosyncracies which make him such a singular filmmaker remain intact, here he tries his hand at the thriller genre, a move yielding typically unconventional and innovative results. Amateur stars Hartley mainstay Martin Donovan as Thomas, an amnesiac who, in the first scenes, wakes up in an alley, badly injured; he stumbles to a nearby coffeeshop where he meets Isabelle (Isabelle Huppert), a former nun and would-be nymphomaniac who now makes her living writing pornographic fiction. She takes him back to her apartment, where in time his past slowly begins to emerge -- a sharp contrast to the sweet, even naive soul that Huppert has befriended, it appears that the old Thomas was in fact a vicious pornographer whose attempted murder was at the hands of his wife, adult film star wife Sofia (Elina Lowensohn). Thomas is also the target of a nefarious European arms merchant whose hired guns are hot on his trail. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Huppert, Martin Donovan, (more)
Mild-mannered scientist Bruce Banner has been traveling the globe in search of the antidote that will allow him to break free from his primal alter ego, but both the warmongers who long to exploit him for their own gain and a horrific creature known as The Abomination are determined to stop him from achieving his noble goal in Transporter 2 director Louis Leterrier's take on the classic Marvel Comics superhero tale. For years, Bruce (Edward Norton) has been living in the shadows, pursued by the military and haunted by the rage within. But traveling the world in secrecy isn't easy, and as hard as he tries Bruce can't get Betty Ross (Liv Tyler) off his mind. The daughter of Bruce's nemesis Gen. Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross (William Hurt), Betty represents everything that is beautiful in the world to a man who lives his life on the run. Eventually, Bruce returns to civilization and faces the wrath of The Abomination. While the Hulk may be a formidable force of nature, The Abomination is decidedly more powerful, and determined to destroy Bruce Banner. Created when KGB agent Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) exposed himself to a higher dose of the same radiation that transformed Bruce into The Hulk, The Abomination is unable to change back into human form and holds Bruce accountable for his frightful condition. With time fast running out for both Bruce and The Hulk, New York City is about to become the ultimate urban battle zone as two of the most powerful creatures ever to walk the earth clash in a massive, no-holds-barred fight to the finish. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, (more)
Nicole Beharie, Tim Blake Nelson, Will Patton, and Xzibit headline this fact-based drama about an innocent Texas mother caught up in a high-profile drug raid, and unjustly accused due to the uncorroborated testimony of a single informant. Dee Roberts (Beharie) is a young single mother of four living in a small Texas town. Arrested during a drug raid and accused of a crime she didn't commit, Dee goes against the wishes of her mother, Alma (Alfre Woodard), and rejects the plea-bargain that would free her from jail, but brand her as a felon for life. As word begins to spread that similar incidents are occurring in poor communities all across the country, Dee realizes that there are more mothers out there like her, and decides to take a stand against powerful district attorney Calvin Beckett (Michael O'Keefe). Now, despite being well aware of District Attorney Beckett's fierce reputation, Dee enlists the aid of ACLU attorney David Cohen (Nelson) and former narcotics officer Sam Conroy (Patton) in overcoming the seemingly insurmountable obstacles that, if not navigated with the greatest of caution, now threaten to destroy her life. With the custody of her children on the line, one brave mother wages a valiant battle to strike at the very heart of the corrupt Texas justice system. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nicole Beharie, Tim Blake Nelson, (more)
