John Ford Noonan Movies

Hell's Kitchen, New York City: In an era when real estate development and gentrification threaten to squeeze low-income residents out of this vibrant, multi-ethnic community, filmmaker Kamal Ahmed turns his camera on the people who walk these streets every day to offer a portrait of the neighborhood that has been immortalized in movies for decades. It's one of the Big Apple's most notorious neighborhoods, and the people who live there are the kind of folks who have to struggle just to get by. In order to pay tribute to Hell's Kitchen, Ahmed speaks with the very people who made it great. These are the laborers, the painters, barbers, tattoo artists, and other working class heroes. After paying tribute to a place many thought would never change, the filmmaker returns to highlight the redevelopment project that made it virtually unrecognizable in 2007. Appearances by such neighborhood fixtures as John Michael Bolger, Charlie Sheen, Lloyd Kaufmann, and Mira Sorvino make this an urban love letter that's sure to strike a chord deep within every nostalgic New Yorker. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

In this satirical comedy, Mel Coplin (Ben Stiller) has a beautiful wife, Nancy (Patricia Arquette), and a four-month old son, and on the surface his life is good. But something's been troubling him: Mel knows he was adopted, and he can't resolve his issues with the mother who gave him away years ago, much to the annoyance of his adoptive parents (George Segal and Mary Tyler Moore). Mel decides it's time he met his birth parents and resolved his feelings once and for all, and Tina (Tea Leoni), a psychology student, has offered to tag along to capture the event on video for a research project. But after a few minutes with Mel's "real" mother, they discover that a mistake has been made and they've been directed to the wrong person. A second meeting, this time with Mel's supposed dad, also turns out to be a mistake, and it's quite some time before Mel, Nancy, and Tina are finally face to face with Mel's biological parents -- a pair of burned-out hippies (played by Alan Alda and Lily Tomlin) who support themselves by dealing blotter acid daubed onto pictures of Ronald Reagan. It doesn't help that Mel finds himself attracted to the very leggy Tina, or that Nancy's head is turned by a bisexual ATF agent (Josh Brolin). Writer/director David O. Russell previously made a splash with his independent debut feature, 1994's Spanking the Monkey. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

An aspiring actor leaves his home in Brooklyn for adulthood in Manhattan in Paul Mazursky's loosely autobiographical comedy-drama. In 1953, would-be thesp Larry Lapinsky (Lenny Baker) flees his hysterically clinging mother (Shelley Winters) for a $25-a-month (!!) apartment in bohemian Greenwich Village. Between Method-like acting classes, a movie audition (where he meets a posturing actor played by Jeff Goldblum), and work at a juice bar, Larry hangs out with a circle of archetypal Village eccentrics, including suicidal Anita (Lois Smith), womanizing poet Robert (Christopher Walken), and flamboyantly un-closeted homosexual Bernstein (Antonio Fargas), as he negotiates the pitfalls of love and sex with liberated girlfriend Sarah (Ellen Greene). The fallout over the group's ill-fated love affairs, and the Lapinskys' inopportune surprise visits, finally lead Larry to make peace with his past as he contemplates his future in Hollywood. Mazursky looks back to the 1950s as in such other 1970s films as American Graffiti, Grease, and TV's Happy Days, but his Greenwich Village life is less a time of lost pre-'60s innocence than a precursor of things to come. Sex, Larry jokes, may be serious, but it is also an omnipresent fact of life rather than something to be feared or repressed; love is the real problem. Even as Larry's friends strike various poses, they are all out to do their own thing as best they can. Critical response to Mazursky's nostalgia trip was mixed when the film was released, but the performances, particularly Winters, were admired. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide