Lucina Paquet Movies
A boy in the deep South learns the joys and sorrows of first love in this comedy-drama based on the short story by Truman Capote. Billy Bob Murphy (Joe Pichler) is a thirteen-year-old boy growing up in a small Alabama town in 1947. Billy Bob's mother Elinore (Sheryl Lee) lost her husband during World War II, and has been struggling to raise her son on her own. Billy Bob's best friend is Preacher Star (Jesse Plemons); Preacher has a pronounced mischievous streak, which is hardly tempered by the fact his Dad has a drinking problem and his older brothers are teenage thugs in training. When thirteen-year-old Lily Jane Bobbitt (Tania Raymonde) moved into town with her mother, a strange woman who never speaks, both Billy Bob and Preacher are entranced; groomed to act like a "lady" and convinced she's destined for stardom in the movies, Lily Jane isn't like any of the girls in town. But Billy Bob not only has Preacher as a rival for Lily Jane's affections, his best friend's coarse personality makes her wonder if Billy Bob is the sort of young gentleman who is worthy of her company. Lily Jane also earns the enmity of many of her schoolmates when she befriends Sister Rosalba, a girl her age from the town's African-American neighborhood. As Billy Bob struggles with first love, he also has to deal with his mother's budding romance with Speedy, the local auto mechanic (Christopher McDonald. Children On Their Birthdays was the first film directed by Mark Medoff, a noted screenwriter and playwright who received an Oscar nomination for his work on the film Children Of A Lesser God. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
In this darkly comic film noir from writer/director David Atkins, Steve Martin revisits dentistry -- an occupation he'd explored 15 years prior, in the camp musical Little Shop of Horrors. Novocaine casts Martin as a much more mild-mannered D.D.S., Dr. Frank Sangster. Engaged to a prim and delicate hygienist, Jean (Laura Dern), Sangster leads a placid, upper-middle class existence, save for the occasional visit from his deadbeat artist brother Harlan (Elias Koteas). But Sangster finds his life turned inside out from the moment the alluring Susan (Helena Bonham Carter) plops down in his reclining vinyl chair: Complaining about her molars, she's really more interested in the refrigerator of narcotics the good dentist keeps on hand for his patients in pain. Once they manage to get Sangster's guard down, Susan and her brother (Scott Caan) rob him blind -- and worse yet, frame him for the theft. When a dead body turns up in Sangster's sleek suburban home, he finds that clearing his name will be a difficult proposition indeed. Novocaine marks the directorial debut of screenwriter Atkins, who first made his mark with the script for Emir Kusturica's oddball cult favorite Arizona Dream (1993). ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Martin, Helena Bonham Carter, (more)
In Blink, a woman regaining her eyesight after a double cornea transplant operation glimpses the killer of her upstairs neighbor and then must fight for her life as the killer stalks her. Emma Brody (Madeline Stowe), a musician in an Irish folk-rock band was blinded as a result of childhood abuse by her mother. Her doctor, Ryan Pierce (Peter Friedman) performs an operation to restore her vision, but soon Emma is suffering from retroactive hallucinations in which she sees things that have happened hours, or even days, before. As she was the only witness to the murder, her credibility soon comes into question, but she is believed by Detective Hallstrom (Aidan Quinn) who has been tracking what he believes to be a serial killer. Hallstrom also believes that Emma may hold the key to the murderer's motives. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Madeleine Stowe, Aidan Quinn, (more)
Bill Murray plays Phil, a TV weatherman working for a local station in Pennsylvania but convinced that national news stardom is in his grasp. Phil displays a charm and wit on camera that evaporates the moment the red light goes off; he is bitter, appallingly self-centered, and treats his co-workers with contempt, especially his producer Rita (Andie MacDowell) and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliot). On February 2, 1992, Phil, Rita, and Larry are sent on an assignment that Phil especially loathes: the annual Groundhog Day festivities in Punxsutawney, PA, where the citizens await the appearance of Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog who will supposedly determine the length of winter by his ability to see his own shadow. Phil is eager to beat a hasty retreat, but when a freak snowstorm strands him in Punxsutawney, he wakes up the next morning with the strangest sense of déjà vu: he seems to be living the same day over again. The next morning it happens again, and then again. Soon, no matter what he does, he's stuck in February 2, 1992; not imprisonment nor attempted suicide nor kidnapping the groundhog gets him out of the loop. But the more Phil relives the same day, the more he's forced to look at other people's lives, and something unusual happens: he begins to care about others. He starts to respect people, he tries to save the life of a homeless man, and he discovers that he's falling in love with Rita and therefore wants to be someone that she could love in return. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, (more)
In this quirky romantic comedy about soul transference, Alec Baldwin plays Peter Hoskins, the straight-laced head of the microfiche department at a company that publishes scientific journals. When he meets a free-spirited, sleep-deprived bartender named Rita (Meg Ryan), the opposites attract and launch into a round-the-clock romance characterized by private jokes and an intense connection that defies description. When the two decide to marry, however, an unforeseeable cosmic occurrence entirely alters the nature of their relationship. Those who claim that marriage changes a person couldn't be more right in this case, as a confused old man (Sydney Walker) wanders into the wedding reception and plants a single kiss on the lips of the new bride. Longing for the youthfulness he sees in the happy couple, the man inadvertently causes the two to switch bodies during the smooch. Thinking no one will believe the story, Rita (now hidden inside a cancer-ridden octogenarian) leaves the premises before causing any more of a stir, while the old man in Rita's body is whisked off with Peter on their honeymoon before anyone is the wiser. Soon, Peter begins noticing that his new bride is an entirely different person, but can't figure out why -- and wonders if it's just a natural dose of cold feet. When he can no longer ignore the total dissimilarity, Peter begins suspecting that something supernatural has occurred, and wondering how he can restore his wife to her former self, especially when her body's new occupant resists the effort and goes on the lam. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alec Baldwin, Meg Ryan, (more)
