Larry Pine Movies

Produced for British TV by the Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala triumvirate, this India-based comedy was released theatrically in the US. Victor Banerjee, best known to American audiences for his star turn in David Lean's A Passage to India, plays a young rajah named George, while Aparna Sen portrays his sister Bonnie. Brother and sister are the proud possessors of a priceless collection of miniature paintings, which makes them the target of every critic, appraiser and huckster in the art world. George can't understand the "hullabaloo;" to him, art is a picture of a naked woman. Still, he finds himself in a tricky bargaining position as British gentlewoman Peggy Ashcroft (who also would appear in Passage to India) and wealthy American Clark Pine pull out their checkbooks and square off over the ownership of George and Bonnie's pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Genre pioneer Larry Cohen, who broke new horror ground with the killer-baby hit It's Alive!, takes a stab at the giant-monster scenario with this enjoyable low-budget exercise. The title refers to the winged Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, represented here as a dragon-like flying lizard (thanks to some quaint but amusing stop-motion animation from David Allen), who decides to take up residence in the art-deco spire of the Chrysler Building, taking frequent jaunts in the midday sun to nip the heads off various hapless New Yorkers. The resulting bloody mess confounds detectives Shepard (David Carradine) and Powell (Richard Roundtree), who are already scratching their heads over a series of bizarre ritual murders linked to a secret Aztec cult. Into the picture comes the film's protagonist -- neurotic, sweaty, paranoid crook Jimmy Quinn (Michael Moriarty, in a tour-de-force performance), a two-bit wheel-man with aspirations of becoming a jazz pianist. After a botched diamond heist leads Quinn to Q's lair, his attempts to go straight take a side-turn as he decides to extort from the city an enormous sum in exchange for directions to the monster's nest. A few sneaky deals later, the location falls into Shepard's hands, and he leads a paramilitary assault on the Chrysler Building, where the creature's humongous egg is about to hatch. Rude, edgy, fast-paced, and peppered with witty dialogue (most of which can't be repeated here), Cohen's script retains the spirit of classic monster movies like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, injecting it with tough, gangster-movie moxie. Moriarty's unbelievable performance -- one of three collaborations with Cohen -- finds him chewing acres of scenery as a contemptible, loud-mouthed goon who's too funny to hate; Moriarty also composed and performed two schizophrenic piano numbers for the film. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Gene Wilder stars as Michael Jordon, an architect on the run from false murder charges, who hooks up with Kate Hellman (Gilda Radner), the sister of a recent suicide victim. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Arliss Howard plays a baby-faced undercover cop, posing as a high school student. Howard is investigating the murder of a teacher, a task made difficult when his own brother (Loren Dean) becomes the primary suspect. Meanwhile, the ersatz student falls in love with Alexandre Powers, the daughter of the school's gym instructor. Before long, Howard is having trouble separating his "real" self from his fictional persona: he event develops a crush on home-room teacher Suzy Amis! Director Martha Coolidge and scriptwriter A. Scott Frank seem to be having a lot of fun pushing the credibility envelope in the amusing but unnecessarily convoluted Plain Clothes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Kevin Dobson stars in the made-for-TV melodrama Fatal Friendship. Playing the longtime best friend of Gerald McRaney, Dobson is somewhat taken aback when he learns that McRaney is a contract killer. This revelation puts a crimp in their relationship, and also drains Dobson's energies as he tries to catch McRaney in the act. Yes, we know: the audience didn't swallow this one either. Fatal Friendship was first telecast (with an ominous lack of network promotion) on December 1, 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the late 1980s, noted theatrical director Andre Gregory assembled a group of friends and actors and began rehearsing a new translation of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya by David Mamet, not with any specific performance in mind but as a way of exploring the beauty and precise construction of Chekhov's play. Louis Malle, a friend of Gregory's, became interested in the project and spent two weeks filming Gregory's actors as they performed Uncle Vanya without an audience in a run-down theater near New York's Times Square. In these performances, the line between theater and real life is blurred as conversations between actors -- juggling take-out cups of coffee and wearing street clothes -- slowly grow into a superb performance of Chekhov's classic, with Wallace Shawn as Vanya, Julianne Moore as Yelena, Brooke Smith as Sonya, and Larry Pine as Dr. Astrov. With a certain sad irony, this marvelously realized adaptation of a play about people wondering what they've done with their lives proved to be Louis Malle's final film; he died of cancer in 1995. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Tim Robbins' second directorial effort (after the political satire Bob Roberts) was this drama based on a true story, which explores the issue of capital punishment. Sister Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon) is a nun and teacher living in rural Louisiana. One day, she receives a letter from Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn), who is scheduled to be executed soon for the rape and murder of two teenagers. After meeting Matthew, Sister Helen agrees to serve as spiritual counselor and see what she can do to stay the execution. However, Matthew's claims of innocence seem shaky at best, and it's clear he's a reprehensible, amoral racist. When it becomes obvious that Matthew's sentence will be carried out, Sister Helen offers what comfort she can to Matthew, but also tries to guide him to an open admission of the extent of his crimes and an acceptance of divine forgiveness, telling him "I want the last face you see to be the face of love." Susan Sarandon won an Oscar for her performance as Sister Prejean, and Sean Penn was similarly nominated for Best Actor as Matthew. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The too often tragically ignored street children of Rio de Janeiro figure prominently in this thriller that begins in a hillside slum where 13-year-old Branquinha brags to a German television crew that she has married the neighborhood equivalent to "Joe Cool." Actually her husband is a dim-witted fatso drug runner who gets into deep trouble after he inadvertently causes his boss's demise. With other dealers hot on his trail, Maguila escapes with Branquinha and her friend Japa. The trouble really begins when Maguila bungles again and ends up trapped in a rich-man's villa in the middle of a hostage situation. Now only his diminutive "bride" and her friend can save them. Things get worse when the press gets involved. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Writer-director Jonathan Nossiter's first feature film is a moody exploration of assaults upon, and shifts in, personal identity. The movie's action all takes place on a Sunday in a poor section of the New York City borough of Queens. Oliver (David Suchet) is a newly homeless middle-aged man who was downsized out of his job as a mid-level functionary at a computer corporation and lost his wife and family because of his employment troubles. Out walking in the borough, Oliver collides with Madeleine Vesey (Lisa Harrow), an out-of-work British actress who is in the process of breaking up with her American husband, Ben (Larry Pine). Madeleine mistakes Oliver for Matthew Delacorta, a famous film director, and Oliver goes along with the mistake, hoping that it will help him to escape his misery. Madeleine hopes that she can make an impression that will land her a film role, so she invites her new friend up to her apartment. When Oliver tells her his life story, she mistakes it for an invented movie plot because Madeleine lives her life in a fantasy world, pretending reality is a film. After the two lost souls have sex without emotion, Ben shows up. He tells Oliver that his recent open-heart surgery wounds were caused by a knife attack from Madeleine. Oliver leaves as the estranged couple argues, but he returns to retrieve his precious winter coat, and he becomes further entangled in the fantasy of a new identity. Sunday won the Grand Jury prize at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Adam Marcus, whose previous works include Jason Goes to Hell (1993), directs this heartwarming romantic comedy. The film opens with little James Ellis watching his parents divorce and his mother (Bernadette Peters) hop from one Mr. Wrong to the next. His grandmother warns him that "in this family, the men leave and the women go crazy." Fast-forward 14 years to a gloriously snowy winter day when James (played by screenwriter and brother of the director Kipp Marcus) runs into his neighbor Sarah (Alice Dylan). As best buddies, the two help each other out as he enrolls in a cooking school and she studies at a New York college. Soon, their attraction boils over and they stumble into their first kiss. Confused, Sarah tells James that the kiss was a mistake, though in her heart it felt all too right. Crestfallen, James dutifully agrees. But when he gathers the courage to tell her what he really feels, she has left to study in England. James seeks solace from a series of failed rebound dates by spending evenings at a local club with his fellow walking wounded. Snow Days was screened at the 1999 AFI/L.A. Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Onetime advertising director Eric Webber, who in the 1980's created campaigns for Dr. Pepper and Molson, here takes a satiric look at his former profession. Ken Tuttle (Randy Pearlstein) is a frustrated author who takes a job as a copywriter at Cranston & Co., headed by Tom Cranston (Robert Klein). Tuttle is guided through the corporate world by bitter creative director George Parkyn (Tony Hendra) as he helps craft an ad campaign for a sanitary napkin which its makers claim is so revolutionary it will change the way women view the world. However, a rival firm has also been retained to create a campaign for the same product, and tense competition between the two companies leads to infighting at Cranston & Co. and personal problems for Tuttle and his girlfriend (Ingrid Rogers). This dark and sharp-edged comedy was drawn from Webber's personal experiences in the ad game; he claims several of the film's most outrageous moments are based on true stories. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Lilli (Jennifer Elster, who also wrote and directed the film) is unhappy. She's a struggling artist, living in New York City and cynical about everything, including her own talent. Her father (Alan Samulski) is dying, and Lilli barely acknowledges his existence, while her mother (Susan Floyd), clearly divorced from reality, pretends that her husband left town years ago. The trauma of being raised by two junkies and of her parents' eventual breakup still affects all of Lilli's relationships and her view of herself. She's got a group show opening at a major gallery, but she doesn't even know if she wants to attend. One day she meets Morrison (Gale Harold of Showtime's Queer as Folk), an obsessive-compulsive poet who lives in relative luxury but is too afraid of germs to get out of his car when he first tries to talk to Lilli. While he's better off financially, Morrison has his own family problems, as his father (Larry Pine) and mother (Leslie Lyles) are keeping crucial secrets from each other. While they're attracted to each other almost instantly, Lilli and Morrison have a tremendous struggle ahead of them to forge any kind of moderately healthy relationship. Particles of Truth had its world premiere at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide