Marie Antoinette Rogers Movies
- 1989
- PG
Superlative photography by Vilimos Zsigismond highlights the family-oriented outdoor drama Journey to Spirit Island. Set in the Pacific Northwest, the films stars Bettina as Maria, a teenaged Native American girl. When her grandmother organizes a protest against defiling their ancestors' sacred burial ground, Maria takes up the cudgel. The villains are the requisite Evil Land Developers, who seek to transform Spirit Island into a vacation resort. The producer of Journey to Spirit Island was Bruce Clark, previously the director of such on-location fare as Hammer (1972) and Ski Bum (1975). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Bettina, Marie Antoinette Rogers, (more)
The road movie gets a smart update with this seriocomic tale of two Cheyenne men traveling from their reservation in Montana to New Mexico. For one of them, Buddy Red Bow (A Martinez), a quick-tempered activist, the journey is a practical one; his sister has been arrested and he is the only family member who can help her out. Buddy has no transportation, so he's forced to ride with Philbert Bono (Gary Farmer), a phlegmatic hulk of a man who is using his 1964 Buick as a vehicle for a spiritual journey of his own. Philbert's easygoing ways and insistence on frequent stops to meditate prove irritating at first to Buddy, but the men reach an accommodation as the trip wears on. Buddy comes to see that blaming the white man and what he sees as system rigged against Native Americans is distracting him from his true mission: to better understand himself and his place in the world. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi
- Starring:
- A. Martinez, Gary Farmer, (more)
Can an independent, contemporary woman find happiness with a guy who sells pickles? Isabelle Grossman (Amy Irving) is an attractive, intelligent Jewish woman in her early 30s. She has a good job and a nice apartment on the Upper West Side, and she values her independence; she often visits her grandmother Bubbie (Reiz Bozyk), who lives on the Lower East Side and wants Isabelle to meet a nice Jewish man and settle down. Bubbie goes so far as to obtain the services of Hannah Mandelbaum (Sylvia Miles), a matchmaker who finds the "perfect" man for Isabelle: a pickle salesman named Sam Posner (Peter Riegert). Isabelle thinks Sam is a nice enough guy, but she has a hard time imagining herself spending her life with the pickle man, and she isn't sure if she wants to pursue the relationship. However, Sam is taken with Isabelle and goes out of his way to change her mind. Crossing Delancy was directed by Joan Micklin Silver, whose breakthrough film Hester Street also examined Jewish culture on the Lower East Side, albeit from the vantage point of the 1890s. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Amy Irving, Reizl Bozyk, (more)
In the wacky satire When Nature Calls, an urban family moves to the country in order to get back to nature. Set as a film within a film, the movie mocks a number of film and television cliches with an exaggerated glee; it also features cameos from a number of celebrities. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi
- Starring:
- David Orange, Barbara Marineau, (more)
- 1976
Stephen Macht is cast as Joseph Arrow, an unemployed Native American ironworker who breaks into the apartment of a powerful and otherwise unapproachable construction boss, hoping to land a job. But when the boss mistakes him for a burglar, Arrow accidentally kills the man. Though sympathetic to Arrow's plight, Kojak (Telly Savalas) must still track down the reluctant murderer and bring him to justice. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
