Katherine Wallach Movies

In this comedy, a woman discovers that it's impossible to get ahead in business without a man to guide her -- so she invents one. Laurel (Whoopi Goldberg) is an expert financial analyst with a top Wall Street brokerage; however, she keeps getting passed over for raises and promotions, and she's convinced that no one at her firm takes her seriously because she's a black woman. Frustrated, Laurel and her loyal assistant Sally (Dianne Wiest) open a new firm, but Laurel discovers that her fears were based firmly in reality: male clients don't want to take financial advice from women, especially women of color. So Laurel invents a white man, Robert S. Cutty, to be the firm's top adviser. Speaking on Cutty's behalf, Laurel passes along the fictional man's advice, which her new clients find to be quite sound, and when they stop by to see him, he always manages to be out of the office (and why wouldn't a man so successful be busy?). The ruse seems to work, and soon Laurel's business is going great guns, but an increasingly large number of her clients want to see Cutty face to face, which won't be easy to pull off. However, with the help of a drag queen, Laurel tries to remake herself into Cutty for a night in order to keep her firm afloat. The Associate was based on a novel by author Jenaro Prieto. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Martin Scorsese explores the life of organized crime with his gritty, kinetic adaptation of Nicolas Pileggi's best-selling Wiseguy, the true-life account of mobster and FBI informant Henry Hill. Set to a true-to-period rock soundtrack, the story details the rise and fall of Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian New York kid who grows up idolizing the "wise guys" in his impoverished Brooklyn neighborhood. He begins hanging around the mobsters, running errands and doing odd jobs until he gains the notice of local chieftain Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino), who takes him in as a surrogate son. As he reaches his teens, Hill (Ray Liotta) is inducted into the world of petty crime, where he distinguishes himself as a "stand-up guy" by choosing jail time over ratting on his accomplices. From that moment on, he is a part of the family. Along with his psychotic partner Tommy (Joe Pesci), he rises through the ranks to become Paulie's lieutenant; however, he quickly learns that, like his mentor Jimmy (Robert DeNiro), his ethnicity prevents him from ever becoming a "made guy," an actual member of the crime family. Soon he finds himself the target of both the feds and the mobsters, who feel that he has become a threat to their security with his reckless dealings. Goodfellas was rewarded with six Academy Award nominations including Best Picture; Pesci would walk away with Best Supporting Actor for his work. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide

Anyone even vaguely familiar with the endless antics of the deliberately eccentric Catalonian artist Salvador Dali (1904-1989) may find this biographical tidbit fascinating. By 1940, still in his thirties, this strikingly handsome (though slightly pop-eyed) artist had made waves around the world among those who followed the avant garde. His best-known painting, The Persistence of Memory, was already synonymous with surrealism. However, it is his mad-seeming publicity-hound antics that polished his already notorious reputation to a high gloss. In this movie, Dali (Lorenzo Quinn) has just arrived in New York harbor wearing fried eggs on the lapels of his elegant suit, with a loaf of bread on his head. This is appropriate attire for a surrealist who explores the power of putting objects in places where they do not "belong." He is immediately taken in hand by a reporter from the New York Times, and is encouraged to tell the reporter the story of his life, which shows up in flashbacks. Among those whose lives he has sparkled in is the famously homosexual Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, who fell in love with the artist when he was a gorgeous young man; the more sexually conventional filmmaker Luis Buñuel, who created some of his more famous and outrageous classics (e.g. Un Chien Andalou) while he associated with the artist; and his fellow artist Pablo Picasso, who surely took a leaf or two from this brash man in the self-promotion department. Though filmed in English, the film was released in a dubbed Catalan version. Though he frequently appeared to be quite mad, Dali's picturesque madness was entirely deliberate -- and very, very profitable. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide