David Warrilow Movies
Best known for his stage work, British actor David Warrilow also appeared in a few memorable films, including Barton Fink (1991), Radio Days (1987), and Bright, Lights, Big City (1988). Warrilow was particularly noted for his close affiliation with the plays of Samuel Beckett. Before becoming an actor, the England born and raised Warrilow edited Realities magazine in Paris for 11 years. He started acting at a theater workshop in Paris and while working on a production of Beckett's Play, he met JoAnne Akalaitis. The two teamed up and later co-founded the experimental New York theater Mabou Mines. Warrilow was actually an acquaintance of Mr. Beckett and so it was not a great surprise when the playwright wrote A Piece of Monologue especially for Warrilow. While living in Paris, the actor received the prestigious Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1994
This French drama, based on an 1850s essay by Thomas De Quincey, examines a brief, fictionalized time period in the life of Professor Kant. The story is set in Kant's hometown, Konigsberg; it chronicles his last few years prior to his death in 1804 at the age of 80. The story looks more at the great thinker's odd, obsessive lifestyle than it does his philosophies. Kant, truly a "mad professor," had himself on a rigid daily schedule. At night he slept in a mummy-wrap. During the day he imbibed tremendous amounts of coffee at rigidly prescribed intervals. The whole town was expected to keep a respectful distance when Kant took his daily walks. Melodrama enters the philosopher's life after his loyal servant for the past thirty years suddenly leaves. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Warrilow, André Wilms, (more)
The title character, played by John Turturro, is a Broadway playwright, based on Clifford Odets, lured to Hollywood with the promise of untold riches by a boorish studio chieftain (played by Michael Lerner as a combination of Louis B. Mayer and Harry Cohn). Despising the film capital and everything it stands for, Barton Fink comes down with an acute case of writer's block. He is looked after by a secretary (Judy Davis) who has been acting as a ghost writer for an alcoholic screenwriter (John Mahoney, playing a character based on William Faulkner). Also keeping tabs on Fink is a garrulous traveling salesman (John Goodman), the most likeable, stable character in the picture. And then comes the plot twist to end all plot twists, plunging Barton Fink into a surreal nightmare that would make Hieronymus Bosch look like a house painter. Once more, Ethan and Joel Coen serve up a smorgasbord of quirkiness and kinkiness, where nothing is what it seems and nothing turns out as planned. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Turturro, John Goodman, (more)
- 1990
- R
At one time, even the great Buster Keaton was a regular visitor of the mental health, alcoholic rehabilitation-center system. Since main-character Micha is obsessed with Keaton and everything that has to do with him, it is appropriate that after trying to pull a stunt on the public highways in imitation of the master (driving blindfolded), he winds up there as a result of the inevitable accident. The genial residents of the asylum have taken it over, following the death of the real doctor, and are having a grand old time there. They have elected O'Connor (Donald Sutherland) to run the place, perhaps because of his basement snake collection. One person after another dies in unintended mishaps, and the gardener (also an inmate) cheerfully disposes of the corpses. This odd international production features cinematography by the famed Sven Nykvist (who shot so many of Ingmar Bergman's films) and is the product of the stunning visual imagination of the esteemed art-house director Rebecca Horn. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Donald Sutherland, Geraldine Chaplin, (more)
- 1990
In this finely observed low-key drama, Alan Brandon lives by himself. Compared to his employee Bernard, he's practically upper-crust, but in reality he is just a small property holder. He has had his eye on Bernard's abused wife and teen-aged older daughter for some time and has yearnings for some kind of romantic contact with them. For a variety of reasons, Alan lets Bernard go and hires his wife Maud instead as his housekeeper. Meanwhile, Maud's older daughter has been carrying on a lackluster affair with Raif, an apparently parentless lad who lives in the town postmistress' house. When she discovers that she is pregnant, the last thing that she thinks of is marrying the boy, who could very well be the illegitimate son of a local priest. In typically British fashion, nobody admits to his or her real feelings, and fantasies abound. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Amelda Brown, Jason Carter, (more)
Michael J. Fox once more makes a courageous effort to shed his nice-guy image in Bright Lights, Big City. Fox plays an impressionable Kansan who comes to the Big Apple to take a job at a major magazine. It isn't long before he falls into the twin traps of drug and alcohol abuse. His only hope for redemption is in the hands of Vicky (Tracy Pollan), the cousin of his scuzzy drinking buddy Tad (Kiefer Sutherland). Jay McInerney's bestselling novel does not translate easily to the big screen, but Fox strives hard to please, as do all of his costars. The white stuff snorted by Fox wasn't really cocaine, but powdered milk. Watch for Frasier's David Hyde Pierce in a small role and Jason Robards in a significant unbilled cameo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael J. Fox, Kiefer Sutherland, (more)
Woody Allen's gentle and nostalgic tribute to the glory days of radio and coming-of-age during World War II plays like Fellini's Amarcord filtered through Neil Simon. The nominal star is Seth Green as Joe, a teenage Jewish boy, growing up with a house full of relatives in Brooklyn. Allen cuts between Joe's working class neighborhood of Rockaway Beach, Queens, and the glittery and glamorous world of radio in Manhattan. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mia Farrow, Seth Green, (more)
- 1987
Isabelle Huppert stars in this thriller as Sarah, a woman who has settled into a more or less normal life in Milan after her lover, a much-wanted terrorist, left the scene. Her life becomes complicated indeed when she becomes aware that he is about to return. The difficulty is that not only is she aware of this, but the police and various underworld groups are also. How is she to protect her own life under the circumstances, much less keep her lover from falling prey to the various traps that are being set for him? ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Huppert, Joaquim de Almeida, (more)
After Jill Godmilow failed to gain entry into Poland in the early 1980s to make a documentary on the Gdansk strike and the Solidarity movement, she created this docudrama that is meant to tell her story, as well as that of the strikers and the woman who began it all, Anna Walentynowicz (Elzbieta Komorowska). Undoubtedly upset at being rejected, the contrast between Godmilow's problems and the difficulties faced by the down-to-earth Anna is uncomfortably great. Anna has been fired from her job after 30 years of dedicated service at minimal wages, and the workers rally around her -- marking the beginning of the Gdansk strikes. Anna and others of her generation are brought forward in re-enacted interviews in the better segments of this docudrama, while Godmilow's own ruminations and commentaries are somehow less convincing in comparison. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Fitzgerald, Jill Godmilow, (more)
- 1980
- PG
In this far-out comedy that slams it to academia, television, and the military, Simon (Alan Arkin) is a puffed-up professor who is boondoggled by a group of geniuses in a think tank. Becker (Austin Pendleton) leads the wacked-out thinkers as they invent off-the-wall games to keep themselves amused instead of solving global problems in ecology or whatever. They manage to convince Simon he is really a space alien, but then Simon gets away from them and takes refuge in a strange commune headed up by a former television executive (Adolph Green) whose bible is TV Guide. Simon's life does not get any easier since he is being hunted by the army with orders to shoot on sight. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alan Arkin, Austin Pendleton, (more)
- 1979
Not to be confused with the 1986 TV miniseries of the same name, Strong Medicine is the bizarre tale of a bizarre young woman, played bizarrely by Kate Manheim. Shunted aside by society in general, she loses all touch with reality. It helps not at all that she comes in contact with several equally "lost" souls. For an avant-garde exercise, Strong Medicine has a remarkably high-profile cast; it also features Raul Julia and My Dinner With Andre's Wallace Shawn. Filmed in 1979, Strong Medicine lay on the shelf unreleased for nearly six years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kate Manheim
