Damian Young Movies
The down-and-dirty side of building management in pre-gentrification Manhattan sets the stage for this dark comedy. It's 1981, and Joe Peltz (David Krumholtz) runs a newsstand in New York City, where he has recently married Annabelle (Clara Bellar), an exotic dancer from France who isn't in love with Joe but asked for his hand so she could get a Green Card. When Annabelle discovers she's pregnant, the couple decides they need a larger apartment, and Joe finds a flat in the East Village that's on the same block where his great-great-grandparents lived when they first came to America. However, the neighborhood is decaying and ridden with crime, and when Joe and Annabelle move into their new apartment, he's immediately drafted onto the building's co-op board, where he has to deal with a variety of eccentrics of various stripes and must often sleep in the lobby armed with a baseball bat to ward off junkies and burglars. But by far his biggest problem is Carlos DeJesus (Paul Calderon), a bully who has been squatting in the building for eight years with his roughneck teenage son, Segundo (Jon Budinoff). Carlos sees no reason why he should start paying rent, and he's made enemies with practically everyone who lives in the building, wasting no time in adding Joe and Annabelle to that list. So when a gasoline fire guts Carlos' apartment, the question is not who wanted him out, but who actually had the nerve to start the blaze. Based on a novel by Joel Rose, Kill the Poor was written for the screen by Daniel Handler, best known as the author of the popular "Lemony Snicket" books. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Krumholtz, Clara Bellar, (more)
- 2000
A prisoner is murdered while still behind bars. At first, it seems to be an open-and-shut case, with detectives Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Green (Jesse L. Martin) almost immediately collaring the likeliest suspect. But did the perpetrator act on his own volition, or was he merely following orders -- orders that may have been issued from outside prison walls? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 2000
You can take a spy out of the cold war, but you can't take the cold war out of the spy in this satiric TV situation comedy. Kennedy Smith (Linden Ashby) is an American espionage agent who for years has been locked in a life-and-death struggle with his nemesis, Kreigman (Damian Young). Smith, however, figures he's had as much cloak-and-daggering as a man can take, and decides to give up his life as a spy to settle into a quiet life in the suburbs with his wife Lily (Susan Walters). But Kreigman isn't about to give up on making Smith's life a living Hell, even if he has to do it on his own time; Kreigman and his partner-in-crime Barbara Bush (Tara Rosling) move in next door to Kennedy and Lily, and soon the war of wills is being waged in the land of crabgrass and barbecues. The War Next Door first aired on the USA cable network on July 23, 2000. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Linden Ashby, Damian Young, (more)
- 1999
When a taxi driver finds that he has a dead body in the back of his cab, detectives Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Green (Jesse L. Martin) are forced to open up a 60-year-old mystery. At the center of the intrigue is an insurance racket, which may be preying upon survivors of the Holocaust. The D.A.'s office must first tackle the old case before solving the new one. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Art Jones directed this comedy-drama about NYC's Nomad Movement, a trend described in newspaper and magazine articles: New York automobile owners cruise Manhattan at night, driving until dawn as a cool-down from the pressures and stress of their jobs. East Villager El Cid Rivera (Damian Young), age 32 and named after his mom's favorite film, is one such Nomad of the night, cruising under flashing neon in his existential explorations. Intercut with El Cid's quest are the voices of other Nomads, uttering poems expressing their own vehicular visions. Shown at the Dances With Films Festival of the Unknowns (Santa Monica). ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Damian Young, Victor Argo, (more)
- 1998
Mexican TV-soap actress Olympia Miraflores (Carmen Nogales) announces her ambition to compete in the Olympic javelin throw, but her manager Ed Pedernales (Damian Young) and her fans aren't exactly keen on the idea. Swimming across the Rio Grande, Olympia meets Billy Daniel (Jason Andrews), who has no job and lives in Laredo with his mother (Patricia Fiske). Billy begins coaching Olympia, but his angry mom becomes furious over the idea. After she throws him out of the house, leaving him with only a cookie jar of pocket change, Billy escalates his rulebook regimen for the actress-athlete into an intensive training schedule. Shown at the 1998 Slamdance Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carmen Nogales, Jason Andrews, (more)
- 1996
Created by William Finkelstein of Civil Wars fame, the made-for-TV feature On Seventh Avenue was intended as the pilot for a weekly series. Wendy Makkena stars as Nadine Jacobs, the owner of a high-profile fashion business established by her father (played by actor-director Gene Saks). In order to keep her business afloat in a sea of cutthroat competitors, Nadine recklessly cuts several deals with a major investment firm--and with the Mob. In typical "pilot" fashion, the film ends with several loose plotlines still dangling and unresolved; guess we'll never know what happened now (sigh!) On Seventh Avenue was telecast by NBC on June 10, 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1994
- R
Hal Hartley's fourth feature is a significant break from the quirky romantic comedy territory of his previous work -- though all of the deadpan idiosyncracies which make him such a singular filmmaker remain intact, here he tries his hand at the thriller genre, a move yielding typically unconventional and innovative results. Amateur stars Hartley mainstay Martin Donovan as Thomas, an amnesiac who, in the first scenes, wakes up in an alley, badly injured; he stumbles to a nearby coffeeshop where he meets Isabelle (Isabelle Huppert), a former nun and would-be nymphomaniac who now makes her living writing pornographic fiction. She takes him back to her apartment, where in time his past slowly begins to emerge -- a sharp contrast to the sweet, even naive soul that Huppert has befriended, it appears that the old Thomas was in fact a vicious pornographer whose attempted murder was at the hands of his wife, adult film star wife Sofia (Elina Lowensohn). Thomas is also the target of a nefarious European arms merchant whose hired guns are hot on his trail. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isabelle Huppert, Martin Donovan, (more)
A pair of brothers dodge the law while trying to locate their long-lost father in this third feature from independent New York filmmaker Hal Hartley. Robert John Burke stars as Bill McCabe, a failed computer thief who's just been doublecrossed by his girlfriend and partner. Vowing revenge on the next beautiful blonde he encounters, Bill meets up with his younger brother Dennis (William Sage), a philosophy student concerned about their father William (John A. MacKay). It seems the McCabe paterfamilias was a former major league shortstop who became an anarchist bomber in the 1960s, nearly blowing up the Pentagon. On the run for twenty-three years, William was recently caught by the FBI but escaped again. Based on information from their mother, the McCabes travel to Long Island, where William may be hiding. Along the way, the brothers meet the epileptic Elina (Elina Lowensohn) and her friend Kate (Karen Sillas), a beautiful blonde with whom Bill is instantly smitten. While Dennis figures out that Elina is somehow connected to William, Bill contends with Kate's ex-con husband Jack (Joe Stevens) and Jack's best friend Martin (Martin Donovan), both of whom are also in love with her. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert John Burke, Bill Sage, (more)
