Don Carmody Movies

Gail Harvey's Some Things That Stay stars Katie Boland as a teenager whose adolescence is complicated by her bohemian family and their resistance to the cultural mores of Eisenhower-era America. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

A turn down an uncharted dirt road leads six young people into a night of pure terror in this horror story. Chris (Desmond Harrington) is driving through West Virginia on his way to a job interview when an auto accident slows highway traffic to a near standstill. Afraid he'll be late, Chris takes a detour down an old dirt road; a distracted Chris doesn't see an SUV stuck in the middle of the road before it's too late, and he plows into the back after his tires suddenly blow. The driver of the SUV, Jessie (Eliza Dushku), was out on a camping trip with four of her friends -- Evan (Kevin Zegers), Francine (Lindy Booth), Carly (Emmanuelle Chriqui), and Scott (Jeremy Sisto) -- when their tires went out, and as Jessie and Chris compare notes on their accidents, they discover that the road has been sabotaged with barbed wire. With both parties in need of a telephone, Evan and Francine are left to look after the cars while the other four set out to find help. However, Evan and Francine soon discover they've been led into a horrible trap, and as Chris, Jessie, and their friends search for help, they find that they've fallen victim not to local pranksters, but a gang of inbred backwoods killers with a taste for blood. Wrong Turn was produced in part by Stan Winston, a legendary special-effects artist whose work has appeared in such films as Jurassic Park, Aliens, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A starry-eyed would-be star discovers just how far the notion that "there's no such thing as bad publicity" can go in this screen adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Chicago, originally directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse. In the mid-'20s, Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger) is a small-time chorus dancer married to a well-meaning dunderhead named Amos (John C. Reilly). Roxie is having an affair on the side with Fred Casley (Dominic West), a smooth talker who insists he can make her a star. However, Fred strings Roxie along a bit too far for his own good, and when she realizes that his promises are empty, she becomes enraged and murders Fred in cold blood. Roxie soon finds herself behind bars alongside Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a sexy vaudeville star who used to perform with her sister until Velma discovered that her sister had been sleeping with her husband. Velma shot them both dead, and, after scheming prison matron "Mama" Morton hooks Velma up with hotshot lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), Velma becomes the new Queen of the scandal sheets. Roxie is just shrewd enough to realize that her poor fortune could also bring her fame, so she convinces Amos to also hire Flynn. Soon Flynn is splashing Roxie's story -- or, more accurately, a highly melodramatic revision of Roxie's story -- all over the gutter press, and Roxy and Velma are soon battling neck-to-neck over who can win greater fame through the headlines. A project that had been moving from studio to studio since the musical opened on Broadway in 1973, Chicago also features guest appearances by Lucy Liu and Christine Baranski. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Sylvester Stallone wrote the screenplay for this action-packed drama directed by Renny Harlin and set in the dangerous, high-stakes world of CART auto racing. Jimmy Bly (Kip Pardue) is an up-and-coming young star of the open-wheel circuit, but he's slipping in the rankings as the championships loom. Under pressure from his promoter brother Demille (Robert Sean Leonard) and wheelchair-bound owner Carl Henry (Burt Reynolds), Jimmy is given a mentor -- Joe Tanto (Stallone), a once great CART competitor whose career and marriage to Cathy (Gina Gershon) were destroyed by a tragic accident. Joe must earn the rookie's trust, while attempting a career comeback, dealing with persistent reporter Lucretia Clan (Stacy Edwards), and facing Cathy, who's remarried to rival racing sensation Memo Moreno (Cristian de la Fuente). Meanwhile, Jimmy is stirring up his own romantic trouble by pursuing Sophia (Estella Warren), the girlfriend of top driver Beau Brandenburg (Til Schweiger). Long interested in creating a car racing drama, Stallone penned Driven after abandoning a film biography of real-life Formula One legend Ayrton Senna. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Esteemed writer/director David Mamet fashioned this homage to the elegant, character-driven "tough guy" genre pictures of Warner Bros. in the 1930s and '40s, even using vintage scores in the soundtrack. Gene Hackman stars as Joe Moore, an accomplished thief whose career is jeopardized after he's caught on security cameras during a job. Broke, Joe and his associates Bobby (Delroy Lindo) and Pinky (Ricky Jay) are blackmailed by their longtime fence Bergman (Danny DeVito) into jacking Swiss gold bars from an airplane. As they plot the complicated score, Joe and his crew become suspicious of the relationship between Joe's young wife Fran (Rebecca Pidgeon) and Bergman's nephew Jimmy Silk (Sam Rockwell), who has been planted on the crew to keep an eye on them for his uncle. Betrayals and backstabbings are the order of the day as Joe gets closer to the payday of a lifetime. In an effort to reinforce the solid storytelling of classic crime dramas, Mamet eschewed the use of computers or high-tech gadgetry in the complicated plot. Heist (2001) co-stars Patti LuPone. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

A spy who has convinced much of the world he doesn't exist now must prove that he does in order to save thousands of lives in this thriller. After the assassination of Wu (James Hong), China's ambassador to the United Nations, in the midst of negotiations on a trade pact, FBI agent Neil Shaw (Wesley Snipes) is assigned to ferret out the killer by his superior, Eleanor Hooks (Anne Archer). But Shaw soon discovers that he's now considered a key suspect in the murder, and is the subject of a manhunt. Shaw's ability to cover his tracks, and his network of similarly "invisible" agents, makes him a hard man to track down. But when Shaw learns that the real killers not only plan to strike again but intend to take out most of the U.N. in the process, he swings into action to prevent the attack and clear his name; Shaw is thrown into a partnership with Julia (Marie Matiko), a U.N. interpreter who witnessed Wu's murder and may be able to trace a recording of the crime. The Art of War co-stars Michael Biehn as Bly, one of Shaw's associates, and Donald Sutherland as the Secretary General of the United Nations. The film was originally written as a vehicle of Hong Kong action star Jet Li before Snipes stepped in as both star and executive producer. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Feeling that they are doing God's will, two Catholic men from Boston set out to kill everyone in this Reservoir Dogs-style vigilante thriller. Brothers Conner and Murphy MacManus (Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus) take to performing their divine duty against the Russian mob. They massacre a bunch of unsuspecting Mafioso in a scene of absurd violence, then they let more blood in a mass killing of porn-shop customers. Instead of getting thrown in jail, they are dubbed "saints" by the Boston Herald, and they are praised by brilliant, tortured, and gay FBI agent Paul Smecker (Willem Dafoe). ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

In this crime thriller, L.L. Cool J is a underworld boss so powerful that his nickname is "God." He has his fingers in 80% of the drug traffic in Cincinnati, has won over nearly every adversary through bribery or intimidation, and seems practically untouchable. New police detective Jeffrey Cole (Omar Epps), convinced that he's the man who can bring down "God" and his empire, assumes a criminal identity that allows him to infiltrate "God"'s organization. However, the longer Cole remains inside the underworld, the more he finds himself caught up in it, and getting out of "God"'s empire becomes more difficult than getting in. The supporting cast includes Stanley Tucci as Cole's superior, Nia Long as Cole's girlfriend , and Pam Grier as an undercover detective, as well as hip-hop artists Nas and Mya. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Mark Christopher wrote and directed this look back at the Disco Era when the popular Studio 54 was at its apogee in the late '70s. With obvious comparisons to Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997) and Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco (1998), the story introduces working-class 19-year-old Irish-American Shane O'Shea (Ryan Phillippe), who has lived with his father and siblings since the death of his mother when he was 12. Shane quickly rises from busboy to bartender at Studio 54, co-owned and managed in a paternal manner by entrepreneur Steve Rubell (Mike Myers). Busboy Greg Randazzo (Breckin Meyer) and Greg's wife, Anita (Salma Hayek), the club's coat check girl, become Shane's new friends, and he encounters the possibility of romance with soap star Julie Black (Neve Campbell). The story spans the summer of 1979 until the decline of Studio 54 a year later with IRS investigations, followed by the arrest and jailing of Rubell. Costumes by Ellen Lutter capture the glitter and glam-glitz of the period. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

Penelope Spheeris directed this Marlon Wayans comedy, scripted by the Rocket Man team of Greg Erb and Craig Mazin. Saddled with several on and off-campus jobs, hard-working college student Darryl Witherspoon (Marlon Wayans) is aiming for a position with the Smythe-Bates brokerage firm, but twit Scott Thorpe has the right resumé and connections. A frat failure, Darryl also doesn't score at ice hockey. For extra cash, Darryl becomes a test subject for an experimental drug that heightens the senses by five times. The initial effect is a rectal irritation, but then Darryl finds his enhanced hearing enables him to pick up distant conversations, and his upgraded coordination improves his hockey game. However, an overdose literally leaves Darryl senseless, as he discovers only four of his five senses operative at any given time. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

Mickey Rourke once again climbs the slippery slope of the erotically extreme in this sequel to 1986's 9 1/2 Weeks. It's been several years since John (Mickey Rourke) parted company with Elizabeth (the character played by Kim Basinger in the original film, although she doesn't appear in this sequel), but he's still obsessed by their passionate encounters. In hopes of finding her, John flies to Paris, where he instead discovers Lea (Angie Everhart), a close friend of Elizabeth's who designs high fashion clothing, and her assistant Claire (Agathe de la Fontaine). Lea is strongly attracted to John, but John is not able to let go of his obsession with Elizabeth so easily; when Lea tells John that Elizabeth has remarried, John begins to responds to her advances and they indulge in a variety of erotic games. However, in time, John learns that Lea can't always be trusted, and he realizes that their affair is not destined to last very long. Another 9 1/2 Weeks was also screened under the title Love in Paris. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In a near-future world in which the fast-paced digital lifestyle has given rise to a worldwide plague called Nerve Attenuation Syndrome, Johnny (Keanu Reeves), a data courier, accepts an assignment that he hopes will allow him to pay for the restoration of the childhood memories he dumped in order to outfit his brain with the microchip necessary for him to carry out his profession. Narrowly escaping a Yakuza ambush in which his employers are killed and the mnemonic trigger capable of unlocking the data in his brain is partially destroyed, Johnny travels from Beijing to New Jersey, where he hopes to recover the data before "neural seepage" destroys his mind. Teaming up with would-be bodyguard Jane (Dina Meyer) and a rebel group known as the LoTeks who live in an abandoned bridge, he tries to outrun the assassins of mysterious businessman Takahashi (Beat Takeshi Kitano) -- and the Street Preacher (Dolph Lundgren), a bionic madman. Along the way, he meets a mysterious electronic entity, a sentient dolphin, and Spider (Henry Rollins), a cybernetics expert, all of whom attempt, with various degrees of success, to learn why the data in Johnny's head is so important. Science fiction author William Gibson's original short story Johnny Mnemonic helped usher in the age of cyberpunk when it appeared in Omni magazine in 1981; it later appeared in the collection Burning Chrome (alongside the story that provided the basis for Abel Ferrara's New Rose Hotel). Although Gibson himself wrote the screenplay for Johnny Mnemonic, the film diverges considerably from the story. Molly Mirrors, a recurring character in Gibson's fiction, was replaced by the figure of Jane to fend off licensing conflicts with any future film version of Neuromancer, the author's most celebrated novel. Other plot elements -- most notably the LoTeks' bridge habitat -- were borrowed from later Gibson fiction such as the novel Virtual Light. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi