Mitch Glazer Movies

A chronicle of life in and around a luxury hotel in Miami Beach circa 1959, where the manager contends with celebrity guests, politicians and bigwigs, shady characters, and a local mob boss. ~ Ray Stackhouse, Rovi

Race, class and honesty become issues for a handful of disparate characters in this independent drama. Nate (Josh Stamberg) and Jen (Jennifer Mudge) are a pair of recently married thirty-somethings living in San Francisco; Nate is a journalist, while Jen's inherited wealth frees her from having to work a steady job. Jen wants to do something positive with her money, and her longtime friend Renny (Coby Bell) asks her to invest in a housing project he wants to develop – a secure gated community for middle-class African-Americans. Meanwhile, Nate has been visiting Elizabeth (Lenore Thomas), a fellow reporter who was assigned to Nairobi at the same time as Nate; he became deeply infatuated with her while they worked together, and now she's seriously ill and has only a short time to live. Elizabeth tells Nate that Victor (Donnie Keshawarz), a mutual friend, once sexually assaulted her, and Nate toys with the idea of getting revenge by writing a news story about him. Unknown to Nate, Victor, who is now homeless, has appeared at his door, and Jen, against her better judgment, has told Victor he can stay with them for a few days. Nate's anger towards Victor and resentment of Renny comes to a head that evening, though he learns not everything he's been told so far is actually true. Drifting Elegant was the first feature film for director Amy Glazer; the film was adapted from the play by Stephen Belber, which Glazer directed for San Francisco's Magic Theater Company. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

After making a striking directorial debut with her screen adaptation of The Virgin Suicides, Sofia Coppola offers a story of love and friendship blooming under unlikely circumstances in this comedy drama. Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is a well-known American actor whose career has gone into a tailspin; needing work, he takes a very large fee to appear in a commercial for Japanese whiskey to be shot in Tokyo. Feeling no small degree of culture shock in Japan, Bob spends most of his non-working hours at his hotel, where he meets Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) at the bar. Twentysomething Charlotte is married to John (Giovanni Ribisi), a successful photographer who is in Tokyo on an assignment, leaving her to while away her time while he works. Beyond their shared bemusement and confusion with the sights and sounds of contemporary Tokyo, Bob and Charlotte share a similar dissatisfaction with their lives; the spark has gone out of Bob's marriage, and he's become disillusioned with his career. Meanwhile, Charlotte is puzzled with how much John has changed in their two years of marriage, while she's been unable to launch a creative career of her own. Bob and Charlotte become fast friends, and as they explore Tokyo, they begin to wonder if their sudden friendship might be growing into something more. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Alfonso Cuaron (The Little Princess) directed this Mitch Glazer screenplay, a modernization of the 1860-61 classic by Charles Dickens. Some situations in the film are presented as memories -- the way the central figure, Finnegan Bell (Ethan Hawke) recalls events many years later. At a Florida fishing village, eight-year-old orphan Finn Bell (Jeremy James Kissner), talented at art, is left in the care of his sister and her husband, Joe (Chris Cooper). One day, Finn helps a chained, escaped convict who appears in the surf. On other days, he visits Paradiso Perduto, where he plays with young Estella (Raquel Beaudene), niece of the mansion's colorful, flamboyant, and extremely wealthy owner, Ms. Dinsmoor (Anne Bancroft), who parallels the novel's tragic Miss Havisham, a woman jilted at the altar and left emotionally scarred and mentally imbalanced. As Ms. Dinsmoor watches Finn draw a portrait of Estella, she plots to mold Estella into a hard woman capable of destroying men. In a flash forward to the '90s, Finn (Hawke) and Estella (Gwyneth Paltrow), now in their late teens, re-create the water-fountain kiss of their childhood, but Estella vanishes, breaking Finn's heart to such a degree that he doesn't draw or paint for seven years, choosing to eke out a marginal existence with his uncle Joe (after Finn's sister abandons the two). Then Manhattan art representative Jerry Ragno (Josh Mostel) turns up with a startling offer -- if Finn will return to painting and relocate in New York, Ragno will give him a one-man show. With an apparent assist from Ms. Dinsmoor, Finn makes the move and begins his new life with great expectations and a deadline of 10 weeks to complete the necessary paintings. When Finn next encounters Estella, she has a wealthy boyfriend, Walter (Hank Azaria). As Finn once again becomes entranced by Estella, he also begins to question exactly how his life is being manipulated. Francesco Clemente did the paintings and drawings seen in the film. Shown at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

Once-hot singing star Cyndi Lauper heads the cast of the Florida-based thriller Off and Running. Lauper plays a minor TV actress, Cyd Morse, who works nights as an underwater dancer at a posh Miami Beach hotel. While pitching woo with her boyfriend (José Pérez), Cyd is startled by the arrival of two hoods, who murder her man and prepare to do same to her. With a vital piece of evidence in her hot little hand, our heroine bolts her hotel room and runs off into the night. She enlists the reluctant aid of golfer Jack Cornett (David Keith), who tries to keep her from getting "iced" before she can reach the authorities. And guess what, kids? Cyd and Jack fall in love. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A darkly comic and surreal contemporization of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, this effects-heavy Bill Murray holiday vehicle from 1988 sees the former SNL funnyman assuming the role of television executive Frank Cross, the meanest and most depraved man on earth. Cross will stoop to unheard of levels to increase his network's ratings -- even if it means mounting outrageous programs to retain an audience, such as "Robert Goulet's Cajun Christmas" and Lee Majors in "The Night the Reindeer Died," with an AK-47-toting Santa. Cross plots his foulest move, however, for the Christmas holiday, when he will force his office staff to mount a live production of A Christmas Carol on national television -- and thus work through Christmas Eve. Cross's life is turned upside down with visits from three ghosts: a craggy-faced cabbie known as The Ghost of Christmas Past (David Johansen); the sugar-plum fairy Ghost of Christmas Present (Carol Kane) (who gets her jollies by bonking Frank across the face with a toaster oven); and, eventually, the caped, headless Ghost of Christmas Future, who will send Frank sliding into a crematory oven -- just before he gives the sleazoid one last chance to redeem himself. Along the way, the spirits carry Frank to scenes from his past, present, and future (per Scrooge) and impart a glimpse of how he became so thoroughly rotten. The radiant Karen Allen co-stars as Frank's girlfriend, Claire Phillips, and the film packs in cameos from countless celebrities -- among them, Mary Lou Retton, John Houseman, Jamie Farr, and, in a truly grisly and tasteless bit, John Forsythe. Richard Donner directs, from a script credited to the late Michael O'Donoghue and Mitch Glazer. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi