Dan Ireland

An elderly widow and a young would-be author strike up an unlikely friendship in this comedy drama. Mrs. Palfrey (Joan Plowright) has been uneasy since the death of her husband, and she decides to move from her long-time home in Scotland to London so she can be closer to her grandson Desmond (Lorcan O'Toole). Mrs. Palfrey settles into the Claremont Hotel, a shabby residential inn for senior citizens that has seen better days. She tries to contact Desmond, but isn't able to get in touch with him, and at first she has a hard time relating to the other folks at the Claremont, especially friendly busybody Mrs. Arbuthnot (Anna Massey). Lonely and out of sorts, Mrs. Palfrey goes out for a walk one day and takes a nasty spill after losing her balance. Ludovic Meyer (Rupert Friend), a struggling writer in his mid-twenties, finds Mrs. Palfrey on the pavement and helps her, taking her back to her room and making sure she's OK. The two strike up a conversation and discover they have a surprisingly amount in common. A friendship grows between them, even though Mrs. Palfrey asks Ludovic to pose as her absent grandson so her neighbors will stop asking questions about him. Mrs. Palfrey even gives her new friend romantic advice, encouraging Ludovic to ask a pretty girl he meets at the video store out on a date. Based on a novel by the British author Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont was directed by Dan Ireland. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Sid Camden (Adam Goldberg), a homely, nebbishy accountant for the Vel-Tech Corporation, gets his hands on the prototype for an experimental image enhancer. In a twinkling, Sid captures and assumes the image of his handsome, self-confident coworker Chad Warner (Antonio Sabato Jr.). In his efforts to literally become Chad, Sid murders the "original" -- only to discover that a so-called charmed life isn't all it is cracked up to be. "Skin Deep" was first telecast on February 4, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A touching and unusual love story, The Whole Wide World was based on a memoir by Novalyne Price Ellis, in which she recalled her brief romance with Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian and one of the finest and most prolific pulp writers of his day. In 1933, Novalyne Price (Renee Zellweger) is a pretty but shy Texas schoolteacher who would like to be a writer some day. A friend offers to introduce her to Howard (Vincent D'Onofrio), who writes broad, bold yarns about superhuman heroes and damsels in distress and has little patience for writers of more pretentious fiction. Novalyne likes Howard and he seems to like her, but she finds him a hard man to deal with. He lives in the world of his stories, and he devotes as much time as possible to his bedridden mother, which leaves him little time to pursue a romance. But when Howard discovers that another man has been courting Novalyne, he's heartbroken -- even if they didn't have a conventional romance, he felt there was a special emotional bond between them, and he hates to see it thrown away. Renee Zellweger and Vincent D'Onofrio both deliver fine performances and are a believable (if unconventional) romantic couple; D'Onofrio also co-produced. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Russell's avowed purpose with Whore was to avoid the glamorous depiction of prostitution common to such slick Hollywood products as Pretty Woman. As played by Theresa Russell (no relation to Ken), the eponymous character lives a hellish existence. Relating her story directly to the camera, Russell introduces us to her no-good former husband (Jason Saucier), her brutish pimp (Benjamin Mouton), and the kinkiest of her "johns." Her one true friend, a bag man named Rasta (Antonio Fargas), also saves her life -- but not her soul. The film exists in three versions: an 82-minute R cut, an 82-minute NC-17 cut, and the 92-minute European version, which sometimes carries a rating, sometimes merely a disclaimer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Eleven-year-old Charlotte Burke, the neglected daughter of Ben Cross and Glenne Headley, passes out on the school playground and dreams of visiting a house she'd previously drawn in her composition book. She imagines another visit to her "paper house" while playing hide-and-seek. Experimenting, Burke draws a figure in the window of the house; the next time she dreams, she meets a young boy, as lonely as she. Convinced that she wields a large degree of power in her pencil, Burke draws a picture of her father, Cross, hoping that in doing so he will return home. But Burke is dissatisfied with the picture, and crosses it out--whereupon Cross shows up in her dreams as a murderous stalker. What happens next is a maelstrom of psychological horror, told completely from the child's point of view. Paperhouse is based on Marianne Dreams a novel by Catherine Storr. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Don't mistake this movie for the stormy special-effects blockbuster of the same name; the two films are light years apart. Based on Mary Robison's novel Oh!, this Twister was the quirky first feature from screenwriter/director Michael Almereyda (Nadja, The Eternal) about an eccentric soda-pop tycoon and his dysfunctional family. Suzy Amis plays Maureen Cleveland, a single mother who lives with her precocious daughter Violet (Lindsay Christman) and her very strange brother Howdy (Crispin Glover) in the family mansion, tended by the young live-in housekeeper Lola (Charlaine Woodward). Maureen's ex-boyfriend Chris (Violet's father) comes back to town with the intention of rescuing Maureen and Violet from Kansas so they can start a family of their own. This turns out to be more difficult than he expected. Maureen is still angry about their break-up and seems unresponsive to his earnest and somewhat clumsy displays of affection. Howdy is too busy writing nonsensical songs and hanging out with his new girlfriend Stephanie (Jenny Wright) to be of any help. To complicate matters, their father Eugene (Harry Dean Stanton) shows up with a prudish children's TV evangelist named Virginia (Lois Chiles) and announces their engagement. No one gets along, and soon all are trapped indoors during a particularly bad Kansas twister. As the storm rages outside, Maureen and Howdy cook up a plan to find their long-lost mother, who may be the only person who can explain why they are all so odd. Like Almereyda's later films, Twister is a kaleidoscope of absurd conversations, oddball characters, and events that seem to happen for no reason at all. It's a perfect vehicle for Crispin Glover, who delivers some of the film's wackiest dialogue as the rich kid comfortably living in his own fantasy world. Tim Robbins makes an appearance as Stephanie's jealous ex-boyfriend Jeff, and author William S. Burroughs has a cameo as a farmer shooting targets in an empty barn. ~ Anthony Reed, All Movie Guide

In this horror film, an evil magician creates a wax display of famous monsters and murderers and invites a group of unsuspecting young college students to view the collection. However, when the kids are trapped in the deadly displays, one-by-one they soon discover that the wax models are more than they appear to be. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Ken Russell's adaptation of Oscar Wilde's Salome, Salome's Last Dance takes the form of a play within a film. Wilde (Nickolas Grace) arrives at a brothel with his lover, Bosey (aka Lord Alfred Douglas played by Douglas Hodge), where the proprietor, Alfred (Stratford Johns), has gathered his staff and assorted other colorful characters to mount a simple production of Wilde's new play. And so, with Alfred playing Herod, and Bosey playing John the Baptist, and with Wilde himself looking on with varying degrees of interest, the play is performed. Salome (Imogen Millais-Scott) is the daughter of Herodias (Glenda Jackson), who has abandoned her husband, since murdered, for his brother, Herod. Herod has an eye for Salome, but she mocks his interest. One evening, she hears the ranting of John the Baptist, who is Herod's prisoner, and demands that he be brought before her. She is very taken with the prophet, and attempts to seduce him while the captain of the guards, who is smitten with her, looks on. The young captain kills himself, and the prophet spurns her and is beaten. Still, she insists that she will kiss him, as he is brought away. Salome manipulates the horny Herod, who promises her anything if she will dance for him. She agrees, against the wishes of Herodias. While she performs, Wilde slips off with a young male performer, arousing Bosey's jealousy. After Salome's erotic dance (at the end of which she momentarily changes sexes), she confounds Herod by demanding the prophet's head. Russell himself has a small role in the film, as a photographer of ill repute. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Helen Barton (Faye Dunaway) and her insurance salesman husband Morely (Daniel J. Travanti) set sail with Lexa (Kim Cattrall) and her husband Jeff (John Laughlin) in this modern-day pirate adventure. Jeff's late father and Morely are searching for the treasure the two buried on a remote island 35 miles from Cuba in 1959. Lexa and Morely are engaged in a secret love affair, while Helen suffers from glaucoma-related blindness. Ned Beatty plays the old salt Ellis. There are more crosses and double-crosses than depicted on the Jolly Roger, complete with excessive sex and violence, with an interesting premise ruined by stilted dialogue and uneven continuity. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide