Henry Jaglom Movies

Less a straightforward transposition to film than an inventive reimagining of the play that inspired it, Henry Jaglom's Just 45 Minutes From Broadway intercuts events from two onscreen realms: an everyday world and sequences in which the central characters act out passages from their daily lives on-stage. The movie centers on the Isaacs, a prestigious family of stage actors descended from the giants of classic Yiddish theater. On hand are patriarch George "Grisha" Isaacs (Jack Heller), matriarch Vivien Cooper Isaacs (Diane Salinger), Vivien's thespian brother Larry Cooper (David Proval), and houseguest Sally Brooks (Harriet Schock). The story begins when the Isaacs' free-spirited younger daughter Panda (Tanna Frederick) ventures to the family home in Westchester County, NY, having suffered a traumatic breakup with her thickheaded, emotionally stunted boyfriend. She's grateful to be surrounded by her beloved family once again, but upset by the news that her older sister Betsy (Julie Davis) is now engaged and will soon arrive for a visit with her fiancé Jimmy (Judd Nelson). As old tensions between the sisters flare up once again, Panda struggles to keep real life and theatrical life separate, but finds it increasingly difficult; meanwhile, a new side of Jimmy emerges in the presence of the Isaacs, which leaves Betsy both horrified and isolated. Also appearing -- in a lengthy Seder sequence -- are friends and relatives of the Isaacs family, played by Michael Emil, Simon Jaglom, Sabrina Jaglom, and others. Just 45 Minutes From Broadway marks writer/director Jaglom's 18th feature and his fourth screen collaboration with actress Frederick, who starred in his earlier films Hollywood Dreams, Irene in Time, and Queen of the Lot. The original stage production debuted in October 2009 at the Edgemar Theater in Santa Monica, CA. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Director Henry Jaglom explores the complex relationship between fathers and daughters, and the effects that it has on the relationships women develop later in life. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Croatian father-and-son filmmakers Jakov and Dominik Sedlar explore the genius of Citizen Kane director Orson Welles through the examination of lost footage from unfinished projects and interviews with the friends, family, and colleagues who knew him best in this documentary, which delves deeper into the public persona of the actor, director, writer, and editor than ever before. An extensively researched oral and visual examination of the legendary entertainer, Searching for Orson also includes interviews with such filmmakers as Steven Spielberg and Peter Bogdanovich, exploring just how the mastermind of the notorious 1938 "War of the Worlds" broadcast continues to influence future generations of filmmakers even decades after his death. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Director Henry Jaglom once again casts his quirky gaze on a common female obsession in this comedy drama. Holly (Victoria Foyt) owns a small and upscale boutique in Santa Monica, and has just learned that her accountant and significant other, Adam (Bruce Davison), has betrayed her -- even worse than cheating on her, he's run off with three month's worth of rent, and she has only a few days to raise the money or lose her space. With Mother's Day approaching, Holly is hoping for a big weekend to save the day, but she has other problems to contend with as she has to patch up a misunderstanding with her mother (Lee Grant), who offers to refer her to a loan shark, and her daughter (Mae Whitman). Meanwhile, with Adam out of the picture, Holly finds herself flirting with Miles (Rob Morrow), the long-suffering boyfriend of one of her customers. And in the midst of the buying frenzy, many of Holly's customers share their feelings about shopping and the role it plays in their lives. Leading lady Victoria Foyt co-authored the screenplay with director Jaglom (who is also her husband). ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Based upon Peter Biskind's book of the same name, this BBC-produced documentary traces the rise of a generation of Hollywood filmmakers who briefly changed the face of movies with a more personal approach that pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable onscreen. Influenced by such European directors as Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Federico Fellini, the movement kicked off in the mid-'60s with two films directed by Arthur Penn: Mickey One and Bonnie and Clyde. (The latter had been offered to both Godard and Truffaut before it wound up with producer/star Warren Beatty and Penn.) What really kicked it into gear was the unexpected success of Easy Rider, a biker-road movie that became that rare film phenomenon: acclaimed at the Cannes Film Festival and a huge commercial success. Film school graduates, the first generation brought up with movies as their main cultural reference, flooded the studios (whose own regimes were changing) with production chieftains such as Robert Evans of Paramount and David Picker at United Artists; they approved risky-looking projects and allowed relatively untested filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola to take on heavyweight movies such as The Godfather or Hollywood newcomers like Britain's John Schlesinger to make quirky stories like Midnight Cowboy. Enriched by success with their TV show The Monkees, producer Bert Schneider and director Bob Rafelson formed a company that produced not only Easy Rider but seminal '70s films such as Five Easy Pieces and the Oscar-winning Vietnam War documentary Hearts and Minds. Another godfather to the new movement was producer Roger Corman, who gave early career opportunities to Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, and Jonathan Demme on low-budget projects that allowed them to learn their craft.

Two things brought this movement to an end: Some individual filmmakers' personal excesses (such disastrous flops as Dennis Hopper's follow-up to Easy Rider, appropriately titled The Last Movie, and Scorsese's New York, New York), and the studios growing fascination with special effects-driven B-movies. An outgrowth of two box-office and marketing juggernauts -- Jaws and Star Wars -- the resulting films became entertainments rather than personal statements of the directors. Narrated by William H. Macy, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls features vintage clips of Coppola, Scorsese, Beatty, George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah, Roman Polanski, Robert Altman, and Pauline Kael. It also includes original interview material with Penn; Corman; Bogdanovich; Hopper; Picker; writer/directors John Milius and Paul Schrader; actresses Karen Black, Cybill Shepherd, Margot Kidder, and Jennifer Salt (the latter two shared a house in Malibu, a social center for young filmmakers); actors Peter Fonda, Kris Kristofferson, and Richard Dreyfuss; producers Jerome Hellman, Michael Phillips, and Jonathan Taplin; editor Dede Allen; production designer Polly Platt; writers David Newman, Joan Tewksbury, Gloria Katz, and Willard Huyck; cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond; agent Mike Medavoy; and former production executive Peter Bart. Among the films discussed are Rosemary's Baby, The Wild Bunch, Mean Streets, American Graffiti, The Rain People, Midnight Cowboy, M*A*S*H, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Last Picture Show, Shampoo, Taxi Driver, and Raging Bull. (Three interviewees -- cinematographer Gordon Willis, critic Andrew Sarris, and writer-director Monte Hellman -- listed in the Variety review of this film, were not included in this version from a screening on Bravo.) ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi

Los Angeles store owner Dana (Victoria Foyt) is shopping in Israel where a meeting with a mysterious woman leads her to Paris and the White Cliffs of Dover, an appropriate spot to fall in love with English painter Sean (Stephen Dillane) who is married. Soon, however, Dana is off to London to rejoin her business-partner/fiancé Alex (Michael Brandon). Dana and Alex, and Sean and his wife all wind up together as weekend house guests of John ('60s rock performer Noel Harrison), brother of Skelly (Vanessa Redgrave). With true love looming on the horizon, Dana and Sean decide to abandon their companions for each other. The screenplay was written by Foyt and director Henry Jaglom, who took a different approach to the theme of love and affection in his autobiographical Always (1985). ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

A legendary theatrical family gather for one final show at their East Hamptons estate in this verbose comedy-drama. Swedish actress Viveca Lindfors takes center stage as Helena, the family matriarch, who has made the difficult decision to sell the estate due to financial problems. A mixed group has come for what will be the last of the family's annual summer performances, a gathering that naturally brings conflicts and rivalries to the surface. Much of the trouble centers on Oona (Victoria Foyt), a financially successful Hollywood actress seeking artistic approval from such theatrical colleagues as avant-garde director Ivan (André Gregory) and gay playwright Jake (real-life dramatist Jon Robin Baitz), who each has difficulties of his own. As in all of writer/director Henry Jaglom's films, the focus is on conversation over action, as the various characters share personal torments and debate their individual philosophies. The talky, intellectual dialogue will be seen by some viewers as witty and perceptive and by others as pretentious and slow-moving. Regardless of one's opinion of Jaglom's idiosyncratic style, Last Summer in the Hamptons is distinguished by the presence of Lindfors in her final film, giving a career-capping performance that addresses the problems of older actresses and looks back fondly on the star's own history. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi

For sheer abject self-indulgence this side of an Eric Schaeffer movie, one need look no further than the films of Henry Jaglom. Jaglom's vanity productions require an intense Stalin-like loyalty to the filmmaker and his films going in, otherwise a viewer is lost. So when, in Venice/Venice, Henry Jaglom appears as a filmmaker named Dean at the Venice Film Festival, there promoting a film resembling a Henry Jaglom film, a viewer must give himself up to the force or walk out of the theater. Dean is the kind of pretentious Hollywood type who likes to wear his heart and his distribution contract on his sleeve, so when adoring European journalist Jeanne (Nelly Alard) inexplicably smiles at him the right way, filmgoers will come to understand why the film business is so attractive to wimpy film geeks. Jeanne and Dean fall in love and take a walking tour of Venice, but Jeanne pays no attention to the city, since she religiously hangs on every word Dean has to say regarding love, films, and destiny. Since there are more pearls of wisdom to be gloaned from this Bel-Air Gandhi, Jeanne willingly follows Dean back to Venice, California. Realizing that she has already spent too much time basking in the brilliance of Dean's sun, Penny (Melissa Leo), Dean's California girlfriend, obligingly offers to pack up and leave when she sees Dean returning to Southern California with Jeanne in tow. When Henry Jaglom talks, they all listen. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

The title of Henry Jaglom's stream-of-consciousness Eating says it all. Three women (Lisa Blake Richards, Mary Crosby and Marlena Giovi), each celebrating a "milestone" birthday, decide to throw a joint party. Attending the revelries is French documentary filmmaker Martine Nely Alard, who becomes fascinated when none of the guests will touch the meticulously prepared birthday cake. As Martine begins interviewing the partygoers, she discovers the importance that food holds in each of their lives. One of the most revelatory improvisational monologues is delivered by a matriarch portrayed by Frances Bergen, the real-life widow of Edgar Bergen and the mother of Candice. Though Eating is not for everyone's taste, for those in tune with the fiercely independent Jaglom, the film is a cinematic smorgasbord. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Orson Welles made his final screen appearance as, appropriately enough, Orson Welles (or "Danny's Friend") in Henry Jaglom's "emotional vérité" comedy Someone to Love. The film begins as filmmaker Danny (Henry Jaglom) prepares to spend the night at his girlfriend Helen (Andrea Marcovicci)'s apartment. Helen has just adjusted to sleeping alone after the breakup of her previous relationship and tells Danny that if he stays with her, she won't be able to go to sleep. Fascinated by the explanation, Danny sends out telegrams to a bunch of his Hollywood friends to meet on Valentine's Day at a Santa Monica theater, the Mayfair, that is about to be torn down to make way for a shopping mall. Danny figures that he will throw a party for his lonely celebrity friends. He also reasons that he could introduce his brother, real estate developer Mickey (Michael Emil, Jaglom's real-life brother), to some romantic companions. The party would also be a handy way to get some film footage. The day of the party, Danny's friends arrive --a famous movie star (Sally Kellerman); a pop singer named Blue (Stephen Bishop); a jazz pianist (David Frishberg); a sophisticated continental woman named Yelena (Oja Kodar); and, bringing up the rear and ensconced in the back of the theater, Danny's Friend (Orson Welles). With his camera crew in tow, Danny takes to filming his guests as they answer questions about love and loneliness. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

After a man (Michael Emil) and a woman (Karen Black) meet and begin to become romantically involved, his confirmed bachelorhood and her post-divorce trauma start to clash. As their interactions become more complex, and they move from one scenario to the next, they begin to learn more about one another. Director and writer Henry Jaglom used his non-tradtional filmmaking approach on this feature: set up the scene, let the actors improvise, and edit the result. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In this enjoyable comedy, an outlandish heist of mobster money, taken by Simon (Michael Emil) the syndicate's bookkeeper, provides the momentum that starts the action. The brash Simon and his undermotivated cohort Sidney (Zack Norman) are in a wild ride down the East Coast to catch a plane to safety in a Latin American country. Along the way they hook up with Jenny (Patrice Townsend), a flirtatious fox, and Leona (Irene Forrest), a walking inferiority complex. The mix of these four characters provides enough hilarity to keep audiences entertained right through the twist at the end of the story. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Jack Nicholson first put his well-documented enthusiasm for basketball to good use in this film, which he wrote and directed between his roles in Five Easy Pieces and Carnal Knowledge. William Tepper plays Hector, a student at a college in Ohio who shares a room with his friend Gabriel (Michael Margotta) and is the star player on the school's basketball team. Hector has been approached to quit college and play pro ball, but Gabriel is urging him to devote more time to radical political causes. Of course, both have plenty of other things on their mind; Hector is having a clandestine affair with the wife of one of his professors (Karen Black), while Gabriel, in a bid to beat the draft and avoid going to Vietnam, is trying to convince the draft board that he's insane. Unfortunately, Gabriel is feigning madness so well that he's not so sure he hasn't actually become crazy. Director Henry Jaglom and screenwriter Robert Towne also have supporting roles, as do future sitcom greats Cindy Williams and David Ogden Stiers. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi