Michael McCarty Movies
In this reteaming of actor Antonio Banderas and director Robert Rodriguez -- their first film together since the 1995 feature Desperado -- Banderas plays Gregorio; he and devoted partner Ingrid (Carla Gugino), comprise the greatest pair of secret agents working. Both are masters of disguise and have the ability to prevent wars, but eventually they want to settle down and begin raising a family. Nine years later, after retiring and giving up the lives of super-spies, Gregorio and Ingrid find themselves at the call of duty again when techno-genius Fegan Floop (Alan Cumming) and his insidious, ruthless sidekick Minion (Tony Shalhoub) have plans for world destruction. The only hope for Gregorio and Ingrid are their children, Carmen (Alexa Vega) and Juni (Daryl Sabara), who are called upon to save their missing parents, eventually learning their former identities. The film also features Cheech Marin, Robert Patrick, and Danny Trejo. In the summer of 2001, five months after Spy Kids had become a major box office success, an expanded edition was released, featuring several minutes of footage not used in the film's original cuts (including special effects sequences that couldn't be completed within the film's original budget). ~ Jason Clark, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, (more)
- 1999
- R
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If aliens from another galaxy were to observe ordinary people as they look for love in contemporary America, what would they make of it? That is the premise of The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human, which takes the form of a documentary in which a camera crew from an alien civilization spies on a couple from Earth as they meet, fall in love, and navigate the bumpy road to matrimony, as a helpful narrator explains what's going on. The Male (Mackenzie Austin) encounters The Female (Carmen Electra) at The Sacred Meeting Ground (a nightclub in Los Angeles), and thus begins a long series of dates, conversations, sexual episodes, meetings of parents and friends, and finally marriage, as an expert (David Hyde Pierce) enlightens us as to what it all means. The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human was written and directed by Jeff Abugov, best known for his work in television on the series The Golden Girls, Roseanne, and Grace Under Fire; the supporting cast includes Lucy Liu, Markus Redmond, and Lisa Rontondi. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- MacKenzie Astin, Carmen Electra, (more)
Many a lovesick young man has threatened to camp out by a girl's front door, but one guy actually tries it in this alternately sweet and tasteless romantic comedy. Peter (Josh Schaefer) is a good-natured but socially inept young man who is madly in love with Erica (Keri Russell), the sweet and devastatingly sexy girl next door. Peter desperately wants Erica as his girlfriend, even though she already has a boyfriend, the large and humorless Nick (Johnny Green). Eager to prove himself, Peter takes up the advice of Nonno (Buck Kartalian), his batty grandfather, and literally camps out on her front lawn, willing to wait out the entire summer until she gives him a chance to prove that he can be the man of her dreams. Meanwhile, Peter is frequently kept company by his buddy Matt (R.D. Robb), who has learned how to deal with his sexual tensions through the use of fresh fruit, while Peter's dad (Mark Taylor) is convinced that his son has gone nuts and won't allow him back in the house, even for a change of clothes. While it won the Audience Award at the 1997 Slamdance Film Festival, Eight Days a Week didn't receive much commercial exposure until its release on video, after Keri Russell had made a splash on the acclaimed TV series Felicity. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Josh Schaefer, Keri Russell, (more)
A nervous hotel manager has all sorts of monkey business to deal with (actually orangutan business, but you get the idea) in this comedy for the family. Robert Grant (Jason Alexander) is the manager of The Majestic Hotel, a large and highly luxurious five-star facility. Grant is harried, overworked, and wants to take his two sons, Kyle (Eric Lloyd) and Brian (Graham Sack), on a well-deserved vacation, but when the owner of the Majestic, Mrs. Dubrow (Faye Dunnaway), hears that the hotel is being considered for the newly-minted and very prestigious six-star rating by the Le Monde Guide, it falls on Robert to make sure that everything is perfect when the guide's staff arrives. Since the inspectors will arrive unannounced, Robert has to chase after anyone who looks like they could be a VIP, so he finds himself giving the star treatment to new guest Lord Rutledge (Rupert Everett) when he spots Rutledge using a pocket camera to snap pictures in the lobby. However, Rutledge is actually a skilled jewel thief who has come to the Majestic to take advantage of its wealthy clientele, and he's arrived with his pet orangutan, Dunston, who has been trained to be Rutledge's partner in crime. Dunston gets lost in the hotel's air duct system; Kyle finds the friendly ape and discovers he makes a great playmate, which makes things all the more difficult for Robert. Paul Reubens (aka Pee Wee Herman) also appears as a trigger-happy animal control officer. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jason Alexander, Faye Dunaway, (more)
A dark, bitter commentary on modern American life cloaked in the form of a surrealist western, Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man stars Johnny Depp as William Blake, a newly-orphaned accountant who leaves his home in Cleveland to accept a job in the frontier town of Machine. Upon his arrival, Blake is told by the factory owner Dickinson (Robert Mitchum) that the job has already been filled. Dejectedly, he enters a nearby tavern, ultimately spending the night with a former prostitute. A violent altercation with the woman's lover (Gabriel Byrne), also Dickinson's son, leaves Blake a murderer as well as mortally wounded, a bullet lodged dangerously close to his heart. He flees into the wilderness, where a Native American named Nobody (Gary Farmer) mistakes Blake for the English poet William Blake and determines that he will be Blake's guide in his protracted passage into the spirit world. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, (more)
- 1995
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The strange life and the wonderfully awful films of 1950's Hollywood Z movie director Ed Wood are profiled in this documentary that was conceived of and researched several years before commercial-filmmaker Tim Burton made his feature film tribute. Actually, Wood does not appear much in this film. Rather, it centers on the lives and thoughts of his entourage and those who knew him. Among those interviewed are Wood's former lover and star of his earliest films, Dolores Fuller, whom he abruptly replaced in the middle of Bride of the Monster with actress Loretta King who is also interviewed. Also interviewed are Maila Nurmi (aka Vampira); Bela Lugosi, Jr., who believes Wood destroyed his troubled father's career; Rev. Dr. Lynn Lemon, the Baptist minister who backed Wood's most famous film Plan 9 from Outer Space in hopes that it would generate enough income to allow Lemon's church to produce religious films; Paul Marco, who played Kelton the Cop in several films, and actors Conrad Brooks and Lyle Talbot. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1994
In 1962, a Georgian woman serves a light sentence for a petty crime. Upon her release, she discovers that her children have been sold by a dubious adoption agency, causing the woman to spend the next 20 years searching for her lost babies. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marg Helgenberger, Corbin Bernsen, (more)
- 1986
- R
This action drama is set in an affluent, conservative neighborhood seeking protection for its high school students. A company known as "The Sentinels" is hired to guarantee security at the school. However, the men in this company are more Nazi than Himmler, and they are soon bullying and abusing the students they were supposed to protect. After the editor of the school paper gets involved in resolving this bad situation, he enlists the help of the former girlfriend of Sentinels leader. The two eventually begin to figure out what needs to be done. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Stockwell, J. Eddie Peck, (more)
- 1986
- R
This comedy is set 15 years after the final nuclear holocaust and centers upon two fellows who have been stuck in their fathers' elaborate bomb shelter since the bombs began to fall. They had plenty of food, clothing (from the 1940s), and necessities, but their only entertainment was a huge set of pulp mystery novels by such writers as Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler. By the time the two young men, Phillip and Marlowe finally emerge from the shelter in 2010, they have become "hard-boiled" detectives. They manage to find an old car and head off down the ruined roads looking for action. Along the way, they see beautiful, but hard-as-nails blonde Miles Archer and pick her up. She ends up robbing them and abandoning them. In her haste, she drops a set of keys--the keys to the last nuclear warhead. Whoever holds them, holds the world in their hands and suddenly the young men find themselves pursued by assorted weirdos, including man-eating hippies, looking for the ultimate power. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Stockwell, Michael Dudikoff, (more)
- 1953
Two step-brothers who co-own a garage have a violent falling out when the wild one's girl falls for the more responsible sibling. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
