Allan Moyle Movies

Canadian filmmaker Allan Moyle makes offbeat independent and mainstream Hollywood films of varying quality. His best-known film is the 1990 Christian Slater-vehicle Pump up the Volume. Educated at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, Moyle started out working closely with Canadian independent filmmaker Frank Vitale as both an actor and a screenwriter. In 1973, Moyle and Vitale made Montreal Man. Moyle made his solo directorial debut in 1977 with The Rubber Gun. That year he also acted in two major features, most notably Outrageous. He debuted in Hollywood with Time Square in 1980 and scored a critical flop. Making the film proved to be so stressful for Moyle that he developed a rare medical condition that caused all of his hair to fall out. After a spate of poor reviews for Time Square, he returned to screenwriting and acting and did not direct again until Pump up the Volume. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
2007  
 
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Two luckless stoners begin a truly awful evening when they discover they have a dead girlfriend on their hands in this black comedy from writer and director Allen Moyle. Dexter (Scott Speedman) and Royce (Wes Bentley) are a pair of half-bright slackers living in a nowhere town in Northern Ontario. Dexter and Royce's lack of ambition is compounded by the fact they're both heroin addicts, and they support their habits by dealing dope for Omar (Raoul Bhaneja), a ruthless dealer who's not to be trifled with. Matilda (Taryn Manning), Royce's girlfriend, makes the mistake of dipping into their product one night and suffers a serious O.D.; frightened, Royce and Dexter decide they have to get rid of the body, and Dexter suggests they bury her in the boiler room of a drive-in movie theater where he used to work. The guys take Matilda's body to the drive-in and are about to cover her up when they realize she isn't dead yet; however, their timing is flawed, as this discovery coincides with the arrival of a gaggle of would-be Satan Worshipers, who are looking for a likely candidate for their first human sacrifice. Weirdsville was chosen as the opening night presentation for the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Scott SpeedmanWes Bentley, (more)
2004  
PG13  
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The often-controversial story of one of the world's most popular entertainers comes to life in this made-for-cable biographical drama. Michael Jackson (played by Flex Alexander) grew up in the spotlight as a member of the popular R&B combo the Jackson 5, but his youthful success came with a price -- robbed of a normal childhood, as he grew to be a man, Jackson found himself increasingly eager to remake his life into the childhood he never had. In the 1980's, Jackson's solo career caught fire, and his album Thriller became the biggest selling album of all time, moving over 40 million copies and making him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. But as Jackson struggled to repeat its success, his public image and reputation became increasingly eccentric, and as allegations of drug abuse, excessive plastic surgery, and inappropriate behavior with children were thrown at him, Jackson found himself trapped between his desire to entertain his fans and proving to the world that he was a normal and law-abiding man. Produced for the VH1 cable network, Man in the Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story was first aired in 2004 as court proceedings were scheduled to begin against Jackson, who had been accused of child molestation. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Flex Alexander
2001  
 
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A woman discovers a casual affair may have led both her and her husband into dangerous territory in this thriller. Claire and Ed Needham (Nastassja Kinski and Hart Bochner) are a married couple whose relationship has been going through some difficult changes; Ed has lost his job, and his depression has led to a problem with alcohol.
Claire takes a vacation alone, where she meets Julian (William Baldwin), a handsome and strongly persuasive stranger. Claire has a brief affair with Julian, but she soon finds herself feeling guilty about her infidelity and returns home determined to make a fresh start in her marriage. Claire comes home to the good news that Ed has found a new job, but Claire's hope turns to shock and suspicion when she meets Ed's new boss --
Julian. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
William BaldwinNastassja Kinski, (more)
2000  
R  
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A high school football player is accused of the statutory rape of his 16-year-old girlfriend in this made-for-MTV movie. TV's Matt Frewer stars. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Mary GrossKevin Mundy, (more)
2000  
 
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This science fiction thriller is set in a future where new technology allows travelers to save time and effort by transporting their minds into a body waiting at their chosen destination. However, a public relations man learns of the potential dangers of this new service when his body is taken over by a bloodthirsty terrorist in the midst of a journey, and the innocent man has to battle to get himself back -- or otherwise be stranded without a body. XChange stars Stephen Baldwin, Kyle MacLachlan, and Kim Coates; it was directed by Allan Moyle, whose previous credits include the acclaimed teen drama Pump Up the Volume. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Stephen BaldwinKyle MacLachlan, (more)
1999  
 
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While imagining the childhood of Andy Warhol, Lou Reed once wrote, "There's only one good thing about a small town: you hate it, and you know you have to leave." A similar notion seems to have occurred to Mooney Pottie (Liane Balaban), a 15-year-old Canadian girl growing up in a village deep in the rugged coal mining area of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Mooney wants to be an artist and feels out of place among the rough-hewn villagers and her unsophisticated family. When her art teacher, Cecil Sweeney (Andrew McCarthy), tells her that he could arrange for her to attend an art institute in Manhattan, her parents refuse to allow her to go. Stranded in a place she hates, Mooney finally discovers a kindred spirit when new girl Lou (Tara Spencer Nairn) moves into the neighborhood. Lou's father was a boxer from Brooklyn, and she's inherited his talent for fisticuffs; Lou has a way with a sucker punch that soon has all the girls in town begging her to knock out their boyfriends when they get out of line. Mooney and Lou soon team up on a plan that will allow them to move on to bigger and better things. Canadian filmmaker Allan Moyle returned home for this comedy set in the mid-1970s, which features a soundtrack of classic Canadian rock, including vintage tracks by April Wine and The Stampeders. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Liane BalabanTara Spencer-Nairn, (more)
1995  
PG13  
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A funky little record shop provides the setting for this youthful comedy that centers on the workers there as they try to help poor Joe Anthony LaPaglia), the manager who really wants to buy the place, recoup his losses after his well-meaning, but dim-bulbed employee Lucas (Rory Cochrane ) steals his savings and loses it all in Atlantic City while trying to increase it twofold at the gaming tables. If they cannot come up with the loot, the mega-chain Music City will buy it. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Anthony LaPagliaRory Cochrane, (more)
1992  
PG13  
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Penelope Ann Miller's delightful performance as the shy, part-time librarian Betty Lou Perkins is the saving grace of this comedy from Touchstone Pictures. Betty Lou is the neglected wife of small-town police detective Alex Perkins (Eric Thal). She soon feels even more neglected when Alex can't make their anniversary dinner because he has to investigate a brutal motel room slaying. Taking her dog for a walk, Betty Lou finds a gun by the river's edge that just happens to be the missing murder weapon in Alex's murder investigation. In order to get some attention, she announces that she was the one who committed the murder. Hauled behind bars, Betty Lou gets some quick assertiveness training from her cell-mate, hard-boiled prostitute Reba Bush (Cathy Moriarty). She also becomes an instant media celebrity, with crowds clamoring around her and television news reporters elevating her to legendary status. But Alex doesn't believe she committed the murder (she tells him the dead man was her lover) and continues investigating the crime. Her husband is not the only one who's suspicious -- the FBI wants to use her to lure crime lord Beaudeen (William Forsythe), who they suspect actually committed the murder, out into the open. It turns out the FBI is right; Beaudeen killed the motel room victim because he planned to blackmail him with an incriminating cassette. Beaudeen is convinced that Betty Lou has the tape and musters his forces to get it from her one way or another. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Penelope Ann MillerEric Thal, (more)
1992  
R  
Love Crimes, an erotic thriller directed by Lizzie Borden, explores the psychology of a con man posing as a photographer, who seduces women and then blackmails them using humiliating, revealing pictures he has taken of them. David Hanover (Patrick Bergin) preys on the hopes of women by offering them love and a possible career as fashion models. When some of the women complain, but refuse to aid in Hanover's prosecution, DA Dana Greenway (Sean Young) becomes obsessed with catching Hanover, to the point where she tracks him down and spys on him in his secluded home, making herself a potential victim. He catches her and holds her captive. Feminist filmmaker Borden, who also directed the remarkable, low-budget film Working Girls, raises interesting questions regarding sex, humiliation and male-female relationships, but the film is spoiled by the ambiguity of her central character, Dana. An abused child herself, she has the same self-loathing that the other woman who are preyed upon by Hanover possess, but her motivations for her actions remain murky. Despite these flaws, Borden, always an interesting filmmaker, raises important issues which perhaps can't be adequately resolved using the restrictions of the thriller genre. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Sean YoungPatrick Bergin, (more)
1990  
R  
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When an evil drug emerges that causes its imbibers to turn into vampires, a scientist (Andrew Stevens) is summoned to figure out how to reverse the drug's effects. ~ All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Andrew StevensHeather Thomas, (more)
1990  
R  
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Teenage angst finds a new voice in this drama. By day, Mark Hunter (Christian Slater) is a quiet, studious student at an ordinary suburban high school in Arizona. But at night, Mark creeps down into his basement, fires up his pirate radio transmitter, and broadcasts to the community as Hard Harry, a sexually obsessed social commentator who passes along angry philosophy about the state of teenage life when not blasting punk rock or gangsta rap cuts. Hard Harry's sworn nemesis is high school principal Mrs. Cresswood (Annie Ross), who keeps SAT scores up at the expense of her students' dignity and individuality by eliminating "troublemakers" from the student body. Hard Harry's broadcasts, however, have become a rallying point for the school's misfit underclass, and Mrs. Cresswood is determined to track down the mystery student and bring him to justice (broadcasting without a license, he's not merely an annoyance, but a criminal). The war against Hard Harry intensifies when he broadcasts data from confidential school board reports; Mark's father is a school commissioner, but he has no idea what his son is doing in the basement. Meanwhile, Mark gains the attentions of Nora (Samantha Mathis), who has figured out who he becomes at night. More serious and intelligent than the average teen film, Pump Up the Volume was written and directed by Allan Moyle, who previously dealt with disaffected, music-obsessed teens in Times Square and would return to them with Empire Records. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Christian SlaterSamantha Mathis, (more)
1980  
R  
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Two runaway teens face life on the streets in New York City with a devil-may-care attitude and a punk-rock image. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Tim CurryTrini Alvarado, (more)
1977  
R  
For his second commercial feature, following a pair of experimental films and 1977's Shivers, Canadian horror auteur David Cronenberg continued to mine the themes of disease and mutation that were already becoming his perennial concerns. Marilyn Chambers stars as Rose, an attractive young woman who becomes horribly injured in a motorcycle accident. Spirited away to the clinic of Drs. Dan and Roxanne Keloid (Howard Ryshpan and Patricia Gage), a pair of experimental plastic surgeons, Rose becomes an unwitting guinea pig in an operation that grafts genetically modified tissue into her body. Waking from her coma to find she is unable to ingest normal food, Rose unwittingly feeds on human blood by means of a phallic organ that emerges from a vulval orifice in her armpit. Within hours of providing Rose with sustenance, her victims fall prey to an incurable, highly contagious disease that turns them into raving lunatics who foam at the mouth and attack others indiscriminately. Soon, Montreal is under martial law, but nobody can find the Typhoid Mary whose vampiric urges are driving the epidemic -- not even Hart (Frank Moore), Rose's befuddled boyfriend. Although she is best-known for her starring role in the crossover porn epic Behind the Green Door, Chambers actually received her start in features with 1970's The Owl and the Pussycat. Rabid also stars TV and stage veteran Joe Silver as Murray Cypher, a mutual friend of Hart and the Keloids. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Marilyn ChambersFrank Moore, (more)
1977  
R  
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Two misfits find love and support in each other's company, in this show-business comedy with a twist. One of them, Robin Turner (Craig Russell), is a male hairdresser and a gifted female impersonator, who tries out his act in local gay nightclubs. His roommate is Liza Connors (Hollis McLaren), an old high-school friend who is now a mumblingly strange pregnant woman, recently released from a mental hospital where she was being treated for schizophrenia. She is determined never to return to the hospital again, and he wants to be a show-business success with his impressions. When Robin loses his job, the two determine to try their luck in New York. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Craig RussellHollis McLaren, (more)
1977  
 
The bohemian scene of Montreal provides the framework for this drama that centers on a university researcher who gets too involved with a particular group that is trying to decide whether they want to live as artists or drug dealers. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Pierre RobertPeter Brawley, (more)
1975  
 
Mourning Suit was lensed independently on 16mm, then blown up to 35mm for its limited theatrical play. The film is set in the Jewish community of a large Canadian city. Normann Taviss plays a philosophical old tailor who takes mixed-up teenager Allan Moyle under his wing. Moyle has fathered a child by a non-Jewish girl, and his very proper mother is on the verge of a coronary. Wise old Taviss patches everything up in record time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Allan MoyleNorman Taviss, (more)

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