Lynda Myles Movies

The director of such highly regarded films as Yellow Earth (1984) and Farewell, My Concubine (1993), Chinese filmmaker Chen Kaige makes his English-language debut with this erotic thriller adapted from the novel by Nicci French. Alice (Heather Graham) is an American Web designer living in Illinois who falls for a ruggedly handsome mountain climber named Adam (Joseph Fiennes). Bored with her dull love live, sparks begin to fly when Alice and Adam have a chance meeting at a stoplight, and it isn't long before the couple are living together and Adam proposes. With their heated romance taking on hints of mild S & M following their wedding, Alice's realization that she knows very little about her new spouse begins to take on ominous undertones when she discovers that his former fiancée died under mysterious circumstances. Allegations of rape and more missing lovers soon prompt Alice to continue her increasingly disturbing investigation toward answers she may not be ready to accept. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

This is the third film adapted from a fictional trilogy by Irish writer Roddy Doyle about families living in a working-class Dublin neighborhood. The first was director Alan Parker's smashing music mockumentary The Commitments and the second was the hilarious comedy The Snapper, directed by Stephen Frears. Frears also directs this film, which is about two unemployed buddies who convert a dilapidated van into Bimbo's Burgers, a mobile fast-food joint selling fish and chips and hamburgers. Bimbo (Donal O'Kelly) is the brains behind the operation, while his slacker friend Larry (Colm Meany) is his bumbling helper. They first set up shop outside a pub to capture patrons streaming out after watching a telecast of Ireland playing in the World Cup. When Ireland is eliminated, the bumbling entrepreneurs move to a forlorn beach. They get the help of Larry's daughter Diane (Neili Conroy) and son Kevin (Rauidhuri Conroy), who soon becomes so disgusted with the fare that he becomes a vegetarian. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi

"The Irish are the blacks of Europe, Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland, and the North Siders are the blacks of Dublin ... so say it loud -- I'm black and I'm proud!" Or so Jimmy Rabbitte (Robert Arkins) tells his slightly puzzled friends as he tries to assemble a rhythm & blues show band in a working class community in Dublin in Alan Parker's film The Commitments. Jimmy is a would-be music business wheeler and dealer, and he's decided what Dublin needs is a top-shelf soul band. However, top-shelf soul musicians are hard to find in Dublin, so he has to make do with what he can find. However, after a long round of auditions, Jimmy makes two inspired discoveries: Deco (Andrew Strong), an abrasive and alcoholic streetcar conductor who nevertheless has a voice like the risen ghost of Otis Redding, and Joey "The Lips" Fagan (Johnny Murphy), a horn player who knows soul music backwards and forwards and claims to have played with everyone from Wilson Pickett to Elvis Presley. Before long, the band -- called the Commitments -- is packing them in at local clubs. But do they have what it takes to make the big time? Based on the novel by Roddy Doyle, who also co-wrote the screenplay, The Commitments is sparked by fine performances by its young cast and enthusiastic performances of a number of '60s soul classics; the cast, who play their own instruments, reassembled the band for a concert tour after the film became a hit. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In this enigmatic thriller, Susannah (Tusse Silberg) is suddenly herded out of an apartment in the middle of the night and brought to a police station for extensive questioning about why she was in a place that belonged to a known criminal. What the police do not know is that Susannah has been somehow involved in the death of a woman and has reunited with her sister Julie (Lisa Kreuzer) in Berlin. Julie herself has some rather unusual friends -- including Eddie Constantine the American-born French actor and singer who plays himself. It is these characters and their dialogue and asides, and even background action and scenery, that form the real body of this specialized film -- not the plot. For these reasons, this type of film is best limited to those who are more interested in avant-garde than in commercial cinema. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi