Ousama Rawi Movies

A hard-partying Southern college student's slow road to recovery opens the door to a monumental journey of self-discovery in Athens, Georgia-based independent director Hadjii's hilarious tale of real-world responsibility. Scotty is a 22-year-old African-American college student whose higher education only seems to be getting in the way of his steady diet of booze, women, and partying. When a close brush with the law offers Scotty a sobering wake-up call, the fun-loving student finds that cleaning up your act isn't as easy as it sounds when you're surrounded by a family of crazies and a trio of wild roommates. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The time: June 1998. The place: The sleepy town of Jasper, TX. Three young, self-styled white supremists overpower a 49-year-old black man named James Byrd Jr., chain him to the back of their pickup, and literally drag him to death. What follows is a media firestorm, exacerbated by scores of network and cable-TV news services, the grim pronouncements of so-called pundits, and the intrusion upon Jasper of several extremist activists, ranging from members of the Ku Klux Klan to the newly formed Black Panthers. As the frenzy continues, the heretofore peaceful, if somewhat tenuous, relationship between the white and black residents of Jasper is severely strained, with echoes of past racism resounding throughout the area. In the center of the controversy are two decent, hard-working public servants: R.C. Horn, the first black mayor of Jasper, and Billy Rowles, the town's white sheriff. Also profoundly affected by the appalling murder of Byrd are the respective parents of the victim and the killers. Happily, when the dust clears, justice is done (two of the murderers are condemned to death, the third sentenced to life imprisonment), and, instead of being wrenched apart, the black and white communities of Jasper draw closer together than they have ever been. Made for cable TV, this feature-length reenactment stars Louis Gossett Jr. as Horn and Jon Voight as Rowles. Although certain liberties are taken (the actor playing Byrd is clearly much younger than his real-life counterpart and the Black Panthers and KKK are incorrectly shown descending upon Jasper the same day), the film is, by and large, accurate. Better still, there is a minimum of preaching and proselytizing. Previewed at the Philadelphia Film Festival, Jasper, Texas was given its official Showtime network cable premiere on June 8, 2003 -- almost five years to the day after Byrd's death. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Directed by Martyn Burke, Avenging Angelo centers around the life of bodyguard Frank (Sylvester Stallone) and his client, neurotic socialite Jennifer (Madeleine Stowe). Frank must constantly fight his emotions in order to maintain a strictly professional relationship with Jennifer, who has recently broken if off with her unfaithful husband. Matters are complicated further when Frank accidentally leads the sworn enemies of Jennifer's father, Mafia bigwig Angelo (Anthony Quinn), to her doorstep. Things are looking up for Jennifer, or so she thinks, when she meets Marcello (Raoul Bova), whom she believes to be a novelist. Unfortunately, Marcello is not what he claimed to be, and she finds herself in danger once more. With Frank by her side, she takes on the mob, and eventually, her feelings. Avenging Angelo was the late Anthony Quinn's final role. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

This tech-world biopic traces the fortunes of personal-computer companies Apple and Microsoft from their obscure dorm-room and backyard origins to their very public battle for corporate supremacy. Writer/director Martyn Burke follows the parallel lives of Microsoft founder Bill Gates (Anthony Michael Hall) and Apple co-founders Steve Jobs (Noah Wyle) and Steve Wozniak (Joey Slotnick) -- the former a crafty Harvard dropout, the latter a pair of hippies with jobs at Hewlett-Packard and a yen to sell miniature versions of corporate mainframes to small businesses and at-home enthusiasts. Much like the personal-computer industry itself, the action starts with Apple then gradually shifts to Microsoft. The former plot thread recounts how Jobs and Wozniak "borrowed" key concepts from a Xerox computer lab, eked out their success as countercultural businessmen, and finally fell out with one another over the pressure of success. The latter thread focuses on the way Gates learned from, then surpassed, the brains behind Apple and turned his company into the global powerhouse that it is today. Based on Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine's Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer, the film actually focuses only on that book's final chapters. Produced for cable channel TNT, Pirates of Silicon Valley debuted June 18, 1999. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Ray (Richard Grieco) and Annette (Maria Conchita Alonso) are a pair of confidence artists in this complex thriller. Ray and Annette are looking for a big score, and they believe they've found one when they encounter a woman who has inherited a large amount of money following a death in the family. Ray and Annette are cooking up a scheme to get their hands on some of the cash, but while she's willing to share, he wants to keep it all for his own purposes. Ray's attempts to keep the money away from Annette and keep her out of the picture lead to an ugly confrontation. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this mystery-thriller based on a novel by Ruth Rendell, Eunice (Rita Tushingham, wife of director Ousama Rawi) is a housekeeper who gets a job working for an older doctor and his wife in the U.S. Eunice is super-sensitive, rather homely, and illiterate. But she makes friends with a religious fanatic (Jackie Burroughs) who is quite willing to go along with whatever she has in mind. When a murder occurs, could Eunice and her good buddy be a bit more disturbed than first assumed? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

After years of an oppressive dictatorship, a group of army officers in a tiny, vaguely delineated European country organize a coup. Colonel Narriman (David Hemmings) has bravely taken chances which could have resulted in his death, and he expects, once the coup is successful, to become the next leader of his country. Quietly biding his time, Colonel Zeller (Peter O'Toole) has played along with the revolutionaries but doesn't like their methods. In the end, he puts a monkey-wrench into their whole operation. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In Sky Riders, the off-camera tale behind the film cast a more interesting story than the film itself: when a Greek electrician died during an explosion, the film's producer, Terry Morse Jr., was arrested by the Greek government, and executive producer Sandy Howard was detained in Greece for several weeks. Finally, an out-of-court settlement was reached with the Greek government to release the film producer. The plot of the actual film has nothing to do with international incidents, although it does deal, on a comic-book level, with terrorism. The wife, Ellen (Susannah York), of an international industrialist (Robert Culp) and her two children are kidnapped from their Athens home by a terrorist group and taken to an abandoned monastery on an imposing, needle-shaped crag. The police immediately snap into action. Inspector Nikolidis (Charles Aznavour) attempts to free them, but the police force fails. Coming into the picture is Ellen's ex-husband, Jim McCabe (James Coburn). Pondering the situation, he notices a couple of crows in flight and gets a brainstorm. McCabe tracks down a flying circus of hang-gliding riders and requisitions them for the rescue. The hang gliders teach McCabe to fly, and McCabe teaches them to fight. Then, on the night of a full moon, the group glides off to the monastery to save Ellen. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

A simple man becomes bent on violent revenge in this thriller. John Kinsdale (George Kennedy) is an American who lives with his wife and three children in Naples, Italy, where he's employed by NATO as an electronics expert. Kinsdale and his good friend Mike McAllister (John Mills) are working to bring NATO's computer systems up to date, but Kinsdale loses all interest in his work when he comes home one evening to discover his wife and kids have been brutally murdered in their home. Emotionally devastated, Kinsdale has no idea why his family has been killed until Italian investigator Dr. Lupo (Raf Vallone) learns the Kinsdales were murdered by a band of radical terrorists who are targeting the families of Americans living in Europe until their jailed comrades are released from prison. Using his computer skills, Kinsdale sets out to find the terrorists who claimed the lives of his family, and will stop at nothing to get the justice he demands. Featuring a score by Ennio Morricone, The Human Factor was the final directorial credit for veteran filmmaker Edward Dmytryk. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Peter Hunt directed this old fashioned -- if not reactionary -- action film about gold-mining in South Africa. The story concerns a nefarious scheme to control the international price of gold by sabotaging the country's largest gold mine, flooding it with an underground sea. Hurry Hirschfeld (Ray Milland) is a cranky but kind millionaire who owns the gold mine. His granddaughter, Terry Steyner (Susannah York), is a beautiful women suffering from the old ennui. She happens to be married to chief bad-guy Manfred Steyner (Bradford Dillman), who, along with unscrupulous international tycoon Farrell (John Gielgud), hatches the plot to flood Hurry's gold- mine. To the rescue comes Rod Slater (Roger Moore) and his faithful black sidekick Big King (Simon Sabela), ready to right the wrongs and stem the tide in order to make South Africa safe for cheap black labor. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In this sad British drama, a family of 14 children is suddenly orphaned and must now consider how to keep themselves from being separated by the authorities. They launch a brave campaign in the face of nosy social workers who want to place them in assorted reform schools and foster homes. Eventually the eldest brother and sister realize that they must split up for the benefit of the younger children. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide