Gia Carides Movies

Jack Black and Michael Cera headline Harold Ramis' Biblical comedy about a pair of misfit hunter-gatherers who embark on a wild journey through the ancient world after being banished from their primitive village. Zed (Black) and Oh (Cera) may lack in the skills that their chieftain is looking for, but they have plans to make it big. Zed has a gut feeling that God has "chosen" him, and so he leads his buddy on a trip through the unknown countryside in search of bigger and better things, bumping into several weird characters along the way -- like a feuding pair of brothers named Cain and Abel (David Cross and Paul Rudd). Unfortunately, their quest for greatness hits a few snags, like being sold into slavery, and later becoming the object of interest to a very amorous, very hairy high priest (Oliver Platt) in the opulent city of Sodom. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

It was all but inevitable that the most successful independently produced film of all time, 2002's My Big Fat Greek Wedding, would spawn a weekly, half-hour TV sitcom. What was not inevitable, and indeed a bit surprising, was that the CBS series My Big Fat Greek Life would feature virtually the entire cast of the original film -- with one noteworthy exception. Nia Vardalos, who created the movie and served as a co-executive producer for the TV version, reprised her screen role as Nia (originally Toula) Portokalos Miller, the new Greek-American bride of non-Greek teacher Ian Miller. The two lovebirds did their best to assert their independence, despite the well-meaning omnipresence and interference of Nia's colorful -- and bombastic -- Greek family. In addition to Vardalos, the series featured a number of carryovers from the film, among them Michael Constantine as Nia's domineering restauranteur father, Gus; Lainie Kazan as her eternally freeting mother, Maria; Louis Mandylor as her macho-man brother, Nick; Andrea Martin as advice-dispensing Aunt Voula; and Gia Carides as garrulous cousin Nikki. Conspicuous by his absence on the series was John Corbett, the original Ian Miller; his role was taken over by Steven Eckholdt. My Big Fat Greek Life first aired on February 24, 2003. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One woman's rocky road to the altar gets played for laughs in this comedy, adapted from the one-woman off-Broadway show written by and starring Nia Vardalos. Toula (Vardalos) is a Greek-American woman who is in her early thirties and single, with no immediate prospects of changing that status any time soon. This bothers Toula a bit, but not half as much as it distresses her mother (Lainie Kazan) and father (Michael Constantine), who want to send her to Greece in hopes of finding a husband in the old country. Toula isn't interested in leaving the country to find a man, but since she works in the family business -- a Greek restaurant in Chicago called Dancing Zorba's -- she has to hear about it whether she likes it or not. One day, after seeing a handsome stranger in the restaurant and not having the courage to talk to him, Toula decides she needs a bit of self-improvement. Despite her dad's misgivings, Toula signs up for a night-school class studying computers, trades in her glasses for contact lenses, gets a different job at a travel agency, and spruces herself up with a new look and a new attitude. To her very pleasant surprise, she once again encounters the handsome stranger, who soon asks her out on a date. Schoolteacher Ian Miller (John Corbett) is seemingly perfect -- he's tall, handsome, smart, good-natured, and soon in love with Toula -- except for two little things: he's not Greek, and he's a vegetarian, both of which horrify Toula's family. When Ian pops the question (and Toula says yes), the bride-to-be has to negotiate a reasonably peaceful meeting between Ian's upper-class parents and her own working-class extended family. There's also the matter of the wedding, which Toula's mother is planning around the notion that quantity IS quality. My Big Fat Greek Wedding also features Ian Gomez (Vardalos' real-life husband), Louis Mandylor, Andrea Martin, and Joey Fatone (from the pop group *NSYNC). Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson helped produce the film through the auspices of their production company, Playtone. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

An artist with Tourette's syndrome and an aversion to romance falls for his best friend's girl in this sometimes comic drama. Lyle Maze (Rob Morrow), a successful painter who's also starting to explore sculpture, relies on emotional armor a foot thick to protect him from other people. In addition to suffering from uncontrollable physical tics and loud outbursts, Lyle is also prone to obsessive-compulsive disorder. Afraid that his artistic gifts and his disease spring from the same well, he eschews the well-meaning advice of his doctor pal, Mike (Craig Sheffer), and refuses to try the new drug therapies available. He also rejects any attempt to fix him up with women. But when rebel-without-a-cause Mike decides to tilt at windmills in Africa for seven months as a member of Doctors Without Borders, Lyle finds himself in a precarious position. Callie (Laura Linney), Mike's acerbic ad-exec girlfriend, has confided to him that she's pregnant but unwilling to use her condition as leverage to shore up her troubled relationship. Soon, Lyle is coaching Callie through natural childbirth classes, playing surrogate father-to-be, and falling in love. Inspired by the documentary Twitch and Shout, Maze marked the first trip behind the camera for actor Rob Morrow, who played another man with Tourette's in the film Other Voices. In addition to directing and starring in Maze, the Northern Exposure star co-wrote and co-produced. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

The goofy stuntman and his sidekicks set out to perform the most daring, death-defying stunt he has ever tried -- all to save a sick little boy's life. ~ All Movie Guide

Mike Nichols directed this Elaine May screenplay adapted from the 1996 bestseller by "Anonymous" (Joe Klein), who fictionalized Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign. In the New Hampshire primary, Governor Jack Stanton (John Travolta) convinces Henry Burton (Adrian Lester), grandson of a respected civil rights pioneer, to become his deputy campaign manager. Stanton's smart wife Susan (Emma Thompson) always comes through with public support for her philandering husband. The film's parallel for James Carville is Stanton's redneck advisor Richard Jemmons (Billy Bob Thornton), who knows every strategy and tactic but worries, "The woman thing, that's the killer." Sure enough, problems during the New Hampshire primary include charges of adultery. To get a handle on past peccadillos, Stanton's staff brings in an old family friend, lesbian Libby Holden (Kathy Bates), who knows how to clean up dirt. Stanton, a strong debater, moves on to Florida and New York. When one opposing candidate drops dead of a heart attack, he's replaced by Florida's Governor Fred Picker (Larry Hagman), but Holden holds the skeleton key to the skeleton in Picker's closet. Just how the Stantons put this information to use reveals whether they are ruthless politicians or inspirational leaders with ideals. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Luke Perry stars in this surprisingly moving adult drama about a devoted husband whose wife (Francie Swift) is dying of cystic fibrosis. Because of her rare blood type, she can't get new lungs, so Perry begins a frantic search to find a donor. Eventually, he becomes so desperate that he starts having an affair with a real-estate agent (Gia Carides) whom he plans to murder because she's a match with Swift and has signed her donor card. Director P.J. Posner shows a surprising amount of sensitivity and character development in what was obviously designed to be no more than a cheap erotic thriller. Perry and Swift are believable and sympathetic, and the portrait of Swift's degenerating condition and Perry's desperation is moving and poignant. Only a cliched scene tacked on at the end gives the film's intentions away despite its frequent sexual situations and nudity. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

It begins as a seemingly cut and dried case of sexual harassment, but the more the conciliator assigned to the case investigates, the more obvious it becomes that either or both side is lying. Based on the premise that survival and success in the '90s is largely based on one's ability to lie brilliantly, the Australian drama follows the ins and outs of a very complex case that begins when recently fired Susy Connor files a formal complaint with the Anti-Discrimination Tribunal about an alleged incident in which her employer Gary Fitzgerald grabbed her breasts, whispered suggestive things in her ear and showed her his genitals while working late one night. The married Fitzgerald calls her a liar. Marion is called in to mediate and find the truth. Both parties have creditable character witnesses, and at the same time, both have gaping holes in their stories. Susy's witness is her sister Katie, whom she claims she told all about the upsetting incident. Unfortunately, Susy never said a word and still expects Katie to lie. On the other hand, Gary's witness Vince, his partner, knows that his friend is a notorious womanizer and strongly suspects that Susy tells the truth. Susy, herself, with her sexy dressing, provocative ways and her openness about an active sex-life has the advantage of being a woman as Gary is famed for his macho posturing around the office (a trait that in the hyper-sensitive '90s automatically makes him guilty of lechery). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Laurence Fishburne and Ellen Barkin star in this complex tale of former C.I.A. agents who now specialize in freelance espionage. As the film opens, Nelson Crowe (Fishburne) is being interviewed for a position with the Grimes Organization, which focuses on industrial espionage. He is hired by Margaret Wells (Barkin), who then takes Crowe to her boss, Grimes (Frank Langella). Grimes and Wells visit a man named Walter Curl (Spalding Gray) to tell him that they can bribe a state judge so that Curl's company doesn't have to pay a $25 million fine for the toxic poisoning of some children. The judge himself (David Ogden Stiers) is deep in gambling debts. Meanwhile, Wells aligns herself with Crowe and tries to convince him that the two of them could do away with Grimes and take over his entire organization. The plot thickens from there, with several surprises. The first-time original screenplay was by famous crime writer Ross Thomas, and the film's elegant cinematography by Jack N. Green captures the coldness of the characters and their surroundings. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

This wildly off-beat comedy is about a male dancer (Paul Mercurio) who refuses to follow the accepted rules of ballroom dancing and creates his own style of choreography, which infuriates the ballroom dancing establishment. Before he's scheduled to compete in the Pan-Pacific ballroom championships, he's forced to take up a new partner (Tara Morice), a beginner who initially seems without promise. With his help, she turns into an assured and wonderful dancer. Baz Luhrmann's visual style may be too bright, gaudy and exaggerated for some tastes, yet he treats his characters with compassion, which makes Strictly Ballroom such an engaging comedy. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

The ugly American bullying his way through a foreign country was a subject for comedy in several films of the 1980s, most notably Bill Forsyth's Local Hero and this film from exiled Yugoslavian director Dusan Makavejev. Eric Roberts plays Becker, an aggressive marketing executive for the Coca-Cola Company; he has been assigned to figure out why sales in hot and dry Australia aren't higher. Becker comes up against a low-key but formidable adversary, T. George McDowell (Bill Kerr), whose homegrown soda has cornered the market in his little corner of the country. Complicating matters is Terri, a local woman (Greta Scacchi) Becker hires as his secretary; she's McDowell's daughter and a single mom who's romantically attracted to the brash American. Becker wants to make a deal on his (and his employer's) terms, but he finds himself falling prey to the charms of life Down Under and the ministrations of Terri. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide

In this standard auto-racing-mixed-with-murder tale from Down Under, a gang steals and then strips cars to sell the parts for profit but meets their match when they literally run into Steve, a young racecar driver, and some tow-truck operators. From that point onward, mangled metal appears on the scene regularly, as Steve pursues his career as well as the people who caused his own father's disappearance. Steve has some help from his father's partner Tom (Max Cullen), and his two pit-stop mechanics (Bruce Spence and David Argue), but his love interest Ruth (Gia Carides) is only a token woman in a nearly all-male world. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide