Paul Satterfield Movies
- 2008
- R
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An uneducated gas station attendant with a taste for the finer things in life turns to crime as a means of making ends meet, only to find himself on a dangerous collision course with the biggest drug dealer in town. All Lucky Kunene wanted out of life was a house by the water, a beautiful wife, and a 7-series BMW. Unfortunately, Lucky hails from a poor Soweto family, and his application for a university grant has just been refused. Dejected at the thought of spending the rest of his life pumping gas, Lucky teams up with his best friend, Zakes, to start stealing cars. At first the endeavor proves remarkably lucrative -- providing Lucky with enough cash to purchase a refrigerator, a nice suit, a classy wardrobe, and a hi-fi stereo system -- but before long the two thieves realize that their profile is becoming dangerously high, and that in order to avoid arrest they will have to relocate. Five years after moving to Hillbrow, Lucky and Zakes are the operators of a deadbeat taxi service. Their criminal lifestyle has gotten them nowhere, and rival taxi gang members are literally gunning for them night and day. Lucky shares a cramped apartment with 20 other people, mostly junkies, prostitutes, and immigrants with nowhere else to go. Though their existence seems bleak, the group manages to pool their resources and form the Hillbrow People's Housing Trust. But just as Lucky enters into the world of real estate, local detective Blackie Swart makes it his mission to capture the so-called "Hoodlum of Hillbrow" and Nigerian drug kingpin Tony Ngu lays claim to the city. With two of the city's most notorious criminals both preparing for the ultimate showdown, Detective Swart will have to work overtime in order to prevent the streets from becoming a virtual war zone. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Rapulana Seiphemo, Ronnie Nyakale, (more)
This Hallmark Channel TV movie is one of several starring Kellie Martin as Samantha "Sam" Kinsey, the owner of a British-style American bookshop which traffics in mystery novels. To improve business, Sam hosts a book signing with three celebrity "whodunit" authors in attendance. One of the three, Claire Beckman (Beth Broderick), uses the occasion to announce her retirement -- whereupon she is nearly shot to death by a cleverly rigged hidden pistol. A second attempt on Claire's life, using poison, succeeds, whereupon local police chief Connors (Casey Sander) places everyone under suspicion -- including Sam. Thus, our heroine is forced once again to play amateur sleuth, with the able assistance of her friends and colleagues, especially enigmatic former CIA agent Philby (Clarence Williams III). Mystery Woman: Mystery Weekend debuted January 7, 2005. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kellie Martin, Clarence Williams III, (more)
A tormented young writer with a once-promising career experiences an existential crisis that leads him down a nightmarish path of passion, deceit, and murder. John Hayson is a writer whose career was derailed by personal tragedy. Though there was once a time when John was struggling to meet multiple deadlines, these days he strains just to earn the occasional freelance job. As his lust for life fades and his worldview becomes increasingly cynical, John finds himself suddenly pulled back from the brink when he reconnects with his one and only true love. It was a guiding ray of sunlight in a pitch-black forest, and it was the one thing that should have given John the strength to get his life back on track. Suddenly, fate deals John a cruel hand when police single him out as the main suspect in a horrific murder. Now, as the police track him though the streets and darkness clouds his every thought, the anguished writer will be forced to choose between succumbing to his darkest desires or following the one beacon of hope that could prove his saving grace. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Matthew Settle, Fay Masterson, (more)
After a bad day at work, a man suddenly gets a new job -- as the world's new Heavenly Father -- in this comedy. Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) is a television reporter working in Buffalo, NY, who has been growing increasingly dissatisfied with his existence, and after an especially bad day, he flies into a rage and curses God for making his life miserable. To Bruce's great surprise, the Supreme Being Himself (Morgan Freeman) appears, and tries to convince Bruce of the enormity of his task. Bruce, however, isn't buying it, so God gives him a chance to find out what he's up against; God bestows all of his powers on Bruce for a week, to see how he'd handle things. At first, Bruce has a great time bending the world around him to his will, much to the puzzlement of his girlfriend, Grace (Jennifer Aniston), but after six days God stops by to remind Bruce he hasn't done much to make the Earth a better place. Disappointed, God presents Bruce with an ultimatum -- he has one day to improve the world in a concrete way, or God will toss the planet back into the void. Bruce Almighty was directed by Tom Shadyac, who previously teamed with Jim Carrey for Liar, Liar and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jim Carrey, Jennifer Aniston, (more)
Television director Neema Barnette directs the forceful drama Civil Brand, based on a story by Preston A. Whitmore II. Shot with a micro-budget of 500,000 dollars, the film stars confrontational rap and hip-hop artists Mos Def, MC Lyte, and Da Brat. The story concerns a women's prison that exploits its largely African-American inmate population as cheap labor to manufacture products for a corporation. Mostly incarcerated due to domestic violence situations, the inmates also face sexual abuse as the hands of the prison staff, headed by Captain Deese (Clifton Powell) and Warden Nelson (Reed McCants). Accused of murder, Frances Shepard (Lisa Rae) joins forces with inmates Little Momma (Lark Voorhies), Wet (Monica Calhoun), and Nikki Barnes (N'Bushe Wright), as well as law student Michael (Mos Def), in order to start an uprising. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
- 1988
Though bereft of budget, the 1988 sci-fier Arena has its heart in the right place. The scene is a distant planet, where extraterrestrial gladiators square off in an arena. Earthling Steve Armstrong would like to prove his fighting skills, but the evil planetary ruler Marc Alaimo won't let him. After an intensive series of training sessions with martial-arts expert Claudia Christian, whose father used to run the arena, Armstrong is at last permitted to display his prowess in public. He also gets a chance to topple Alaimo's despotic regime, and, hopefully, to win himself a trip back to Mother Earth. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
This less-satisfying sequel to the 1982 George A. Romero/Stephen King anthology presents a new trio of King stories, framed in a similar EC Comics-style format -- this time featuring some rather lackluster animated segments involving horror-host "The Creep," who introduces each chapter with pun-heavy gallows humor. The stories vary widely in quality: first there's "Old Chief Wood'nhead," involving a cigar-store Indian who quite literally guards the entrance to an old general store and comes to life to avenge the murders of the elderly couple (George Kennedy and Dorothy Lamour) who owned it. The middle segment, "The Raft," features a group of obnoxious teenagers stranded on a raft in the middle of a lake at the mercy of a murderous oil slick which looks like a bunch of plastic garbage bags stitched together. Both of these suffer in comparison to the closing segment, "The Hitchhiker," in which a bored, promiscuous socialite (Lois Chiles) mows down a hitchhiker, who refuses to stay dead, returning again and again to torment her at every turn, rasping "Thanks for the ride, lady!" Despite its strengths -- a livelier pace, some creatively gory set pieces -- this is a much cheaper-looking effort than its predecessor, with the deft guidance of Romero conspicuously absent (long-time collaborator Michael Gornick took up the directorial reins); as a result, King's gross-out sensibilities don't come off as well. Makeup maestro Tom Savini appears in heavy makeup as a live-action version of The Creep, and King pops in for a bit part as a redneck trucker. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lois Chiles, George Kennedy, (more)
- 1986
Charles Hallahan makes his series bow as Hunter's new superior officer Captain Devane, whose first official act is to separate Hunter (Fred Dryer) and his partner McCall (Stepfanie Kramer). Thinking that the split was Hunter's idea, McCall vents her spleen on her feckless new partner, rookie Reilly Causland (Robert Firth). Meanwhile, Hunter is teamed with hard-nosed Harry Traynor (Tim Thomerson)--who, as it turns out, may have been responsible for the murder of his ex-partner, who'd called Hunter to impart some valuable information just before his death. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
The classic Felix Salter story Bambi provides the basis for this near-perfect Disney animated feature. We follow the male deer Bambi from birth, through his early childhood experiences with woodland pals Thumper the rabbit and Flower the skunk, the traumatic sudden death of Bambi's mother at the hands of hunters, his courtship of the lovely doe Faline, and his rescue of his friends during a raging forest fire; we last see the mature, antlered Bambi assuming his proper place as the Prince of the Forest. In the grand Disney tradition, Bambi is brimming with unforgettable sequences, notably the young deer's attempts to negotiate an iced-over pond, and most especially the death of Bambi's mother--and if this moment doesn't move you to tears, you're made of stone (many subsequent Disney films, including Lion King, have tried, most in vain, to match the horror and pathos of this one scene). The score in Bambi yielded no hits along the lines of "Whistle While You Work", but the songs are adroitly integrated into the action. Bambi was the last of the "classic" early Disney features before the studio went into a decade-long doldrums of disjointed animated pastiches like Make Mine Music. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Fantasia, Walt Disney's animated masterpiece of the 1940s, grew from a short-subject cartoon picturization of the Paul Dukas musical piece The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Mickey Mouse was starred in this eight-minute effort, while the orchestra was under the direction of Leopold Stokowski. Disney and Stokowski eventually decided that the notion of marrying classical music with animation was too good to confine to a mere short subject; thus the notion was expanded into a two-hour feature, incorporating seven musical selections and a bridging narration by music critic Deems Taylor. The first piece, Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor", was used to underscore a series of abstract images. The next selection, Tschiakovsky's "Nutcracker Suite", is performed by dancing wood-sprites, mushrooms, flowers, goldfish, thistles, milkweeds and frost fairies. The Mickey Mouse version of "Sorcerer's Apprentice" is next, followed by Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring", which serves as leitmotif for the story of the creation of the world, replete with dinosaurs and volcanoes. After a brief jam session involving the live-action musicians comes Beethoven's "Pastorale Symphony", enacted against a Greek-mythology tapestry by centaurs, unicorns, cupids and a besotted Bacchus. Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours" is performed by a Corps de Ballet consisting of hippos, ostriches and alligators. The program comes to a conclusion with a fearsome visualization of Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain", dominated by the black god Tchernobog (referred to in the pencil tests as "Yensid", which is guess-what spelled backwards); this study of the "sacred and profane" segues into a reverent rendition of Schubert's "Ave Maria". Originally, Debussy's "Clair de Lune" was part of the film, but was cut from the final release print; also cut, due to budgetary considerations, was Disney's intention of issuing an annual "update" of Fantasia with new musical highlights and animated sequences. A box-office disappointment upon its first release (due partly to Disney's notion of releasing the film in an early stereophonic-sound process which few theatres could accommodate), Fantasia eventually recouped its cost in its many reissues. For one of the return engagements, the film was retitled Fantasia Will Amaze-ya, while the 1963 reissue saw the film "squashed" to conform with the Cinemascope aspect ratio. Other re-releases pruned the picture from 120 to 88 minutes, and in 1983, Disney redistributed the film with newly orchestrated music and Tim Matheson replacing Deems Taylor as narrator. Once and for all, a restored Fantasia was made available to filmgoers in 1990. A sequel, Fantasia 2000, was released in theaters in 1999. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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