Sandra Schulberg Movies

C. Thomas Howell and Jeff Fahey headline this high energy sci-fi adventure set in the near future, where dwindling natural resources have prompted a manned mission to Mars in hopes of discovering a new energy source. Upon arriving on the Red Planet the hopeful space explorers discover that they've stumbled into the middle of civil war that's erupted amongst a previously undiscovered alien civilization, leaving the fate of not one, but two planets in question. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A loser looking for work is asked to become a hired killer in this dark comedy. Frank (Mark Addy)'s life is going nowhere when his mother throws him out of the house. Frank ends up sharing a house with his friend Kenny (Charlie Creed-Miles), who lives with his alcoholic grandfather and disabled brother. Frank is shooting the breeze with Kenny one day and mentions he was once in the service as a Special Air Services officer. Kenny, very impressed, offers Frank some work -- he'd like him to kill Donut (Alan Atherall), a low-level crook responsible for his brother's injury, along with Donut's girlfriend Jackie (Samantha Morton). Frank is taken aback but eventually agrees, and he shows up at Donut's place to discover that he's not in. Jackie, however, lets Frank inside, and Frank and Jackie get to know each other a bit as he waits for his target to show up -- and wonders if he really has the nerve to kill someone. The Last Yellow was screened at the 1999 Edinburgh Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Perennial second lead Lisa Eichhorn is afforded a starring role in the independently produced Wildrose. Shedding her abusive husband, Eicchorn starts life anew by taking a job as a heavy-machinery operator in an otherwise all-male Minnesota iron mine. Relentless harrassed by her sexist coworkers, Eichhorn finds a friend in strip-miner Tom Bower. Their casual relationship develops into romance, while Eichhorn questions the wisdom of entering into another love affair so quickly after her disastrous marriage. Wildrose was magnificently photographed on location in Minnesota and Wisconsin. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Wind Across the Everglades represents the once-in-a-lifetime collaboration between director Nicholas Ray and screenwriter Budd Schulberg, and a strange little picture it is indeed. In his second film appearance, Christopher Plummer plays bibulous 19th-century Florida game warden Walt Murdock, who declares war on the poachers in his region. This brings him in direct conflict with the legendary Cottonmouth (Burl Ives), the spiritual leader of a group of illegal birdhunters. The highly eccentric supporting cast includes Gypsy Rose Lee as a sensuous farm wife, boxer "Two Ton" Tony Galento as a lout named Beef, circus clown Emmett Kelly as the much-married Bigamy Bob, novelist Mackinlay Kantor as the regional judge, and Peter Falk in his film debut, as an owlish writer. After Wind Across the Everglades, Nick Ray's Johnny Guitar will seem as antiseptic as Heidi. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Marquis de Sade was a man who liked to stir up trouble, at a time when his native France was in a state of tremendous political turmoil, and this historical drama examines how much controversy he could cause even under repressive circumstances. In the aftermath of the French Revolution, the Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) manages to narrowly escape execution during the Reign of Terror, and instead is sentenced to the Charenton Asylum for the Insane. Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix), the priest who heads the asylum, is sympathetic to the political machinations that have put the Marquis in his care, and allows him not only to write what he pleases, but to stage theater pieces using the other patients as actors. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine), a tyrannical doctor overseeing the mental institutions of Napoleonic France, is as outraged as the emperor when he reads Justine, a scabrous volume the Marquis penned while an inmate at Charenton, and he demands that de Sade be stopped. But Royer-Collard soon learns that stopping the Marquis from writing is not so simple; when de Sade's quills and ink are taken from him, he uses wine and even his own blood to write his stories. When these options are no longer available, he dictates his work with the help of Madeline (Kate Winslet), a laundry girl working at the asylum, who is fascinated by the notorious de Sade, though she declines his frequent requests to satisfy his notorious sexual appetites. Based on the play by Doug Wright (who also penned the screenplay), Quills was directed by Philip Kaufman, who previously documented the line between eroticism and literature in Henry and June and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This inexpensive but effusively energetic film is set in Louisiana's Cajun country of the 19th century. Belizaire (Armand Assante), unofficial spokesman for his people, butts heads with local bigots who want to rid the area of Cajuns. Belizaire's former girlfriend (Gail Youngs) is now the common-law wife of the film's main antagonist (Will Patton), the son of a wealthy landowner. When Patton is murdered, the locals try to pin the blame on the rabble-rousing Belizaire. He confesses, but only to save his cousin, who'd previously been targeted for lynching. All plot pieces fall into place on the day of Belizaire's scheduled execution. Although an American film, Belizaire the Cajun was unable to get US distribution until it was showered with praise at the Cannes Film Festival. Visually, the film is a banquet, but the multi-dialect soundtrack can be very difficult to follow at times. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Well into the 1930s, there was an expatriate community of Americans who lived in Paris or the French countryside, and who eventually became influential artists and writers. These included the painter Edward Hopper, the writer Ernest Hemingway, and the musician Virgil Thomson. Writer and poet Gertrude Stein and her lifelong companion Alice B. Toklas (perhaps best known for her marijuana recipes) were the patrons of these and other artists, including Guillaume Apollinaire. In this PBS American Playhouse movie, the two are seen in the mid-1930s, and the unflinching loyalty and love that Toklas (Linda Hunt) offered to her irascible companion Stein (Linda Bassett) is the subject of this moving, extremely erudite drama. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi