Joel Hatch Movies

A teenage boy tries to hold his family together while the girl of his dreams drives him to distraction in this coming-of-age comedy drama. It's 1978, and Henry Nearing (Gregory Smith) and his family are in a state of flux. Henry's mother has died, and now his father, Shep (David Morse), is trying to find himself by quitting his job, buying a motorcycle, and growing out his hair. Henry's brother, Blair (David Moscow), is similarly trying to expand his boundaries by dating a free-spirited girl and experimenting with drugs. Henry, meanwhile, is just trying to get through high school, but a certain girl is making that difficult for him. Grace Chance (Jordana Brewster) is a pretty girl in Henry's class who enjoys wrapping boys around her little finger; it doesn't take long for her to notice he's smitten with her, and she begins flirting with him and getting him to do whatever she wants, even though she already has a boyfriend whom she has no intention of leaving. Meanwhile, Merna (Ashley Johnson), a cute girl who lives nearby, has a crush on Henry and is clearly a better match for him, but she can't get him to notice her, even after she starts dating an older boy to make him jealous. Nearing Grace received its world premiere at the 2005 Los Angeles Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Taking his cue from such 1970s horror classics as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and The Hills Have Eyes (1977), animated rocker Rob Zombie goes celluloid with the throwback shocker House of 1000 Corpses. Running low on gas as they travel the highways of America in search of the ultimate roadside attraction, a group of teens pull into Captain Spaulding's (Sid Haig) museum of oddities (which also offers fried chicken and gasoline) only to become obsessed with uncovering the mystery of a legendary local maniac known only as Dr. Satan. When an attractive and mysterious hitchhiker subsequently offers to give the thrill seekers a personal tour of Dr. Satan's old stabbing grounds, a breakdown forces them to take refuge with a group of menacing oddballs as a fearsome storm rages outside. As the evening progresses and the backwoods hosts' Halloween festivities become ever more threatening, the teens soon realize that the legend of Dr. Satan may hold a bit more contemporary weight than any of them had previously thought. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

For the follow-up to In the Company of Men, the misogyny-on-parade debut that became an out of nowhere indie hit, auteur Neil LaBute wrote and directed a piece that gives more equal representation to the shortcomings of both genders than his earlier film. Three men stand on one side: Cary (Jason Patrick), a womanizing doctor who rehearses make-out lines and keeps his body almost grotesquely ripped; Jerry (Ben Stiller), a self-obsessed theater instructor who chews over every emotion like a morsel of dessert; and Barry (Aaron Eckhart), a man grown soft in his marriage to a woman who can't satisfy him sexually as well as he can himself. On the other side we have three equally well-defined women: Terri (Catherine Keener), a writer/editor whose prefers to keep words out of the bedroom, much to the chagrin of live-in beau Jerry; Mary (Amy Brenneman), a freelance writer whose attempts to find her own sexual fulfillment with both husband Barry and paramour Jerry meet with a similar lack of success; and Cheri (Nastassja Kinski), an art assistant who meets most of the other characters one by one at a gallery but directs her sylph-like affections in an unexpected direction. The lies, double-crosses, and confrontations between these characters resolve into a sinisterly comic indictment of the very idea of romantic fulfillment. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Two lovers inadvertently take the notion of fiery passion too far when their lovemaking begins generating real conflagrations in this romantic fantasy. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide