Jack McGee Movies

This drama is based on a play by Mones and is set within a grim New York neighborhood where a new kid comes to the neighborhood. Unlike the street-wise and life-toughened gang members around him, the youth is a sensitive poet who teaches the kids about the meaning and beauty of life. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Nicolas Cage headlines this high-octane thriller as Milton, a hard-case felon who breaks out of Hell to prevent the cult that murdered his daughter from sacrificing his infant granddaughter to Satan on the night of the full moon. With just three days to go before the ritual killing, Milton crosses paths with knockout waitress Piper (Amber Heard), who steals her cheating ex-boyfriend's vintage Charger and joins him on his quest to save the Earth from the forces of darkness. With Piper's help and a mean set of wheels to keep them moving, they may have a shot at taking down diabolical cult leader Jonah King (Billy Burke) before he achieves his malevolent goal. But should Jonah get the opportunity to make his dark sacrifice, he will become the most powerful man alive and all of humanity will suffer. Unfortunately for Milton, the cops are quickly closing in, and the Devil's determined minion, "The Accountant" (William Fichtner), will stop at nothing to drag him back down to Hell. With each passing minute, Milton's last shot at redemption is fading, and the fate of the entire world inches ever closer to infernal darkness. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Wrong Turn director Rob Schmidt takes the helm for this thriller inspired by the grim true-life exploits of an alphabet-obsessed New York serial killer and starring Timothy Hutton, Cary Elwes, Eliza Dushku, and Michael Ironside. When Rochester, NY-based police investigator Megan Paige (Dushku) discovers that ten year old Carla Castillo was brutally raped and murdered in nearby Churchville, she becomes convinced that the department is dealing with a serial killer. Paige is a driven detective whose devotion to her job often crosses the border into obsession. Her fiancé, Kenneth Shine (Elwes), is a lieutenant with the Rochester Police Department, and as both jockey for the same promotion, the cracks in their relationship begin to show. Later, when Megan becomes haunted by visions of Carla and fails to solve the case, a concerned Captain Gullikson (Tom Noonan) takes her off of the case. Suffering a nervous breakdown shortly thereafter, Megan is diagnosed with adult onset of paranoid schizophrenia and placed in a psychiatric hospital, where she promptly breaks off her engagement to Kenneth.

Two years later, Megan has returned to the precinct as a records clerk, and Kenneth is now the head of the department. Over time, Megan begins developing a friendship with wheelchair-bound Richard Ledge (Hutton). When a local girl named Wendy Walsh is abducted, raped, and murdered in Webster, Megan convinces Kenneth to let her ride along with Detective Steven Harper (Tom Malloy) as an advisor to the case. But the gruesome nature of the case once again prompts strange visions for Megan. Now she is haunted by two murder victims, and to make matters worse, she's beginning to develop embarrassing involuntary ticks and stops taking her medication. As the hallucinations get worse and the case starts to run cold, Megan struggles to find the one piece of evidence that will lead them to the killer before her dark side takes over once again. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Leftist filmmaker Ken Loach directs this grim drama about the plight of seemingly invisible office cleaners in contemporary L.A. who often earn as little as $6 a day without benefits. The film opens as Maya (Pilar Padilla), a young Mexican lass, is reuniting with her older sister Rosa (Elpidia Carrilio) in L.A. after a harrowing cross-border journey. Rosa sets her sister up first with a job as a barmaid, which Maya soon quits after getting repeatedly groped -- and then as a janitor. When her boss demands one month's salary as "commission," Maya happens upon Sam Shapiro (Adrien Brody), a muckraking lawyer and union agitator. This film, which was screened in competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, is remarkable for its prescience -- it was shown a month after a massive janitor's strike ground L.A.'s business community to a halt. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

In this independent comedy about the pitfalls of romance in the 1990s, Katie (Marla Schaffel) is a 25-year-old aspiring songwriter living in Los Angeles. Katie is also a virgin; she's been saving herself for the perfect man, but with the passage of time, she's becoming more firmly convinced that he doesn't actually exist. Katie frequently commiserates about the sad state of her love life with her friend Janet (Meredith Scott Lynn), who left her virginity behind a long time ago in the pursuit of a good orgasm but isn't having any more luck in landing her dream man. Katie is good friends with Ben (Mitchell Whitfield), a sweet but nebbishy guy who is crazy about Katie and wants to move their relationship from the platonic to the romantic. Katie, however, doesn't think he's the right man, and she prefers to keep him at arms length; she's shocked (but probably shouldn't be) when Ben ends up sleeping with Janet. When Katie meets Richard Webber (Michael Harris), a successful British songwriter, she thinks that she may have finally found the handsome prince she's been waiting for, but she soon discovers that he's merely a charming frog with a lot of empty promises. Julie Davis, who wrote, produced, directed, and edited I Love You . . . Don't Touch Me!, also appears in a supporting role as Lisa. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This cold, stylish erotic-thriller grossed over $100 million at the box-office despite vigorous protests at its depiction of gays and women. The shocking opening sequence features a graphic sexual encounter involving a rock-star bound with a white Hermes scarf by an unidentified blond woman. Despite the fact that the scene ends with a bloody icepick murder (horrifyingly realized by makeup artist Rob Bottin), Hermes scarves quickly sold out at stores nationwide. This seeming paradox is at the heart of the film's appeal, as it mixes perverse sexuality and erotic bloodshed in a manner common to European thrillers (director Paul Verhoeven had done it himself in 1979's marvelous De Vierde Man) but mostly taboo in America. The plot concerns Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone), a successful bisexual mystery writer who may also be a ruthless murderer. Everyone close to Catherine dies, and troubled policeman Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) must find out why. In the process, Nick becomes sexually involved with both Catherine and police psychiatrist Beth Gardner (Jeanne Tripplehorn), while the bodies begin piling up and Catherine turns the cat-and-mouse game around on Nick. Verhoeven and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas -- who was paid $3 million for the script -- keep the tension ratcheted up throughout, even during the frequent sex scenes, which carry a violent edge reminiscent of the Italian thrillers of Dario Argento. The film's most notorious scene, a police interrogation in which Catherine makes drooling idiots out of her captors by revealing that she is not wearing underwear, became a cultural touchstone and was widely imitated and parodied. Sharon Stone, meanwhile, was embarrassed to the point that she claimed Verhoeven had aimed lights on strategic locations without her knowledge. George Dzundza and Dorothy Malone co-star. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

Val Kilmer delivers what was considered one of 1991's best performances as Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's hallucinatory bio-pic of the seminal 1960s rock group The Doors. Stone cuts a jagged swath through Morrison's life, starting with a childhood memory where Morrison sees an elderly Indian dying by the roadside. It picks up with Morrison's arrival in California and his assimilation into the Venice Beach culture, followed by his film school days at UCLA; his introduction to his girlfriend Pamela Courson (Meg Ryan); his first encounters with Ray Manzarek (Kyle MacLachlan); and the origin of The Doors -- made up of Manzarek, Robby Kreiger (Frank Whaley), and John Densmore (Kevin Dillon). As the fame of The Doors grows, Morrison's obsession with death increases. The band grows weary of Morrison's missed recording sessions and no-shows at concerts. Morrison, meanwhile, sinks deeper into a drug-induced haze, having mystical sexual encounters with Patricia Kennealy (Kathleen Quinlan), an older rock journalist involved with sadomasochism and witchcraft. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Actress Dyan Cannon, whose 1976 directorial debut Number One was nominated for a "best short subject" Academy Award, moves on to feature-length projects with The End of Innocence. In addition to directing, Ms. Cannon wrote the screenplay and played a leading role in this story of a young girl spiritually torn apart by forces beyond her control. Rebecca Schaeffer plays Stephanie Lewis, unwanted and ignored by her eternally squabbling parents. Mom and Dad do further damage to Stephanie's battered psyche by giving her mixed messages concerning sex and religion. The girl's self-esteem dwindles to microscopic proportions thanks to a series of no-good boyfriends. Suffering a nervous breakdown, she is placed in an asylum, where for the first time she treated as a human being rather than a nuisance by compassionate psychiatrist John Heard. Completed in the late 1980s, End of Innocence was released in 1990, one year after the death of star Rebecca Schaeffer. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The second of three films by co-writer/director Oliver Stone to explore the effects of the Vietnam War (Platoon and Heaven and Earth are the others), Born On The Fourth Of July tells the true story of Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise), a patriotic, All-American small town athlete who shocks his family by enlisting with the Marines to fight in the Vietnam War. Once he is overseas, however, Kovic's gung-ho enthusiasm turns to horror and confusion when he accidentally kills one of his own men in a firefight. His downfall is furthered by a bullet wound that leaves him paralyzed from the chest down. He returns home, spends an appalling, nightmarish stint in a veterans' hospital, and follows an increasingly disillusioned and fragmented path that ultimately leaves him drunk and dissolute in Mexico. However, Kovic somehow turns himself around and pulls his life together, becoming an outspoken anti-war activist in the process. The film is long but emotionally powerful; many consider it Stone's best work and Cruise's best performance. Both were nominated for Oscars, as was the film itself, but only Stone, who co-wrote the film with Kovic from the latter's book, won for Best Director. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

Quirky comedy, intense drama, and warm nostalgia are all combined in this eccentric look at one night in 1964 amongst the residents of the Five Corners neighborhood of the Bronx. The bulk of the film concerns Linda (Jodie Foster), a young woman who finds herself stalked by a disturbed rapist fresh out of prison. Needing protection, she turns to her formerly tough ex-boyfriend, only to discover that a recent political awakening has transformed him into a pacifist. The tension of Linda's situation is leavened by the film's attention to its bizarre subplots, which include a stolen penguin, partying teenagers who encounter trouble with an elevator, and a pair of detectives investigating a series of mysterious bow-and-arrow attacks. The script by John Patrick Shanley, who won the 1987 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Moonstruck, manages to (for the most part) bring these seemingly unrelated stories together into a fairly logical conclusion. Even though numerous critics felt that Five Corners' mixture of widely disparate tones was not completely successful, the end result is a surprisingly charming and unique tribute to a time and a place. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi

Someone to Watch Over Me, a mystery thriller directed by Ridley Scott is the story of a police officer who falls in love with the woman he is hired to protect and the effect of this affair on his marriage and his life. Claire (Mimi Rogers) an extremely wealthy socialite is the sole witness to a mob murder and is in great danger. Mike (Tom Berenger), a happily married NYC police officer is assigned to protect her and takes up residence in her foyer while she waits to testify. A romance develops between the unlikely couple which threatens Mike's marriage to Ellie (Lorraine Bracco). All of this sounds more exciting than it is, and while the film fails to generate much suspense, the love story and Mike's dilemma are interesting. All the performances are excellent, particularly that of Bracco as the no-nonsense wife. The score is exceptional and the photography and set decoration are all fine. Someone to Watch Over Me is a fine police thriller and love story. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi

Bennett Miller's adaptation of Michael Lewis' non-fiction best seller Moneyball stars Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, a one-time phenom who flamed out in the big leagues and now works as the GM for the Oakland Athletics, a franchise that's about to lose their three best players to free agency. Because the team isn't in a financial position to spend as much as perennial favorites like the Yankees and the Red Sox, Beane realizes he needs to radically change how he evaluates what players can bring to the squad. After he meets Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), an Ivy League economics major working as an executive assistant for scouting on another team, Beane realizes he's found the man who understands how to subvert the system of assessing players that's been in place for nearly a century. However, as the duo begin to acquire players that seem too old, injured, or inept to play major-league baseball, they face stiff resistance from both the A's longtime scouts and the team's manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who outright refuses to allow Beane's more-nontraditional acquisitions to play. Moneyball screened at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

An entrepreneur with a world-class ego has to rebuild his empire and his family relationships from scratch in this comedy. Robert Axle (Kevin Spacey) built a multi-million-dollar business out of selling household gadgets through television infomercials, and managed to alienate nearly everyone around him when fame and wealth turned him into an arrogant loudmouth. When one of Axle's products turns out to be dangerous and causes several thousand customers to lose a finger, he loses his fortune and spends eight years in prison for gross negligence. Back on the street, Axle is broke but determined to find a way back to the top, though he's just a bit more humble than he used to be and wants to win back the love of his daughter, Claire (Camilla Belle), whom he neglected as a child, and his ex-wife (Virginia Madsen). Things go badly for Axle on his first day working at a big-box discount store, and he's left with little alternative than to ask Claire to let him stay with her; she and her roommate, Fibbi (Heather Graham), aren't so sure this is a good idea, but they grudgingly agree and end up helping Axle in his bid to redeem himself. Father of Invention also stars Johnny Knoxville, Craig Robinson, and Michael Rosenbaum. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi