A conservative judge is appointed by the President to spearhead America's escalating war against drugs, only to discover that his teenage daughter is a crack addict. Two DEA agents protect an informant. A jailed drug baron's wife attempts to carry on the family business.
Director:
Steven Soderbergh
Stars:
Michael Douglas,
Benicio Del Toro,
Catherine Zeta-Jones
After getting into a serious car accident, a TV director discovers an underground sub-culture of scarred, omnisexual car-crash victims who use car accidents and the raw sexual energy they produce to try to rejuvenate his sex life with his wife.
An unemployed single mother becomes a legal assistant and almost single-handedly brings down a California power company accused of polluting a city's water supply.
Director:
Steven Soderbergh
Stars:
Julia Roberts,
Albert Finney,
David Brisbin
A young woman, recently released from a mental hospital, gets a job as a secretary to a demanding lawyer, where their employer-employee relationship turns into a sexual, sadomasochistic one.
Director:
Steven Shainberg
Stars:
James Spader,
Maggie Gyllenhaal,
Jeremy Davies
A mute woman is sent to 1850s New Zealand along with her young daughter and prized piano for an arranged marriage to a wealthy landowner, but is soon lusted after by a local worker on the plantation.
Ann is married to John, who is having an affair with her sister Cynthia. Ann's a quiet type and unwilling to let herself go. When John's old friend, Graham, shows up, all their lives change. Graham likes to videotape interviews with women.Written by
Rob Hartill
Intelligent, surprisingly enveloping movie is one that sneaked up on a lot of people in 1989, and has that effect on the unsuspecting today. A somewhat-frigid young woman becomes fascinated with her husband's friend, an emotionally confused man whose hobby is videotaping sexual conversations with women. The film takes about a quarter of an hour to kick in, yet once the character motivations become more clear it's quite an engrossing experience, a movie that unfolds rather like a novel. For those who stick with it, an intense drama peopled with some sordid characters who are nevertheless brilliantly portrayed by the cast. Andie MacDowell, as the wife who is so homespun she can't even swear, has rarely been so complex and affecting on film. **1/2 from ****
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Intelligent, surprisingly enveloping movie is one that sneaked up on a lot of people in 1989, and has that effect on the unsuspecting today. A somewhat-frigid young woman becomes fascinated with her husband's friend, an emotionally confused man whose hobby is videotaping sexual conversations with women. The film takes about a quarter of an hour to kick in, yet once the character motivations become more clear it's quite an engrossing experience, a movie that unfolds rather like a novel. For those who stick with it, an intense drama peopled with some sordid characters who are nevertheless brilliantly portrayed by the cast. Andie MacDowell, as the wife who is so homespun she can't even swear, has rarely been so complex and affecting on film. **1/2 from ****