Three O'Clock High
by Phil Joanou
from Universal Studios
Gridiron Gang (Full screen)
by Phil Joanou
from Sony Pictures
In Gridiron Gang, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson once again displays far more cinematic charisma than one could expect from a former professional wrestler. Sean Porter (Johnson, Be Cool), a football player turned juvenile detention counselor, wrestles with a seemingly insolvable problem: The vast majority of young men who leave detention fall right back into crime. Seeking a way to give these not-yet-hardened kids a taste of self-esteem and discipline, Porter persuades his superiors to let him teach the kids football--and then take on high school teams. Though based on a true story (documentary footage over the closing credits reveals that some dialogue was lifted straight from the real Sean Porter's mouth), Gridiron Gang is pure underdogs-overcome-adversity formula. A formula is not necessarily a bad thing; when executed with skill and commitment, fulfilling a classic story mechanism can be perfectly satisfying, and Gridiron Gang qualifies. But it's Johnson who carries it through, demonstrating--in the most unlikely of roles--a surprisingly gentle touch. Johnson manages to be manly without overbearing machismo, earning not only respect but empathy. --Bret Fetzer
Stills from Gridiron Gang (click for larger image)
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Beyond Gridiron Gang at Amazon.com
 More Football Films |  The Soundtrack |  Films about Underdogs |
Teenagers at a juvenile detention center under the leadership of their counselor gain self-esteem by playing football together.System Requirements:Run Time: 125 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: PG - 13 UPC: 043396163058 Manufacturer No: 16305
State of Grace
by Phil Joanou
from MGM (Video & DVD)
Overshadowed by GoodFellas when it was released in 1990, State of Grace gradually emerged as one of the best New York gangster films of its decade. It was also the first to feature the Irish American mob known as the Westies. Here, their territory west of Times Square is being gentrified by an unwelcome infusion of yuppie cash, squeezing them into a reluctant alliance with Mafia kingpins. Frankie (Ed Harris) is the boss; little brother Jackie (Gary Oldman) is his volatile muscle; their friend Terry (Sean Penn) has returned from an extended absence, harboring a dangerous secret while rekindling his love for Frankie and Jackie's sister Kathleen (Robin Wright, Penn's future wife). Giving one of his scariest, most violent performances, Oldman offers stark, brutal contrast to Harris's pent-up fury, while Penn breathes life into his character's standard-issue dilemma. A former protégé of Steven Spielberg's, director Phil Joanou handles this gritty potboiler with confident, unobtrusive style, ramping up the tension of divided loyalties, even as the plot grows increasingly familiar. --Jeff Shannon
New York City s Hell s Kitchen is a pressure cooker of pent-up anger and it s about to explode! Sean Penn Ed Harris Gary Oldman Robin Wright John Turturro and John C. Reilly deliver exceptional performances (The Hollywood Reporter) in this finely drawn tale of betrayal redemption and guilt (Los Angeles) that ll put you on the edge of your seat (Newsweek)! Terry Noonan (Penn) returns to his old neighborhood with a score to settle. He s now an undercover cop dead-set on taking down an Irish mob family headed by Frankie Flannery (Harris) and his hot-headed brother Jackie (Oldman). But when Noonan infiltrates the family his old feelings for the Flannerys sister (Wright) further heighten the stakes as he enters a violent showdown with them duringSystem Requirements: Running Time 134 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 027616881434 Manufacturer No: 1004036
U2 - Rattle and Hum
by Phil Joanou
from Paramount
Rattle and Hum is not a film for anyone looking for an introduction to Irish band U2's career in the 1980s, but it is a vibrant portrait of an established group making its musical pilgrimage through the America it has always imagined through blues, gospel, and early rock 'n' roll. Filmmaker Phil Joanou (Heaven's Prisoners), a veteran music-video director and maker of the distractingly kinetic Three O'Clock High, finds a suitable outlet for his high energy in this juggernaut of a journey, which finds U2 collaborating with a black gospel choir and B.B. King, recording inside the legendary Sun Records studio, dropping by Graceland, and in a moment of fearlessness, performing the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" to exorcise Charles Manson's sick claim on the song. --Tom Keogh
A concert movie on an unprecedented scale Rattle And Hum captures U2-on and off the stage - during their triumphant Joshua Tree tour. From the giant technicolor stadium celebrations to the black-and-white intensity of the indoor shows this is U2 at thier best. Follow the group across America exploring new influences playing with the legendary B.B. King on a journey which takes them from Dublin to Graceland from San Francisco to the streets of Harlem from The Joshua Tree to Rattle and Hum.System Requirements:Running Time: 98 Min. Color. This film is presented in "Widescreen" format. Copyright 2002 Paramount.Format: DVD AUDIO Genre: MUSIC DVD/CONCERTS Rating: PG-13 UPC: 097363222842 Manufacturer No: 322284
Heaven's Prisoners
by Phil Joanou
from New Line Home Video
A Vietnam vet/ex-detective leaves New Orleans with his wife for a quieter life in Louisiana's bayou. However a plane crash on the Gulf gets him involved in the world of murder and deception.Running Time: 106 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 794043672521
When he emerged from film school in the mid-1980s, director Phil Joanou was touted as the next Steven Spielberg, perhaps because Spielberg took him on as a protégé briefly. Since then, it's been "Phil who?" thanks to a series of mediocre thrillers like this one. Based on one of a series of novels by James Lee Burke about a troubled ex-cop named Dave Robicheaux, this film sat on the shelf for a couple of years before finally being released in 1995. Alec Baldwin plays Robicheaux, a recovering alcoholic who has put life on the New Orleans police department behind him--until a plane crashes in the lake next to his house. He rescues a young Central American girl from the wreck and adopts her--and winds up involved in a gumbo of drug running and dirty dealing involving an old pal named Bubba. Tip-off that this movie should have gone straight to video: Bubba is played by Eric Roberts. Redeeming feature (at least for men, who are all dogs, as everyone knows): a Teri Hatcher nude scene. --Marshall Fine
Final Analysis
by Phil Joanou
from Warner Home Video
This film, which again pairs Richard Gere and Kim Basinger (who starred in 1986's No Mercy), offers up elements of classic noir: a hapless man becomes intimately involved with a beautiful blonde who may or may not be who or what she appears to be. Dedicated psychiatrist Isaac Barr (Gere) reluctantly, and then more obsessively, becomes involved with Heather Evans (Basinger), the sister of his patient, Diana Baylor (Uma Thurman). Evans is unhappily married to a gangster (appropriately played by a muscular and menacing Eric Roberts in a trademark role). Gere and Basinger make a credible, if dangerous couple, and Thurman delivers a subtle, understated performance and demonstrates her range and potential.
The thriller is appropriately shot in gorgeous San Francisco, where the literal and figurative curving and hilly roads wind throughout. Credit legendary art director Dean Tavoularis for some amazing sets and scenes, notably the elegantly cavernous restaurant where Evans and her husband have a fateful dinner.
This film is, in a way, glossy director Phil Joanou's Hitchcockian tribute--as a climactic lighthouse scene best demonstrates. Final Analysis doesn't offer an intimate look at its characters, but a beautifully stylized one, moody and gloomy. The intricate plot experiments with the device of "pathological intoxication," in which the subject completely loses control after drinking alcohol. And this doesn't mean a conventional ugly drunk; it means a frightening psychotic. Good and evil, hope and despair, beauty and repulsion are often juxtaposed in the film's complex world. --N.F. Mendoza
Gridiron Gang (Widescreen Edition)
by Phil Joanou
from Sony Pictures
In Gridiron Gang, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson once again displays far more cinematic charisma than one could expect from a former professional wrestler. Sean Porter (Johnson, Be Cool), a football player turned juvenile detention counselor, wrestles with a seemingly insolvable problem: The vast majority of young men who leave detention fall right back into crime. Seeking a way to give these not-yet-hardened kids a taste of self-esteem and discipline, Porter persuades his superiors to let him teach the kids football--and then take on high school teams. Though based on a true story (documentary footage over the closing credits reveals that some dialogue was lifted straight from the real Sean Porter's mouth), Gridiron Gang is pure underdogs-overcome-adversity formula. A formula is not necessarily a bad thing; when executed with skill and commitment, fulfilling a classic story mechanism can be perfectly satisfying, and Gridiron Gang qualifies. But it's Johnson who carries it through, demonstrating--in the most unlikely of roles--a surprisingly gentle touch. Johnson manages to be manly without overbearing machismo, earning not only respect but empathy. --Bret Fetzer
Stills from Gridiron Gang (click for larger image)
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| |
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Beyond Gridiron Gang at Amazon.com
More Football Films | The Soundtrack | Other Films about Underdogs |
Teenagers at a juvenile detention center under the leadership of their counselor gain self-esteem by playing football together.System Requirements:Run Time: 125 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: PG - 13 UPC: 043396148468 Manufacturer No: 14846
U2 - Rattle and Hum
by Phil Joanou
from Paramount
Rattle and Hum is not a film for anyone looking for an introduction to Irish band U2's career in the 1980s, but it is a vibrant portrait of an established group making its musical pilgrimage through the America it has always imagined through blues, gospel, and early rock 'n' roll. Filmmaker Phil Joanou (Heaven's Prisoners), a veteran music-video director and maker of the distractingly kinetic Three O'Clock High, finds a suitable outlet for his high energy in this juggernaut of a journey, which finds U2 collaborating with a black gospel choir and B.B. King, recording inside the legendary Sun Records studio, dropping by Graceland, and in a moment of fearlessness, performing the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" to exorcise Charles Manson's sick claim on the song. --Tom Keogh
![Entropy [Region 2]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/4197X62GEML._SL160_.jpg)
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