Broken Hill | |
---|---|
Directed by | Dagen Merrill |
Written by | Dagen Merrill |
Produced by | Chris Wyatt Julie Ryan |
Starring | Luke Arnold Alexa Vega Timothy Hutton |
Cinematography | Nick Remy Matthews ACS |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Entertainment One |
Release date |
|
Countries | United States Australia |
Language | English |
Broken Hill is a 2009 drama film directed and written by Dagen Merrill, and stars Luke Arnold, Alexa Vega, and, in a supporting role, Timothy Hutton.
Tommy (Arnold), a gifted teenage composer, dreams of being accepted into the famous Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Unfortunately, a good band is hard to find in the middle of the Australian Outback—until an incident involving flying watermelons leads him to a group of talented prison inmates.
He meets Kat (Vega), his love interest, as part of the story.
Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel found the sight of the lead character conducting an imaginary orchestra a little challenging, and gave the movie 2 stars (out of five). [1]
Cary Darling of the Dallas Morning News objected to the "hardened" prisoners seeming as threatening "as Hogan's Heroes ", but gave the film 3½ stars out of five. [2]
Jeff Vice of the Deseret News praises the "gorgeous Australian settings" and the cast of "mostly fresh-faced actors," and sums it up as an "entertaining feel-good tale", before awarding the film 2½ stars out of four. [3]
The movie (though said to be fictional) has parallels to the true life story of the jail house band Captive Edition and country singer Ricky Joan. The group was formed in Sydney's Long Bay Jail by the musician and prison volunteer Vincent Ruello. Ruello auditioned the inmates in 1993 then produced and recorded the Hope album from inside the jail auditorium. Captive Edition was contracted under Warner Chappell Music Publishing House by CEO John Bromel himself soon after hearing the CD. The grand concert finale was filmed by the Channel 10 Network at the Children's Hospital Camperdown in 1994. The Hope album spawned music rehab programmes across all Australian jails when released in 1994 to extensive media coverage.
Broken Hill took the ‘Best Feature Film - Audience Choice’ Award at the TriMedia Film Festival held in Fort Collins, Colorado (USA) and won a Best Film award at the Giffoni Film Festival in Italy. [4] The Giffoni Film Festival website describes Broken Hill as "halfway between Sister Act and the Italian movie La musica nel Cuore . [5]
The 2010 International Family Film Festival awarded Broken Hill the “Director’s Gold Spirit Award”, the top jury prize awarded by the Festival. [6]
The DVD was released in the US on May 17, 2011. [7]
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over is a 2003 American spy action comedy film co-produced, written, shot, edited, composed, and directed by Robert Rodriguez. It is the sequel to Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams (2002) and the third installment in the Spy Kids film series. The film stars Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Alexa Vega, Daryl Sabara, Ricardo Montalbán, Holland Taylor, Mike Judge, Cheech Marin, and Sylvester Stallone.
Christian Michael Leonard Slater is an American actor. He made his film debut with a leading role in The Legend of Billie Jean (1985) and gained wider recognition for his breakout role as Jason "J.D." Dean, a sociopathic high school student, in the satire Heathers (1988). He received critical acclaim for playing the title role in the USA Network television series Mr. Robot (2015–2019): it earned him the 2016 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film, and additional nominations for that award in 2017 and 2018.
Bandini is a 1963 Hindi drama film directed and produced by Bimal Roy.It stars Nutan, Ashok Kumar and Dharmendra. The film tells the story of a woman prisoner serving life imprisonment for murder, Kalyani, the all suffering, selfless, sacrificing and strong, yet weak Indian woman. She must make a choice between two very different men, Devendra (Dharmendra), the loving prison doctor, and Bikash, a man from her past.
Alexa Ellesse PenaVega is an American actress and singer. She is known for her roles as Carmen Cortez in the first four Spy Kids films and Julie Corky in the 2004 film Sleepover. In 2009, she starred as the title character Ruby Gallagher in the ABC Family series Ruby & the Rockits.
Samuel Henry John Worthington is an Australian actor. He is known for playing Jake Sully in the Avatar franchise, Marcus Wright in Terminator Salvation, and Perseus in Clash of the Titans and its sequel Wrath of the Titans.
Robert Stefaniuk is a Canadian comedian, actor and writer who has worked in numerous television shows and films as both guest actor and series regular. His feature-film acting credits include the Saturday Night Live-inspired Superstar (1999) and Phil the Alien (2004).
Cheryl Dunye is a Liberian-American film director, producer, screenwriter, editor and actress. Dunye's work often concerns themes of race, sexuality, and gender, particularly issues relating to black lesbians. She is known as the first out black lesbian to ever direct a feature film with her 1996 film The Watermelon Woman. She runs the production company Jingletown Films based in Oakland, California.
The Federal Correctional Institution, Otisville is a medium-security United States federal prison for male inmates located near Otisville, New York. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), a division of the United States Department of Justice. It also includes a satellite prison camp for minimum-security male offenders.
The Watermelon Woman is a 1996 American romantic comedy-drama film written, directed, and edited by Cheryl Dunye. The first feature film directed by a black lesbian, it stars Dunye as Cheryl, a young black lesbian working a day job in a video store while trying to make a film about Fae Richards, a black actress from the 1930s known for playing the stereotypical "mammy" roles relegated to black actresses during the period.
Shaina Garcia Magdayao is a Filipino actress. Known primarily for her dramatic roles in film and television, she began her career as a child actress and starred in her first titular role Lyra. She has received accolades from various award-giving bodies which include a FAMAS Award, a Metro Manila Film Festival Award, two Gawad Pasado Awards and a Young Critics Circle award, in addition to nominations from Gawad Urian and Luna Awards. Her works have also been competed in numerous film festivals around the world such as Cannes Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, and Locarno International Film Festival.
Orlando Jonathan Blanchard Copeland Bloom is an English actor. He made his breakthrough as the character Legolas in The Lord of the Rings film series (2001–03). He reprised his role in The Hobbit film series (2013–14). Considered by some to be the Errol Flynn of his time, he gained further notice appearing in epic fantasy, historical, and adventure films, notably as Will Turner in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, Paris in Troy (2004), Balian de Ibelin in Kingdom of Heaven (2005), and the Duke of Buckingham in The Three Musketeers (2011).
Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist is a 2008 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Peter Sollett and starring Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, Alexis Dziena, Ari Graynor, Aaron Yoo and Jay Baruchel. Written by Lorene Scafaria and based on the novel of the same name by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, the story tells of teenagers Nick (Cera) and Norah (Dennings), who meet when Norah asks Nick to pretend to be her boyfriend for five minutes. Over the course of the night, they try to find their favorite band's secret show and search for Norah's drunken best friend.
Madea Goes to Jail is a 2009 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Tyler Perry, which was based on his 2006 play, and starring Perry, Derek Luke, Keshia Knight Pulliam, Ion Overman, RonReaco Lee, Sofía Vergara, Vanessa Ferlito, and Viola Davis. The film tells the story of Madea going to prison for her uncontrollable anger management problems as she befriends a young incarcerated prostitute whom an assistant district attorney has known since college. The film was released on February 20, 2009. It is the fourth film in the Madea cinematic universe as it follows up from the cameo appearance of Madea in the previous film Meet the Browns and it features Cora and Mr. Brown from that film.
The Hills Run Red is a 2009 American slasher film directed by Dave Parker and written by David J. Schow and starring Sophie Monk, Tad Hilgenbrink and William Sadler. The film was released as direct-to-DVD on September 29, 2009, and received mixed reviews.
Café is a 2010 independent drama film directed by Marc Erlbaum. It stars Jennifer Love Hewitt, Daniel Eric Gold, Alexa Vega and Jamie Kennedy, who was Hewitt's boyfriend at the time of filming.
The Next Three Days is a 2010 American crime thriller film written and directed by Paul Haggis, starring Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks. A remake of the 2008 French film Pour elle by Fred Cavayé, the plot follows a husband who takes extreme measures to break his wife out of prison after she is wrongfully convicted for the murder of her boss.
Carlos Roberto PenaVega is an American actor, singer, musician, dancer and director. He starred on the Nickelodeon series Big Time Rush as Carlos García, and is a member of the group Big Time Rush. He was also the host of the network's game show Webheads. He currently voices Bobby Santiago in The Loud House franchise.
The Yankles is a 2009 film about a fictitious college-level baseball team made up of students from an Orthodox Yeshiva.
Urban Hymn is a 2015 British coming-of-age drama directed by Michael Caton-Jones, written by Nick Moorcroft, and starring Letitia Wright, Shirley Henderson, Isabella Laughland, Ian Hart, and starring Steven Mackintosh.
Andrew J. Fenady was an American actor, screenwriter, producer, and novelist.