The best Ellen McElduff’s movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Ellen McElduff’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Ellen McElduff.
Maximum Overdrive
5.4/10
When a comet passes close to the earth, machines all over the world come alive and go on homicidal rampages. A group of people at a desolate truck stop are held hostage by a gang of homicidal 18-wheelers. The frightened people set out to defeat the killer machines ... or be killed by them.
JFK
8/10
Follows the investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy led by New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison.
Christmas Evil
5.5/10
A toy factory worker, mentally scarred as a child upon learning Santa Claus is not real, suffers a nervous breakdown after being belittled at work, and embarks on a Yuletide killing spree.
Chinese Coffee
7.1/10
When Harry Levine, an aging, unsuccessful Greenwich Village writer is fired from his job as restaurant doorman, he calls on friend and mentor Jake, ostensibly to collect a long-standing debt. Harry solicits his opinion on his latest manuscript, a work of semi-fiction based on their longtime friendship. Although he initially denies having read it, Jake later attacks it on aesthetic grounds, and deep-seated feelings of betrayal and jealousy surface and lead to a traumatic confrontation.
The Public Eye
6.5/10
A crime photographer gets involved in a conspiracy.
Living Out Loud
6.5/10
Judith Moore is suddenly single after discovering her husband of fifteen years, a successful doctor, has been having an affair with a younger woman. Judith stews, plans, plots and fantasizes, but she can't decide what to do with her life until she goes out to a night club to see singer Liz Bailey, who is full of advice on life and love. While out on the town, Judith is suddenly kissed by a total stranger, which opens her eyes to new possibilities... which is when she notices Pat, the elevator operator in her building.
Dinner Rush
7.2/10
One unlucky evening, Louis Cropa, a part-time bookmaker, discovers that his restaurant has become a hotbed of conflicting characters. In addition to having to please a whiny food critic, Louis must fend off a hostile takeover from a pair of gangsters, to whom his sous-chef is in debt. Further, Louis has an argument with his son, the star chef, whose culinary creativity has brought success to the business.
Working Girls
6.7/10
College graduate Molly (Louise Smith), trying to bankroll her own photography business, works as a high-priced New York City escort. As a lesbian, she's able to keep her emotional distance from the clients, who range from cynically exploitative to desperately needy. But her open ambition to rise above her current station rubs many of her coworkers the wrong way, especially the combative, street-smart Dawn (Amanda Goodwin) and the escort service's disdainful madam, Lucy (Ellen McElduff).
No Looking Back
5.9/10
Charlie returns to his old town where he meets his ex-girlfriend again and tries to get her back.
Homicide: The Movie
7.8/10
Retired police lieutenant Al Giardello is running for mayor when he is suddenly shot at a press conference. All of the detectives, past and present, clamor for an opportunity to help find the shooter.
Impostors
6.8/10
One of Mark Rappaport's later narratives (which won the Gold Hugo for Best First Feature at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1979), Impostors is an off-kilter comedy/mystery focused on two magicians trying to find Egyptian jewels, their promiscuous assistant, and a man who loves the assistant.
I Want to Live in the Country (And Other Romances)
Jonas intercuts scenes of the Nova Scotia countryside with images of a studio set-up reminiscent of a di Chirico painting. The soundtrack includes both music and spoken excerpts from a journal Jonas kept while travelling in Nova Scotia. I Want to Live in the Country ultimately deals with observation and fantasy, living in the country, and the stifling aspects of the city and one's art.
