Joseph Cross

Licorice Pizza (2021)

[8] Hollywood often waters down characters and storylines to make them universally appealing. Filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson with Licorice Pizza, or David O. Russell with Joy and The Fighter, are challenging that notion with stories of tremendous specificity — specificity of character, location, obstacle, and endeavor — that find universal appeal without dilution. In pursuit of that specificity, Anderson casts two unknown actors as …

Running with Scissors (2006)

[6] Writer/director Ryan Murphy (Nip/Tuck, Glee) brings Augusten Burroughs’ memoir to the big screen. Joseph Cross plays young Burroughs, a thirteen-year-old whose emotionally unstable mother hands him off to her therapist. Running with Scissors is primarily about Burroughs trying to fit in at the therapist’s bizarre household while learning to accept that his mother will never be what he needs her to be. Annette Bening …