Steven Posen Movies
Director Nick Cassavetes collaborates with screenwriter Jeremy Leven (The Notebook) for this drama about a pair of parents who resort to unorthodox methods in order to save their young daughter's life, only to find their decision coming back to haunt them in a manner neither could have ever foreseen. Sara (Cameron Diaz) and Brian (Jason Patric) are coasting through life with their young son and daughter when tragedy threatens to tear the family apart. Suddenly, their baby girl falls ill, and her only hope for survival rests in her parents' ability to find a compatible bone marrow donor. Desperate to save their daughter's life at any cost, Sara and Brian conceive another child in hopes that the baby will be a genetic match. But that decision raises a series of moral and ethical questions that rapidly begin to erode the foundation of the once-happy couple's relationship. Incensed upon learning that she was brought into this world for the singular purpose of prolonging the life of her ailing older sister, the young girl (Abigail Breslin) ultimately decides to sue her parents for the rights to her own body. Alec Baldwin, Sofia Vassilieva, and Joan Cusack co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin, (more)
- 1996
Fifty years after the Holocaust, Zev Carpati is the sole Jewish survivor of that period in his Ukrainian community. Almost all the others were either victims of the various calamities afflicting European Jewry in this century, or they emigrated when they had the chance. While there are other Jewish people living in this region, they have largely lost their history and traditions, and look to "Uncle Zev" for continuity. This a documentary film about that man: a musician, historian and storyteller. It also explores the common situation of both Gypsies and Jews in the region, which in the past 80 years has belonged to the Austrian Empire, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. It is now part of the Ukraine. One highlight shows Zev taking a donated Torah scroll to his birth community; the moment shows clearly what has been lost and what still remains. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- 1994
- Add The Last Klezmer: Leopold Kozlowski - His Life and Music to QueueAdd The Last Klezmer: Leopold Kozlowski - His Life and Music to top of Queue
Klezmer music is a fusion of gypsy music, Jewish liturgical music, and the typical musical forms of Eastern Europe, including the polka. It is most familiarly performed at Jewish weddings, and had nearly died out by the mid-1990s, when a modest revival of interest began to hold some promise that it might survive. This documentary closely interviews the lively and charming Leopold Kozlowski, a klezmer musician and composer who survived the Nazi's concentration camps and managed to get on with his life and his vocation. Among his many vivid recollections is his tale about playing Lili Marlene over and over again for a group of guards at the camp. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
Paul Schrader's brilliant study of another alienated urban denizen skirting the borderline of madness stars Willem Dafoe as John Le Tour, a rich, upscale drug dealer for Manhattan professionals -- "White drugs for white people," as he puts it. John is a recovering addict and for him it's the perfect job, as he can relate completely with the self-absorbed eccentrics he services. But when his boss Ann (Susan Sarandon) tells John that she is planning to abandon the drug business for herbal cosmetics, John's life is thrown into disarray. With no future plans, he sees black clouds heading his way. Coincidentally, he runs into Marianne (Dana Delany), an old girlfriend and former addict who has returned to New York to be with her dying mother. John sees Marianne as his redemption and starts to pursue her, but she doesn't want to be reminded of her past. When the murder of an Upper West Side woman involved in a drug transaction has the police scouring the town for suspects, John thinks they are following him, and the strain upon his life and his hopes for the future become harder and harder to bear. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Willem Dafoe, Susan Sarandon, (more)
