Mark Isham Movies

Inspired by the incredible true story of Winter, a dolphin who was rescued off the Florida coast after her tail became caught in a crab trap, this uplifting family-oriented adventure from director/co-screenwriter Charles Martin Smith details the unique bond between an injured dolphin and a young boy. When Winter loses her tail in a tragic accident, her young friend convinces the locals to build her a prosthetic replacement, inspiring hope and courage in handicapped people across the globe. Nathan Gamble, Morgan Freeman, Harry Connick Jr., Ashley Judd, and Kris Kristofferson star. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Sahara director Breck Eisner teams with screenwriters Ray Wright (Pulse) and Scott Kosar (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) to give George A. Romero's underrated 1973 shocker a shiny new makeover in this update starring Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell. Perform a Google search on "small-town America," and eventually you'll stumble across Ogden Marsh, a picturesque hamlet situated a safe distance from the nearest big city, and full of friendly faces. The citizens of Ogden Marsh are happy, albeit unremarkable people, but they're about to discover just how fragile their warm slice of the American dream really is. When a mysterious toxin transforms the locals into murderous maniacs, it's up to Sheriff David Dutton (Olyphant) to find out why a man who was once an upstanding citizen would attempt to massacre the local youth baseball team, and a caring father would burn his beloved family alive. Within hours the town has descended into total chaos, and the government has ordered it quarantined. Anyone who attempts to escape will be shot on sight, whether they're infected or not. Realizing that their only hope for survival is to fight through the madness that has consumed their once-quiet town, Sheriff Dutton, his pregnant wife, Judy (Mitchell), his deputy Russell (Joe Anderson), and frightened medical center assistant Becca (Danielle Panabaker) wage an epic struggle to discover the source of this malevolent scourge while fending off their infected friends and neighbors. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Abel Ferrara's cult crime drama Bad Lieutenant is given a sister film with this Werner Herzog-helmed production that takes its inspiration from the original, but focuses on new characters and plotlines. Nicolas Cage steps into Harvey Keitel's mold of a corrupt and drug-addled police officer, with the scummy setting moving from New York City to New Orleans. Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, and Xzibit co-star in the Nu Image/Millennium Films picture. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi

Inspired by the childhood experiences of actor George Hamilton, director Richard Loncraine's bittersweet period comedy tells the tale of one mother's attempt to find a new father for her two young boys after catching her husband with another woman. Beautiful but mercurial, Ann Devereaux (Renée Zellweger) has always gotten by on her own charms. Her husband, Dan (Kevin Bacon), is a successful bandleader, but when Ann becomes a witness to his infidelity, she packs their two sons, George (Logan Lerman) and Robbie (Mark Rendall), into her baby-blue Cadillac Coupe de Ville convertible and never looks back. The year is 1953, and Ann is convinced that her girlish charms are still as irresistible as ever. At first their trip is something of an adventure for everyone involved, but the harder Ann searches for a suitable mate the more she realizes that true gentlemen are a dying breed. As time wears on, flamboyant fledgling actor Robbie and cynical aspiring writer George begin to tire of changing schools, their increasingly humble lodgings, and their mother's romantic misadventures. It's a life of instability and unpredictability punctuated by moments of sheer panic, and as Ann forms a different future for her family than either of her sons could have ever imagined, observant George learns to look past her narcissistic exterior and appreciate the determination, dignity, and love that lies just beneath the surface. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Director Gavin O'Connor collaborates with Narc director/screenwriter Joe Carnahan on this family-focused police drama concerning an honest homicide detective (Edward Norton) assigned to investigate the precinct run by his potentially crooked older brother (Noah Emmerich). As the investigation begins to reveal some troubling facts about the precinct, it gradually becomes apparent that the policeman who is also the older brother's best friend (Colin Farrell) may be the man orchestrating many of the suspected crimes. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Veteran producer/director Diane English (The Lathe of Heaven, Murphy Brown) helms this contemporized remake of George Cukor's beloved proto-feminist comedy drama The Women (1939), an adaptation of Clare Boothe Luce's play. The English version follows the gossip, bitchy wisecracking, and overall disillusionment that erupt among a group of socialite friends when their dearest and most envied learns of her husband's marital infidelity at the hands of a backstabbing shopgirl. The all-female cast is fronted by Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Candice Bergen, with supporting roles inhabited by Bette Midler, Cloris Leachman, and Carrie Fisher. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Jack Bishop (Simon Baker) draws on the powers of La Santa Muerte to find his missing daughter, Toby. His life was perfect until his dark past returned with a vengeance. Now the thing that Jack loves most has been taken away. With the help of a sheriff and two FBI agents, Jack searches the seedy underbelly of Mexico City for his daughter and discovers that there's no escape from the grip of La Santa Muerte. Paz Vega and Simon Baker star in a supernatural thriller directed by Basic co-producer Dror Soref. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Frequent Stephen King collaborator Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) teamed with the celebrated horror author once again for this tale of terror concerning a small town engulfed by a malevolent mist, based on a story originally published in King's 1985 horror anthology Skeleton Crew. When a thick fog descends upon a rural community and claims the lives of anyone unfortunate enough to be caught outside, a small band of survivors seeks refuge in a local grocery store. Now trapped in a darkened cloud of pure horror, the frightened denizens of the town are forced to fend off an advancing horde of murderous monsters. Punisher star Thomas Jane heads up an ensemble cast that includes Andre Braugher, Laurie Holden, William Sadler, and Marcia Gay Harden. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The lingering weight of tragedy threatens to pull two men under following a harrowing hit-and-run accident in a quiet revenge drama directed by Terry George and starting Mark Ruffalo and Joaquin Phoenix. When his son is killed in an unsolved hit-and-run accident, a grieving father (Phoenix) spends his waking hours seeking vengeance against the man (Ruffalo) who perpetrated the deadly crime. It was a warm September evening when college professor Ethan Learner (Phoenix), his wife, Grace (Jennifer Connelly), and their daughter, Emma (Elle Fanning), went to see Emma's ten-year-old brother, Josh (Sean Curley), play cello at a recital. As usual, Josh's performance is superb and the rest of his family wells up with pride. Later, a chance stop at a gas station on Reservation Road results in a tragedy that will leave the surviving members of the family forever broken. On that same evening, hours earlier, law associate Dwight Arno (Ruffalo) takes his 11-year-old son, Lucas (Eddie Alderson), to see a Red Sox game. The loving father cherishes the time spent with his young son, and the pair hope to watch their favorite team pave a road to the World Series. When the game ends, Dwight prepares to drop Lucas off with his mother, Ruth (Mira Sorvino) -- who is also Dwight's ex-wife. On the way home, Dwight and Lucas stop at a gas station on Reservation Road. There, the accident happens in a flash -- so fast that Lucas never even realized what his father had done. But this crime wasn't without a witness, because Ethan watched every horrifying second of the tragedy unfold with his own eyes. As the police are called and the investigation ensues, everyone involved responds to the incident in their own ways, and two grief-stricken fathers are faced with making the hardest decisions of their lives. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Assigned the thankless task of teaching freshman English at a gang-infested Long Beach, CA high school, a 23-year-old teacher resorts to unconventional means of breaking through to her hardened students in director Richard LaGravenese's adaptation of Erin Gruwell's best-seller The Freedom Writer's Diaries: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. Her students had been written off, and her chances of succeeding scoffed at, but Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank) wasn't about to go down without a fight. Long Beach is a place where a new war is waged with each passing day, and when the hardened students who walk those dangerous hallways sense an outsider attempting to understand their plight, their cynical resentment threatens to keep a deadly cycle in motion. Despite the initially hostile reaction she receives in the classroom, Gruwell uses the writings of Anne Frank and Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo to teach her students not only the basis of the English language, but compassion and tolerance as well. Later, when the time comes to tell their own tales in a project specially designed to explore the daily violence that the majority of students have grown numb to, the barriers that had once stood so strong gradually begin to crumble. When the only chance for survival is to befriend the person who was once your mortal enemy, the world is opened to a whole new realm of possibilities. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Robert Redford directs this dramatic tale of intersecting lives that weaves together the stories of an idealistic professor's attempts to inspire a privileged student, a former student of the teacher who is wounded behind enemy lines in Afghanistan, and a congressman whose interactions with a seasoned journalist reveal much about the man behind the public persona. Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, and Robert Redford star in a film scripted by Matthew Michael Carnahan. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Director Brian De Palma returns to the helm for the first time since 2002's Femme Fatale with this stylish screen adaptation of James Ellroy's novel detailing one of the most notorious unsolved murders in Hollywood history. Elizabeth Short (Mia Kirshner) was a struggling actress looking to make a name for herself in 1940s-era Tinseltown. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, it was her grim fate that would ultimately overshadow anything she would accomplish during her short and tragic career. When police discover Elizabeth's body cut clean in half and with all of her organs missing, ex-pugilist detectives Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) and Bucky Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) are the men charged with cracking the case and apprehending the killer. This isn't your average murder case, however, and as Blanchard's marriage to Kay (Scarlett Johansson) begins to suffer due to his obsession with the sensational crime, his partner Bleichert discovers a troubling link between the victim and the mysterious Madeleine Linscott (Hilary Swank), a prominent socialite and the daughter of one of the town's most connected key players. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi