Mike Tollin Movies

Director John Singleton teams with screenwriter Karen Croner to detail the quest of an ACLU lawyer in seeking to expose a rash of small-town Texas drug convictions as corrupt and racially motivated. Adapted from author Nate Blakeslee's book Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town, Tulia features headlining performances from former Monster's Ball co-stars Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Filmed on location in New York and Connecticut, the ESPN miniseries The Bronx is Burning was a vivid (if not overly expensive) retelling of the New York Yankees' championship year of 1977. Heading the enormous cast of celebrity lookalikes were Oliver Platt as Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and John Turturro as team manager Billy Martin. The infamously volatile relationship between the two men was the heart of the series, with the prickly Martin curiously emerging as the hero of the piece. Setting the story in motion was the hiring of baseball superstar Reggie Jackson (Daniel Sunjata), the first of several measures taken by the Yanks to reclaim the World Series. To place the action at Yankee Stadium in proper historical context, much was made of the other events which kept the citizens of New YOrk on their collective toes in the summer of 1977, including the frantic search for the serial killer known as the "Son of Sam", the devastating power blackout, the fractious mayoral race, and the ongoing violence in the streets of the Bronx. The title of the series derived from the famous TV-news headline "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning", which was also the title of the Jonathan Mahler novel upon which the show was based. The Bronx is Burning first roared into flame on July 10, 2007. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Created by Marco Pennette, ABC's Crumbs was an off-kilter sitcom dealing with such warm-and-fuzzy issues as mental illness, attempted homicide, divorce, closeted homosexuality, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and bitter sibling rivalry. In one of the most spectacular examples of non-typecasting in TV history, Fred Savage starred as Mitch Crumb, a gay screenwriter who was unable to follow up the success of his first film, which he based upon the death of his older brother. While starving in Hollywood, Mitch was summoned to his New England home to help his mother Suzanne Crumb (Jane Curtin), recently released from the Cedar Hill nursing home after suffering a mental breakdown, readjust to life on the outside. Suzanne had been institutionalized primarily because she had tried to kill her philandering ex-husband Billy (William Devane), the owner of a local restaurant called the Stone House Grille. Mitch's surviving brother Jack (Eddie McClintock), a near-sociopathic womanizer and the current manager of the family restaurant, deeply resented the return of his "famous" brother and made no secret of his feelings. As for Mitch himself, he hadn't yet informed his family that he'd come out of the closet -- the only person who knew his secret was his old friend Andrea (Maggie Lawson), a waitress at the Stone House. Also in the cast was Reginald Ballard as Elvis, a young orderly at Cedar Hill with whom Suzanne was having an affair. Crumbs made its first network appearance on January 12, 2006. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The big news that broke during the finale of One Tree Hill's first season -- namely, the marriage between wealthy, arrogant high school basketball star Nathan Scott (James Lafferty) and Haley James (Bethany Joy Lenz), the lifelong friend of Nathan's half brother, Lucas (Chad Michael Murray) -- determines much of the action and most of the dicier plot complications in the series' second season. The season opens as Lucas and his uncle Keith Scott (Craig Sheffer) abandon plans to leave the North Carolina community of Tree Hill when Lucas' father and Keith's brother, Dan (Paul Johansson), suffers a heart attack. As for Dan, he persuades everyone that the coronary has changed him and that he wants to mend fences -- not only with Lucas and his mother (and Dan's high-school sweetheart), Karen Roe (Moira Kelly), but also with Dan's estranged wife, Deb (Barbara Alyn Woods, who this year joins the cast as a regular). In reality, Dan is just as evil as ever, scheming to destroy Haley and Nathan's nuptials, ruining Deb's life, and vying with high school basketball coach Whitey (Barry Corbin) to control Nathan's future. Meanwhile, two of the women in Lucas' life, Peyton (Hilarie Burton) and Brooke (Sophia Bush), both nurse grudges toward Lucas. In later developments, Nathan goes to work for Keith; new neighbor Felix (Michael Copon), a specialist in mind games, forces everyone to look deep into their souls; Karen opens a club called "TRIC" where Peyton runs an "all-ages" night; Lucas ends his romance with Anna (Daniella Alonso) when he realizes that he's still in love with Brooke, and worries that his dad's heart condition may be hereditary; Nathan and Haley's marriage seems to be on the rocks even before it can properly get under way, especially when Nathan finds out that he'd once had a fling with Haley's sister Taylor (Lindsey McKeon), and Haley launches an e-mail tryst with Chris (Tyler Hilton). And these only represent a few of the season's many melodramatic hooks! As the season concludes, Karen considers moving to Australia with her new love, Andy, until an unidentified "spoiler" enters the scene to threaten everyone's future happiness. ~ All Movie Guide

Season three of Smallville brought several more hidden facts about the Kryptonian heritage of young Clark Kent (Tom Welling) to the forefront -- and also provided a few additional links to Clark's future life as Superman. The series also found the unsavory past of billionaire industrialist Lionel Luthor (John Glover) catching up with him, profoundly affecting his mixed-up son, Lex (Michael Rosenbaum), who had already been battered about when a team of doctors attempted to purge him of his "delusions" (read: his memories of Lionel's perfidy). The season began with Clark, still under the addictive influence of red kryptonite, angrily renouncing his friends and family in Smallville and exiling himself to Metropolis, where he briefly entered into a life of crime under the tutelage of sinister Morgan Edge (played variously during this season by Rutger Hauer and Patrick Bergin), who, like many villainous characters on the series, was an associate of the redoubtable Lionel Luthor. In order to rescue Clark, the boy's adoptive father, Jonathan Kent (John Schneider), entered into a strange bargain with Clark's Kryptonian birth father, Jor-El (Terence Stamp), the ramifications of which would permeate the action for the remainder of the season. Once safely returned to Smallville, Clark underwent the by-now-standard curious experiences wherein he was obliged to utilize his unique powers wisely and without giving his dual identity away. He also discovered a few new powers, among them super-hearing and (it was implied) the ability to fly. On the romantic front, Clark's relationship with Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) went through a variety of ups and downs -- especially during a rather harrowing story arc involving a mercurial young man named Adam Knight (Ian Somerhalder) -- reaching a climax of sorts at season's end when Lana decided to leave Smallville in order to study art in Paris. Meanwhile, another of Clark's female acquaintances, budding girl reporter Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack) drew ever closer to unearthing a number of secrets involving both Clark and Lex. She also revealed something that many viewers had long suspected: she was related to a certain high-profile Metropolis reporter named Lois Lane (who would become a regular character in season four). Not satisfied with dangling this tantalizing foretaste of things to come for young Clark Kent, the Smallville producers also used season three to introduce Clark's future boss, Perry White, here played by Michael McKean -- the real-life husband of Annette O'Toole, the actress who played Clark's adoptive mother, Martha Kent.

As season three drew to a conclusion, Clark had come face to face with another refugee from Krypton, a superpowered girl named Kara (Adrianne Palicki), who urged our hero to renounce his earthly ways and fulfill his "destiny." Meanwhile, the true nature of Lex Luthor was exposed in all its tawdry glory, and two of the series' most stalwart characters, Chloe Sullivan and Pete Ross (Sam Jones III), were poised to make their respective exits -- and it was painfully clear that at least one of them would never, ever return. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Season two of the WB network's popular Smallville upheld its excellent ratings by adhering religiously to the same mixture as before: combining tantalizing elements of the Superman legend with the sort of "teen angst" indigenous to such series as Beverly Hills 90210 and Dawson's Creek, all the while effectively weaving a mythos of its own. The first episode of the new season resolved the cliffhanger left over from season one, with teenager Clark Kent (Tom Welling) -- who 13 years earlier had crash-landed in a spaceship in the tiny Kansas farming community of Smallville -- rescuing local high school homecoming queen Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) from a devastating tornado. At the same time, local playboy and aspiring business mogul Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum), heir apparent to the billion-dollar LutherCorp firm, forgot his differences with his ruthless CEO father, Lionel Luthor (John Glover, graduating from "recurring" to "regular" status), long enough to rescue his dad from a certain-death situation. Also returning to the series were John Schneider and Annette O'Toole as farming couple Jonathan and Martha Kent, adoptive parents to Clark; Allison Mack as budding journalist and teenaged paranormal specialist Chloe Sullivan, who by now had resigned herself to being merely Clark's friend rather than his sweetheart; and Sam Jones III as Clark's best bud, Pete Ross, who a few episodes into season two became the only person other than Jonathan and Martha to be apprised that Clark was actually a "visitor" from the planet Krypton. Gone were Eric Johnson as Whitney Fordham, Clark's rival for the hand and heart of Lana Lang; and Tom O'Brien as unscrupulous reporter Roger Nixon, who was conveniently killed off just as he was poised to reveal Clark's true identity to the world.

Among the more prominent of the new cast members was Emmanuelle Vaugier as Dr. Helen Bryce, an anger-control specialist hired by Lionel Luthor to curb Lex's violent temper. Ultimately, Lex and Helen would fall in love and marry, but this union was sorely threatened by events occurring in the second season's cliffhanger finale. New plot complications involved another of Clark's newly emerging superpowers, "heat vision," and the introduction of red kryptonite, a mineral indigenous to Clark's home planet, which in true hallucinogenic fashion had the capability of transforming our straight-arrow hero into a violently rebellious teenaged punk. In other developments, the orphaned Lana Lang discovered that her biological father was still alive, while Martha Kent went to work for LutherCorp as Lionel Luthor's personal assistant. In the extraordinary season-closing cliffhanger, Clark Kent received mystical messages from his late Krypton-dwelling father, Jor-El, informing him that he was destined to rule the world. Choosing instead to continue striving for "human" normality, Clark was moved to a desperate act that had devastating consequences on his friends and loved ones -- and pushed him into a dangerous dependence on the addictive red kryptonite, which led him into a life of crime in the wicked city of Metropolis. Hoping to retrieve his adopted son, Jonathan entered into a bargain with the spirit of Jor-El, briefly developing superpowers of his own, while wife Martha mourned the death of her unborn child (one of those aforementioned devastating consequences). And as if that wasn't enough, Lex Luthor found himself on a plane that was doomed to crash -- a disaster that may or may not have been engineered by someone very, very close to him. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Taking a "revisionist" approach to several DC Comics favorites, the weekly adventure series Birds of Prey could easily have been retitled "Charlie's Superheroines." Dina Meyer headed the cast as Barbara Gordon, who in her younger days fought crime in Gotham City as the caped-and-cowled Batgirl. Confined to a wheelchair since being attacked by the archvillain Joker, Barbara, now calling herself "Oracle," continued to battle evil as the mentor of her ward Helena Kyle (Ashley Scott), the out-of-wedlock daughter of stalwart hero Batman and slinky villainess Selena Kyle, aka Catwoman. Donning the crimefighting guise of "the Huntress," Helena likewise had a score to settle with the Joker, who was responsible for Catwoman's demise. Joining these two courageous ladies in their ongoing war on villainy was telepathic teenager Dinah Laurel Lance, aka "the Black Canary." Others in the cast included the perfidious Dr. Harleen Quinzel (Mia Sara), otherwise known as Harley Quinn (a character introduced on the various Batman animated cartoon series of the early '90s), and "official" lawman Detective Jesse Reese (Shemar Moore), whose dedication to his work was born of a disreputable childhood. Birds of Prey first aired on October 9, 2002. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

"What was life like for Superman before he grew up to be Superman?" That was the questioned posed, and brilliantly, answered, on the weekly sci-fi/adventure series Smallville, the WB network's most successful new program of the 2001-2002 TV season. Without wreaking undue damage on the sacred Superman legend, as set down by 65 years' worth of comic books, radio series, TV shows, and movies, Smallville artfully wove its own mythos concerning the early years of Clark Kent -- not yet "the man of steel" Superman, but born Kal-El, "strange visitor from another planet" (namely, the doomed planet Krypton). The first episode, telecast October 16, 2001, rapidly established the fact that the child Kal-El's arrival on Earth in the year 1989 profoundly affected virtually the entire population of Smallville, a tiny Kansas farming community. The spacecraft bearing the alien toddler arrived at the same time as a cataclysmic meteor shower, which all but devastated Smallville. Among other things, the meteor bombardment brought about the deaths of the parents of little Lana Lang, and rendered completely hairless nine-year-old Lex Luthor, son of ruthless billionaire businessman Lionel Luthor. Though Lana was able to put the tragedy behind her thanks to the loving care of her aunt Nell (Sarah-Jane Redmond), Lex's sudden and spectacular hair loss left him cynical and suspicious of humankind in general, and his grasping father in particular. On a happier note, childless farming couple Jonathan and Martha Kent (John Schneider, Annette O'Toole) rescued Kal-El, renamed him Clark, and raised him as their own son.

As the years passed, it was painfully obvious that Clark (played in his teen years by Tom Welling), possessed Herculean strength and other powers "far beyond those of mortal men." To protect their adopted son from being exposed as an alien, and to prevent others from being accidentally injured by the boy's superstrength, Martha and Jonathan kept Clark from indulging in youthful horseplay, and refused to allow him to participate in contact sports. As a result, Clark earned a reputation as something of a namby-pamby nerd -- and his own growing realization that he was different from his peers kept him perpetually on the outside looking in, a natural-born loner. Which is not to say that Clark didn't have his own circle of friends at Smallville High School. Lana Lang (played as a teen by Kristin Kreuk), who had matured into the campus queen, regarded Clark as a loyal and faithful friend -- but, much to Clark's dismay, she reserved her romantic feelings for high school jock Whitney Fordman (Eric Johnson), who, thanks to a series of neat coincidences, tended to get the credit for the heroics performed by Clark (which of course, young Mr. Kent was bound not to claim as his own lest his secret be revealed). Conversely, fellow student Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack), a budding paranormal investigator who wrote for the Smallville High newspaper, the Torch, harbored a hidden crush on Clark. Our hero's best bud was the shy and self-effacing Pete Ross (Sam Jones III), who like everyone else in Smallville could not help but notice that strange things happened whenever Clark was around, but who seldom questioned these happenings for fear of damaging their friendship. As for Lex Luthor (played as an adult by Michael Rosenbaum), several years Clark's senior, he lived the life of a swinging bachelor in his family mansion, while dad Lionel (John Glover) wheeled and dealed from his headquarters in the city of Metropolis. A firm friend of the young Kent since Clark saved his life, Lex had his share of good and noble impulses, but they were often mitigated by his inbred avariciousness and lust for power -- and his overpowering desire to wrest the family business from the grasp of his father.

During season one, Lex had a fling with sexy Victoria Hardwick (Kelly Brook), but their romance fell victim to his self-absorption. And though Clark generally got along with Lex, the same could not be said for Jonathan Kent, who (not without reason) felt that the Luthor family's business ambitions posed a threat to Kent and his fellow farmers. Also muddying up the Luthor legacy was the cache of kryptonite -- the green, glowing element indigenous to Clark Kent's home planet -- which was kept on the premises of Smallville's LutherCorp plant. As everybody familiar with the Superman canon knows, kryptonite has an adverse and possibly deadly effect on Clark; in this series, the mineral also brought out the worst in everyone else who came in contact with it. The first season of Smallville studiously avoided any mention of Clark's future alter ego, Superman, though the viewers would see the young misfit painfully adjusting to his awesome powers, some of which (such as his x-ray vision) were brand-new to him. Also, several episodes placed those closest to him in dire jeopardy, forcing him to utilize his powers without giving himself away -- and in at least a couple of cases, Clark's friends would themselves develop temporary superpowers that they too had to learn to properly deploy. Along the way, Clark's campus rival, Whitney Fordham, would leave Smallville after a series of daunting personal setbacks, joining the Marines to see the rest of the world. Like many another network series of its ilk, Smallville closed out its initial season by setting up a cliffhanger, to be resolved at the beginning of season two. In this case, the "to be continued" elements involved the first kiss between Clark and Chloe, a potential unholy alliance between Lex and Lionel Luthor, a startling discovery made by an unscrupulous big-city news reporter named Roger Nixon (Tom O'Brien), and a devastating tornado that threatened to bump off the helpless Lana Lang. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Mike Tollin directs this documentary about one of the best ball players who ever lived. Hank Aaron struggled against racism and hatred to eventually break Babe Ruth's home run record. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide