Frederick Zollo Movies

Director and co-screenwriter (along with Chris Gerolmo, Allison Burnett, and Michael Bortman) Rod Lurie tells the uplifting tale of a sports writer who almost lost it all before stumbling into the story of a lifetime in this uplifting sports-themed drama starring Josh Hartnett and Samuel L. Jackson. Erik (Hartnett) is a Denver-based sports writer whose prose is dull and whose marriage is failing. Not only is Erik having a difficult time dealing with his stubborn editor Metz (Alan Alda) - who refuses to take the suffering scribe off of the boxing beat - but the pain of being separated from his young son has weighed heavier on Erik's conscience than he could have ever imagined. When Erik sees a local homeless man (Samuel L. Jackson) being violently assaulted by a gang of sadistic street toughs, he instinctively comes to the suffering man's rescue. As fate would have, Erik discovers that the nondescript homeless man is actually the former boxing champion Battling Bob Satterfield, whom many sports fans had assumed dead. Now driven to tell the story that may establish him as a successful sports writer, Erik gradually begins to make the transformation from ordinary man to extraordinary champion - largely by turning inward and by reexamining his relationship with his own son. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The writer and performer of such stinging monologues as Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, Eric Bogosian returns to the stage to skewer everything from pop culture to religion in this striking return to the stage. Portraying a series of characters that include a salesman who may just be Satan and a shockingly amoral Hollywood producer, it seems that any and everybody is fair game for the sharp-tongued satirist -- and in the post-9/11 era where paranoia runs rampant, Bogosian provides a brutally honest but shockingly entertaining alternative to the mainstream mindset. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Actor Christopher Reeve made his directorial debut with this dramatic made-for-cable movie about the effects of AIDS on a family. Robert Sean Leonard stars as Danny, a son who returns home to his parents to be with them in the final days of his battle against AIDS. The stress of the situation brings out the tensions and anxieties that the family members have been quietly bearing for years. Glenn Close stars as Danny's mother, who grows closer to her son through the tragedy. David Strathairn stars as his father, who struggles with the reality of his son's life and illness. Whoopi Goldberg and Bridget Fonda appear as his nurse and his sister, respectively. Beautifully filmed in Westchester, New York and sensitively directed, this film was nominated for four Emmy Awards. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide

It's 1958, and the producers of the quiz show 21 have a problem. Their current champ, Herbert Stempel (John Turturro), has a phenomenal memory and a broad range of knowledge. He's also a pudgy loudmouth with a grating personality, so Herbert is encouraged to "take a dive" and allow Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), a handsome and charming college professor, to become the show's new champion. Audiences like Van Doren, and he's certainly not averse to the money he's winning, but the ethics of the situation begin to trouble him, especially when the show's producers begin to give him the questions in advance. Director Robert Redford and writer Paul Attanasio paint a telling portrait of how the network heads and advertising men who manipulated the quiz shows were also able to manipulate the responsibility for the scandal away from themselves. While on the surface a story about the scandal itself, Quiz Show is just as importantly about a turning point in the 1950s when TV and advertising began to change American character and culture. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The sponsorship of noted filmmaker Martin Scorsese helped the novice filmmakers making this film get it produced and receive mainstream distribution. In addition, it features a vast number of appearances by well-known performers, who took an interest in the project, taking union minimum pay. In the story, Jake (Eric Stoltz) has grown up in a wonderfully neurotic household. It is just as well that he has developed a fondness for drama, as this material is excellent fodder for his playwriting. He has spent a lot of time collaborating with his friend Chris (Ralph Macchio) writing plays, and eventually is given his chance to prove his stuff in New York City. There, he discovers that Chris wants to be more than just a friend, and an important stage actress (Kathleen Turner) also has the hots for him. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Shot over the course of several live appearances by comedic performance artist Eric Bogosian, Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll is a filmed record of the Off-Broadway stage show of the same name. Against an economical, minimalist set, suggestive of harsh urban environments, Bogosian performs a number of satirical monologues, becoming a number of widely varied characters simply by assuming a different voice and physical stance. The characters sketched provide a cross-section of life in the big city, from a loquacious panhandler working the crowd on the subway, to a wealthy, high-powered entertainment lawyer closing a big deal while juggling the demands of his wife, his new mistress, and his racquetball partner. Other segments include the retelling of a raucous, drug-filled bachelor party, a radio interview with a hypocritical, pretentious, faux-environmentalist rock star, the gleeful confession of an unrepentant Casanova, and the rambling, paranoid musings of a downtown artist. Director John McNaughton and cinematographer Ernest Dickerson vary the visual style from monologue to monologue, using camera movement and changes in composition to reflect the mood of the piece while remaining true to the simplicity of the theatrical conception. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Two brothers (Richard Gere, Kevin Anderson) have inherited a large farm (once voted "Farm of the Year") from their father, but cannot keep it afloat. When the farm goes bankrupt, the pair decide to torch the place and take off across the Midwest, fleeing the law to become folk heroes for many rural farmers in the area. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

The second of Zucker-Abraham-Zucker's theatrical-feature spoofs (Airplane was the first, discounting the patchwork Kentucky Fried Movie), Top Secret! lampoons practically every film genre. Specifically, however, this is a hybrid of an "Elvis" movie and a World War II "underground resistance" thriller. In his film debut, Val Kilmer plays Nick Rivers, a Presley-like American rock idol sent behind the Iron Curtain on a goodwill tour. Before long, he is involved in a complex espionage scheme thanks to beautiful Lucy Gutteridge, the daughter of a scientist (Michael Gough) held captive by the Communists. Also essential to the action is flamboyant resistance leader Christopher Villiers, who behaves like Victor Mature in Betrayed (1954) and talks like James Mason. Adhering to Z-A-Z's cheerful disregard for people, places and events, the East Germans are depicted as Nazis, while the Underground is comprised of Frenchmen. The plot is mainly an excuse for the Z-A-Z team's fondness for joke-a-minute lampoonery, skewering cinematic targets ranging from The Blue Lagoon (1980) to The Wizard of Oz (1939). As in Z-A-Z's other efforts, Top Secret! scores its biggest yocks when invoking cliches that we never realized were cliches-and falls on its face whenever attempting a too-obvious gag (the biggest clinker: that pigeon statue in the park). Everyone has his or her favorite bits in this film: our faves include the resistance fighter named Deja Vu ("Haven't we met somewhere before?"), Kilmer's horrible nightmare while being tortured (he arrives too late to take final exams), the army-booted cow, the sensitive Pinto, and the East German National Anthem, sung to the tune of the Shorewood (Wisconsin) High School marching song. But let's say no more: comedy of this nature is designed to be seen, not written or read about. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide