John Toll Movies

Madeleine Stowe makes her directorial debut with this long-gestating period production starring Rachel Weisz as a woman whose two children are kidnapped and husband killed in a skirmish with a Comanche tribe in the 1850s. Hugh Jackman plays a frontiersman who saves her and Twilight's Robert Pattinson plays her son. Stowe wrote the screenplay with her husband, actor Brian Benben. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

One of several fascinating original series from cable's American Movie Channel, Breaking Bad was produced by Vince Gilligan of X-Files fame. Former Malcolm in the Middle regular Bryan Cranston starred as high school chemistry teacher Walter White, who at age 49 was told that he was suffering from terminal lung cancer--even though he'd never smoked a cigarette in his life. Unable to pay for his medical treatment or provide for the future financial security of his pregnant wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) and his son Walt Jr. (RJ Mitte), the latter a victim of cerebral palsy, Walter began moonlighting at a car wash. When this proved inadequate to make ends meet, Walter entered into a slighly unholy alliance with former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). Using Walter's chemical knowhow, the two partners set up a crystal meth lab, with Walter supplying and Jesse dealing. Now the unfortunate Mr. White found himself straddling two worlds, one legitimate, one definitely not. Adding to Walter's crown of thorns was the omnipresence of his brother-in-law Hank (Dean Norris), a DEA agent who'd been trying to bust Jesse for several months--and who of course had to be kept completely in the dark as to Walter's new "sideline." Breaking Bad debuted on January 20, 2008. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Charlize Theron top-lines the romantic ensemble The Burning Plain, written and directed by Babel screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga. 2929 Production's film tells the tale of a web of interconnecting love stories, with Theron playing Sylvia, a woman with a troubled past who tries to reconcile with her parents. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

Ben Affleck's adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel Gone, Baby, Gone stars Casey Affleck as Patrick Kenzie, a private investigator from working-class Boston who takes on a case involving a kidnapped girl. The girl's aunt begs Patrick to take the case because he has connections to criminal Boston that the police do not. He agrees and along with his partner, Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan), they uncover a web of corruption that threatens the relationship between the two. Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman co-star as members of the Boston Police Department. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

A woman who joins the undead against her will seeks vengeance against the ghouls who transformed her in this thriller. Sadie Blake (Lucy Liu) is a journalist who becomes acquainted with a group of beautiful but doomstruck partiers while following a story, led by the charismatic Bishop (James D'Arcy). While Sadie is taken with Bishop's good looks and sinister charm, she senses there's something dangerous about him, but it's not until she wakes up in the city morgue that she learns his secret -- Bishop is a vampire, and Sadie has joined his underlings as one of the undead. Angry and betrayed, Sadie is determined to stop Bishop and his compatriots, and she prowls the city with bow and arrow, ready to stake them from a distance when she spies them. Sadie finds an unlikely ally in her crusade in Detective Rawlins (Michael Chiklis), a police investigator whose daughter was transformed into a night creature by Bishop. However, Sadie is finding it increasingly difficult to resist her growing thirst for the blood of the living, becoming the sort of being she has grown to hate. Also featuring Carla Gugino, Robert Forster, and Nick Lachey, Rise: Blood Hunter received its world premiere with a special midnight screening at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Frequent television director David Von Ancken (Oz and The Shield) offers a thrilling meditation on the true nature of revenge with this post-Civil War era tale of a one man's quest to put his nemesis in the ground, and another man's struggle to survive at any cost. Deep in the snowy mountains of the American West, a lone man named Gideon (Pierce Brosnan) basks, lost in thought, in the warm glow of a small fire. When a shot suddenly rings out and a bullet whizzes just inches from his head, Gideon is suddenly pulled from his repose. His reaction is too slow, however, to save him from the impact of a second bullet fired immediately thereafter; a bullet that painfully lodges itself into the soft flesh of Gideon's tired shoulder. The man who fired these bullets is Colonel Morsman Carver (Liam Neeson), and Carver's goal is to hunt Gideon down like an animal and extract painful revenge for a past transgression that left Colonel Carver forever changed. From this point on, there will be no peace in either man's life as a harrowing game of kill-or-be-killed is played out against the backdrop of the awe-inspiring and deceptively treacherous wilderness where the unforgiving law of the land takes deadly precedence over the civility of modern society. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Edward Zwick returned to the director's chair for the first time since 1998's The Siege with this sweeping period drama set in 19th-century Japan. After centuries of relying on hired samurai for national defense, the Japanese monarchy has decided to do away with the warriors in favor of a more contemporary military. Tom Cruise stars as Nathan Algren, a veteran of the U.S. Civil War who is hired by the Emperor Meiji to train an army capable of wiping out the samurai. But when Algren is captured by the samurai and taught about their history and way of life, he finds himself conflicted over who he should be fighting alongside. Billy Connelly, Tony Goldwyn, and Ken Watanabe co-star. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

Writer and director Cameron Crowe's experiences as a teenage rock journalist -- he was a regular contributor to Rolling Stone while still in high school -- inspired this coming-of-age story about a 15-year-old boy hitting the road with an up-and-coming rock band in the early 1970s. Elaine Miller (Frances McDormand) is a bright, loving, but strict single parent whose distrust of rock music and fears about drug use have helped to drive a wedge between herself and her two children, Anita (Zooey Deschanel) and William (Patrick Fugit). Anita rebels by dropping out of school and becoming a stewardess, but William makes something of his love of rock & roll by writing album reviews for a local underground newspaper. William's work attracts the attention of Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman), editor of renegade rock magazine Creem, who takes William under his wing and gives him his first professional writing assignment -- covering a Black Sabbath concert. While William is unable to score an interview with the headliners, the opening act, Stillwater, are more than happy to chat with a reporter, even if he's still too young to drive, and William's piece on the group in Creem gains him a new admirer in Ben Fong-Torres (Terry Chen), an editor at Rolling Stone. Torres offers William an assignment for a 3,000-word cover story on Stillwater, and over the objections of his mother (whose parting words are "Don't use drugs!"), and after some stern advice from Bangs (who says under no circumstances should he become friends with a band he's covering), Williams joins Stillwater on tour, where he becomes friendly with guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) and singer Jeff Bebe (Jason Lee). William also becomes enamored of Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), a groupie traveling with the band who is no older than William, but is deeply involved with Russell. Lester Bangs and Ben Fong-Torres, incidentally, were real-life rock writers Crowe worked with closely during his days as a journalist. Almost Famous' original score was composed by Nancy Wilson of Heart (who is also Crowe's wife).
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The return of director Terrence Malick to feature filmmaking after a twenty year sabbatical, this World War II drama is an elegiac rumination on man's destruction of nature and himself, based on James Jones' semi-autobiographical novel, his follow-up to From Here to Eternity. James Caviezel stars as Private Witt, a deserter living in peace and harmony with the natives of a Pacific island paradise. Captured by the Navy, Witt is debriefed by a senior officer (Sean Penn) and returned to an active duty unit preparing for what will be the Battle of Guadalcanal. As Witt goes ashore in the company of his fellow soldiers, they meet diverse fates. Sergeant Keck (Woody Harrelson) is killed by an exploding grenade. Captain John Gaff (John Cusack) is an intelligent, sober leader facing the destruction of his command because his commanding officer Colonel Tall (Nick Nolte) is bucking for a general's star. Sergeant McCron (John Savage) loses his mind. Private Bell (Ben Chaplin) gets a "Dear John" letter from his beloved wife. However, as the U.S. troops advance up grassy slopes toward entrenched Japanese positions, it is Witt's voiced-over ruminations on life, death, and nature that are the real heart and soul of The Thin Red Line (1998). Adrien Brody appears as Private Fife, the major character of Jones' novel and the author's alter-ego, although Fife has been relegated to a minor supporting role by Malick's filmed adaptation. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

In this film by director Francis Ford Coppola, Robin Williams stars as Jack, a boy who is growing normally, but at many times the normal rate. In a bizarre flashback, we see that he was born when his mother was only ten weeks pregnant. Kept out of school for years, the neighborhood children consider him a freak, and generally avoid him. He is finally required to go to public school, and we catch up to him as he enters the fourth grade for the first time, a 10-year-old boy who appears to be a fully grown man in his 40s. His classmates tease him mercilessly until they begin to see the advantages of having him around. He must also have some grown-up feelings to go along with his grown-up body, because he asks his teacher out for a date. When she refuses him, he goes off into town and gets into adult-type trouble as he courts nightclub denizen Dolores Durante (Fran Drescher) over the objections of her boyfriend. Teacher Lawrence Woodruff (Bill Cosby) tries (with some success) to help Jack cope with his situation. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The sweeping, melodramatic saga of three brothers, their powerful father, and a beautiful woman, the popular period drama Legends of the Fall presents a romanticized view of rugged masculinity against lush Montana scenery. Based on a novel by Jim Harrison, the film covers decades in the lives of Alfred (Aidan Quinn), Tristan (Brad Pitt), and Samuel (Henry Thomas) Ludlow, the sons of retired military man William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins). Raised by the unorthodox Ludlow after the departure of their mother, the boys grow up close, sharing an appreciation of the land and a pioneering spirit. The family becomes divided, however, when young Sam enlists in World War I over his father's objections, and his brothers follow suit to protect him. Despite these efforts, Sam dies in battle, leaving Alfred and Tristan to return home and deal with the lingering torment. Further complicating matters is the presence of Sam's beautiful fiancée, Susannah (Julia Ormond). After Sam's death, she attracts the romantic attention of both the responsible Alfred and the brooding Tristan, a conflict that threatens to drive the brothers apart. Aspiring to epic status, the film utilizes period detail and attractive landscapes as a backdrop for tragic, doomed romance. While some critics complained that the film resembled a romance novel writ, veering at times into the overwrought, audiences embraced the combination of emotion and grand historical scale, making the film a box-office success. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Black Widow bears no relation to the 1954 film of the same name--beyond its characterization of the female as the deadlier of the species, that is. Debra Winger stars as a federal agent who has sworn to bring Theresa Russell to justice. Ms. Russell has married several millionaires who have all died mysterious deaths, for which she has remained undetected because she has assumed a number of different identities. Ms. Winger is the only person in her department who suspects that all of the deceased millionaires' widows are the same person. Finally tracking down Russell, Winger finds herself inexorably becoming friends with the charming murderess. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide