Brooke Johnson Movies

A grieving mother who has lost her partner and the rebellious daughter who flouts authority both become locked on parallel paths of destruction in this look at contemporary family values, reproductive rights, and pre-teen angst from co-directors Laurie Colbert and Dominique Cardona. Dr. Finn Jefferies works at a Toronto abortion clinic, and shares her life with a longtime partner and an eleven year-old daughter. When her partner dies, Dr. Finn becomes lost. Despite the fact that she wants the best for her daughter Zelly, Dr. Finn finds the intensity of her job and her unbridled grief gradually impeding her from being a responsible parent. Now, as Dr. Finn falls into the arms of a new lover, Zelly and her friends prowl the streets smoking dope, stealing, and ditching school. But sometimes, in the darkest depths of grief, suffering has a way of challenging ones concept of who they truly are and what they really know. Through it all one thing remains certain: if their mutual grief doesn't bring Zelly and her mother closer together it will drive them further apart than they ever imagined. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A couple who live on different sides of the divide of life and death discover just how many boundaries love can cross in this romantic comic fantasy. Elizabeth (Reese Witherspoon) is a hardworking and dedicated medical resident who, after 20 hours on duty, is heading home when she falls asleep at the wheel of her car and is involved in a fatal auto accident. Several weeks later, a man named David (Mark Ruffalo) takes over the lease on Elizabeth's apartment, but he discovers that she hasn't quite vacated the building. Elizabeth's body may be dead, but her spirit is still quite lively, and her ghost is insisting that the apartment is still hers...and that she wants him to move out. David brings in Darryl (Jon Heder), an eccentric man who claims to have psychic powers, to help sweep Elizabeth's spirit out of the apartment, but she refuses to budge, certain that she can't be completely dead, despite all evidence to the contrary. As Elizabeth and David try to share the flat, they discover that their differences aren't as great as they once imagined, and they become attracted to one another. But will Elizabeth's spirit stay in the land of the living long enough for their romance to go somewhere? Just Like Heaven marked Jon Heder's first feature film role after his breakthrough appearance in the independent hit Napoleon Dynamite. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This Big Apple-based romantic comedy charts the tumultuous relationship between liberal arts student and budding chef Al (Freddie Prinze Jr.) and his first girlfriend, Imogen (Julia Stiles), a self-possessed freshman who wants to become an artist. After meeting in a bar, the pair jump into a giddy, passionate affair that's grown-up enough to include face time between the young lovers and Al's DJ mom and TV-chef dad (Henry Winkler). After a summer abroad, however, Imogen feels like the relationship is robbing her of her youth, and the couple must struggle with romantic and domestic growing pains. Meanwhile, their wacky friends -- who include porn stars (Selma Blair and Zak Orth), stoners (Rosario Dawson), a mullet-haired lunkhead (Shawn Hatosy), and a Jim Morrison look-alike named Jim Morrison (Ashton Kutcher) -- provide laughs, advice, and sexual temptation. The debut film from writer/director Kris Isacsson, the teen-themed Down to You marked a change of pace for normally grown-up Miramax Films. In addition to a slew of recent rock and pop, the film prominently features music from such downtown New York fixtures of the past decade as Deee-Lite ("Groove is in the Heart") and Cibo Matto ("Moonchild"). ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

The ghosts of two daring pilots help a troubled young girl in this fantasy for the family. In 1927, a pair of French air aces, Charles Nungesser (Lothaire Bluteau) and Francois Coli (Michel Monty) hop into a single-engine biplane and take off for New York City with the intention of becoming the first pilots to cross the Atlantic non-stop. However, they fail to arrive in New York and are never heard from again. 70 years later, 12-year-old Katie Penhallow (Juliana Wimbles) and her brother are sent to Newfoundland to visit their grandmother, Lydia (Marsha Mason). Both Katie and her brother have had a difficult time dealing with the death of their father, a pilot who lost his life while testing a plane several years before. One night, while exploring at a pond near Grandmother's house, Katie encounters Nungesser and Coli, who look remarkably alive and healthy for two men who have been dead for seven decades. The flyboys tell Katie they are actually the spirits of the lost aviators, and they will not be able to rest until they can rescue their wrecked aircraft from the pond. While Katie has a hard time convincing anyone of what she saw, for the first time since her father's death she has a focus and purpose in life that takes her mind off her feelings about her dad. Shown on premium cable in the United States under the title Restless Spirits, Dead Aviators was shown under its original title in 1999 at Sprockets, the Toronto Film Festival for Children, and on CBC television in Canada. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

When a youngster falls victim to food poisoning, Benton Fraser (Paul Gross) traces the source of the tainted meat ingested by the child. The trail ultimately leads to a gang of crooks trafficking in illegal horse meat. Along the way, Fraser makes the acquaintance of gorgeous horsewoman Stephanie Cabot (Teri Polo), but this pleasant diversion is forgotten when he and his partner Ray Vecchio (David Marciano) find themselves trapped in a meat locker. While the freezing cold has a devastating effect on city-boy Ray, the Canadian-born Fraser is less perturbed--and it is the resourceful Fraser who hits upon a unique but effective way of staying warm until help arrives. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi