Lee Rose Movies

A crate of soft drinks has fallen off a cargo plane and nearly destroyed the Hodes home. While Dean (Andy Milder) deals with the insurance adjuster, Celia (Elizabeth Perkins), who recently learned she has breast cancer, visits with a faith healer. Celia's bout with cancer seems to have given her a devil-may-care outlook on life. She starts giving away her worldly possessions and wearing the satin roller-disco jacket she wore as a girl. Doug (Kevin Nealon) spends an afternoon getting high and watching porn with Andy (Justin Kirk), and leaves behind papers for Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker) to sign to start the process of buying the bakery. Silas (Hunter Parrish) is being pressured by a friend to dump "the deaf girl," Megan (Shoshannah Stern). A drive-by shooting at Heylia's (Tonye Patano) place leaves Nancy shaken up. ("White folks get soda pop," Heylia dryly laments. "[We] get bullets.") Nancy's in no mood to hear about Shane (Alexander Gould) getting in trouble at school for writing gangsta rap about gunning down his classmates. She's contemplating getting out of the drug game, and she rejects Andy's offer to use his culinary skills to team up with her in the bakery biz. Andy decides to go into business for himself; he makes a buy and then unwisely mocks the bike cop who stops him for a traffic violation on the way home. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

After an amicable split with her husband of many years, housewife and mother Kate Mayer (Leslie Hope) goes back to work. Her new boss is a good-natured lesbian named Mac (Wendy Crewson), who soon becomes Kate's closest friend. But when it is clear that Mac is much, much, more than a friend, Kate is troubled: Never having had cause to question her heterosexuality, she finds herself falling deeply in love with a person of her own gender. Like its Lifetime Network companion piece The Truth About Jane (2000), also written and directed by Lee Rose, this film handles its controversial subject matter with taste, discretion, and sympathy. Originally filmed under the title This Much I Know, An Unexpected Love made its cable-TV debut March 24, 2003. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A teenager going through the typical traumas of adolescence has to confront an especially big hurdle in this made-for-TV drama. Jane (Ellen Muth) is a seemingly typical 15-year-old high school student; she's popular at school, does well in her classes, and has a good relationship with her parents, Janice (Stockard Channing) and Robert (James Naughton). Despite all this, Jane has always felt as if she's different in some way from the other kids at school, though she's not sure how. When Taylor (Alicia Lagano) moves into town and transfers into the same school as Jane, the two girls become fast friends. Before long, Jane and Taylor are inseparable, and Jane senses this is not an ordinary friendship; one night, Jane kisses Taylor, and Jane finally comes to the realization that she's attracted to women and has fallen in love with Taylor. While Jane and Taylor are happy together, Jane now faces the responsibility of telling her family that she's a lesbian, and her parents are not readily accepting of this news. The Truth About Jane features RuPaul in a rare dramatic role as Jimmy, a close friend of Janice who is also a gay man. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Inspired by a true story (the events of which led to the Sipes vs. McGhee trial, in which the United States Supreme Court declared that covenants used to segregate neighborhoods were unconstitutional), The Color of Courage concerns Mac McGhee (Roger Guenveur Smith), his wife Minnie (Lynn Whitfield), and their two sons, an African-American family who move into an all-white neighborhood in the early 1940s. Hoping to avoid trouble early on, The McGhees move in at night, but the neighbors soon become aware that a black family is living nearby. Anna Sipes (Linda Hamilton), who lives next door, is a bored housewife whose husband forbids her to work outside the home; wanting to be a good neighbor, she bakes a cake as a welcoming gift for the McGhees, and Minnie accepts it graciously. Minnie and Anna get to know each other and discover that they have a good bit in common. However, as their friendship grows, animosity against the McGhees begins to build, and Anna's husband Benjamin (Bruce Greenwood) joins with members of the neighborhood association to use legal means to force the McGhee family to move elsewhere. The Color of Courage was shown at the 1998 Chicago Film Festival before making its bow on the USA cable network in 1999. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi