Howard Braunstein Movies

A rising star in the agricultural industry suddenly turns whistleblower in hopes of gaining a lucrative promotion and becoming a hero of the common people, inadvertently revealing his penchant for helping himself to the corporate coffers and ultimately threatening to derail the very investigation he helped to launch in this offbeat comedy from Academy Award-winning director Steven Soderbergh. Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) was fast rising through the ranks at agri-industry powerhouse Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) when he became savvy to the company's multinational price-fixing conspiracy, and decided to turn evidence for the FBI. Convinced that he'll be hailed as a hero of the people for his efforts, Whitacre agrees to wear a wire in order to gather the evidence needed to convict the greedy money-grabbers at ADM. Unfortunately, both the case -- and Whitacre's integrity -- are compromised when FBI agents become frustrated by their informant's ever-shifting account, and discover that he isn't exactly the saintly figure he made himself out to be. Unable to discern reality from Whitacre's fantasy as they struggle to build their case against ADM, the FBI watches in horror as the highest-ranking corporate bust in U.S. history threatens to implode before their very eyes. Scott Bakula, Joel McHale, and Melanie Lynskey co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

After a meteor shower streaks through the Milky Way, a brown dwarf with heavy gravitational pull crashes on the moon, causing the lunar body to change its orbit and head straight toward Earth on a deadly collision course. With less than 40 days to restore the moon's orbit, scientists Alex Kittner (David James Elliott), Maddie Rhodes (Natasha Henstridge), and Roland Emerson (Benjamin Sadler) are in a desperate race against time to launch a lunar mission that will save both planets from mutual destruction. James Cromwell and Steven Culp co-star. ~ All Movie Guide

Nature of the Beast is a made-for-TV movie that blends the horror, comedy, and romance genres. American Pie's Eddie Kaye Thomas stars as Rich, who is finding it increasingly difficult to hide his werewolf status from his unsuspecting fiancee, Julia (Autumn Reeser, The O.C.), as their wedding day approaches. The ABC Family film features Ugly Betty's Eric Mabius in a supporting role. ~ All Movie Guide

Inspired by the true life story of Erik Weihenmayer, the committed rock and ice climber who became the first blind man to reach the peak of Mount Everest, Touch the Top of the World traces Weihenmayer's unique life story from the time he was diagnosed with a rare degenerative eye condition as a young boy, to moment he achieved few thought possible. Weihenmayer was just three years old when he learned that he suffered from an eye disease that would ultimately rob him of sight. Still, his parents challenged him to lead a normal life, despite his limiting disability. Later, when Weihenmayer overcame insurmountable odds and scaled Mount Everest, his stunning achievement served as an inspiration to both his community, and other vision impaired athletes as well. Bruce Campbell, Kate Greenhouse, and Sarah Manninen co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Faith of My Fathers tells the story of the young John McCain (Shawn Hatosy). The film charts McCain's early home life with his father, Admiral Jack McCain (Scott Glenn), follows him through his years of training in the Navy, and focuses on his harrowing years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. The film is based on the memoir of the same title that was written by McCain himself. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Produced for cable's Lifetime network, this overwrought cautionary drama could be described as "Reefer Madness" for the PC generation. Healthy, clean-cut 16 year old Justin Peterson (Jeremy Peterson) all but destroys himself and his family via his hopeless addiction to Intenet porn. In the tradition of those old WW2 venereal-disease movies, Justin's obsession even ruins his athletic prowess (he was a champion swimmer before his descent into hell began). And of course, whereas he previously adopted a "hands off" attitude towards his virginal girlfriend Amy (Lyndsy Fonseca), poor Jeremy has been twisted and warped into a junior sex maniac--all because of those lustful images dancing across his monitor. This is the sort of film in which everyone but the hero is "computer illiterate", and thus incapable of figuring out how to block his access to porn until it is almost Too Late. Curiously, it is established early on that Justin's kid brother (Jake Scott) loves violent video games like "Grand Theft Auto", over which no one raises any objections! Entertaining enough if one is in the right frame of mind, Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life debuted June 20, 2005. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The tyranny, cruelty, and sheer hell of high-school peer pressure and teen bullying has seldom been so vividly realized as in this made-for-cable drama, which some critics have likened to the theatrical feature Mean Girls. Alexa Vega heads the cast as Vanessa, a popular straight-A student who enjoys the friendship of campus queen Stacey (Leah Pipes). But when a quarrel fomented by a couple of Stacey's envious hangers-on results in a rift between Stacey and Vanessa, the latter girl suddenly finds herself persona non grata. Treated as a leper by her schoolmates, Stacey is not only exiled from the "cool" lunch table and subjected to vicious insults and accusations in the hallway, but she is also victimized by a "Hate Stacey" website -- but when her mom, Barbara (Lisa Vidal), complains to the principal, she is bluntly told that the school has no authority over any non-school activities, no matter how odious they may be. Driven to desperation by this onslaught of hostility, Vanessa becomes dangerously self-destructive, and it takes the combined efforts of her mother and her fellow "outcast" Emily (Shari Dyon Perry) to restore our heroine's pride and self-esteem...and, ultimately, to get her real priorities back on track. Director Tom McLoughlin, hitherto a specialist in horror films, invests this adaptation of Rachel Simmons' novel with just the right amount of foreboding and subliminal evil. First telecast by the Lifetime channel on April 4, 2005, Odd Girl Out obviously struck a nerve with viewers, if the incredible outpouring of audience response in both print and on the Internet is any indication. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The made-for-TV It Must be Love is based on "Rediscovered Love", a chapter in Meant to Be, a book by marital-advice columnists Barry Vissell and Joyce Vissell. Both film and chapter were inspired by the true story of Nancy and Leo Whitmore, a divorce-bound couple who learned the hard way how to truly appreciate their life together--and to truly appreciate life itself--when they trapped in a snowbound camper for a month. As adapted by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Beth Henley (Crimes of the Heart), the film stars real-life married couple Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen as George and Clem Gazelle, who labor under the misapprehension that just because they are being "amicable" and "civilized" about their impending divorce, their split-up will be a happy one with no unpleasant side effects for their children. All this changes when George and Clem are trapped in their camper by a freak Main snowstorm. As they hope and pray for rescue, the couple begins to ponder the reasons for their breakup, and wonder if perhaps they should have given their marriage a second chance. As the days turn into weeks, and despite their ever-diminishing health, the Gazelles carry on lively domestic debates in their "Divorce Camper", concluding at last that if they must die (which may indeed happen at any moment), they would much rather die together than apart. One of the highest-rated TV movies of its year, It Must Be Love was seen February 15, 2004, on CBS. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally produced as a miniseries for NBC, 10.5 is a disaster film that wonders what might happen if the Western United States is ever ravaged by unprecedented earthquakes. After one quake wreaks havoc on Seattle, another strikes California, this one worse than the first. With scientists speculating that an earthquake registering 10.5 on the Richter scale could be next, the U.S. president (Beau Bridges) enlists the help of a seismologist (Kim Delaney) to somehow formulate a plan to prevent the deaths of millions of people. This film aired under the title Earthquake: 10.5 in the U.K. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

When Undercover Christmas first aired over CBS on December 7, 2003, a number of critics lauded the film for its "fresh" and "unique" storyline--blissfully unaware that the film bore a marked resemblance to the 1940 Fred MacMurray-Barbara Stanwyck vehicle Remember the Night. Jamie Gertz tops the cast as Brandi O'Neill, a sassy cocktail waitress who is the "great and good friend" of billionaire Scott Shift (Cameron Bancroft). Determned to nail Shift on a tax fraud charge, FBI agent Jake Cunningham (Shawn Christian) figures that Brandi will make an excellent federal witness, and takes her into protective custody. Unfortunately, not long afterward Jake receives word from his mother Anne (Tyne Daly) that his father Joe (Winston Rekert), a very wealthy and very conservative jurist, has suffered a heart attack--and that it would behoove Jack to come home for Christmas to see his dad just one more time. Naturally, Jake is forced to take Brandi along to meet his folks, who are shocked beyond measure when, to avoid compromising his case against Shift, Jake passes Brandi off as his new girlfriend! Things get dicier still when it turns out that Joe Cunningham's heart attack was just a sham to force Jake to come home and get his annual dressing-down for not living up to his parents' hopes--and all the while, Brandi begins to really enjoy her new luxurious surroundings, and seriously considers latching onto Jake for keeps. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by William H. Armstrong, the made-for-TV Sounder was a remake of director Gordon Parks' 1972 theatrical feature of the same name. This is the story of 11-year-old black youngster David Daniel Lee Robertson III, known throughout the film as "Boy." When his sharecropper father is arrested and sentenced to five years at hard labor after stealing food to feed his family, Boy embarks upon a journey to find out where his father has being imprisoned. Accompanied by his dog Sounder, Boy also makes the arduous crossover from boyhood to manhood with the help (and sometimes hindrance) of various people along the road. Kevin Hooks, who played Boy in the original film, directed the remake, while Paul Winfield, the original Father, is here cast as Teacher. Sounder first aired January 19, 2003, as a component of the ABC anthology The Wonderful World of Disney. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Angela Bassett plays the title role in this meticulously detailed biography of pioneering civil rights activist Rosa McCauley Parks. Even as a child, Rosa stands separate from her fellow African-Americans; instead of being shipped off to a shabby public school, she is enrolled in a private classroom run by Quakers, who encourage the girl to transcend the severe limitations of legalized segregation in her home state of Alabama. In her late teens, Rosa marries barber Raymond Parks (Peter Francis James), a politically savvy and outspoken proponent of equal rights for all. For many years suffering in silence as the iniquities of the South's Jim Crow laws consign her to second-class-citizen status, Rosa finally joins the local branch of the NAACP with the encouragement of her childhood friend Rebecca "Johnnie" Carr (Tonea Stewart) -- much to the dismay of husband Raymond, who feels that the organization is ineffective in its ongoing battle against the white power structure. Rosa's personal struggle against institutionalized racism reaches its zenith on the night of December 1, 1955, when, bone-weary after a long day's work as a seamstress at a Montgomery department store, she refuses to give up her seat on a bus to a white man -- and is promptly arrested. Thus are the wheels set in motion for the first major Civil Rights demonstration of the 1950s, with Rosa rising to heroic status in the eyes of her people, an event that also profoundly alters the life of local religious leader Martin Luther King Jr. (played by the Reverend's son, Dexter Scott King). Mostly filmed on location in Alabama, The Rosa Parks Story features Cicely Tyson as Rosa's strong-willed mother Leona and Mrs. Parks' longtime friend Rebecca Daniels Carr in a cameo role. The film was shown as part of CBS' celebration of Black History Month on February 24, 2002. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Introduced on March 5, 2000, with the two-hour cable movie The Golden Spiders, the A&E series bearing the blanket title A Nero Wolfe Mystery launches its first season with Maury Chaykin as the corpulent, bombastic, sublimely self-indulgent title character and Timothy Hutton as Wolfe's wisecracking assistant and legman Archie Goodwin. Running anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes, the individual episodes are inspired by the many Nero Wolfe novels and short stories written between 1934 and 1975 by Rex Stout, and all are ample demonstrations of the keen deductive and analytical skills of the overweight protagonist, who specializes in solving seemingly unsolvable crimes -- but only when he feels like doing so. The series' first three episodes are two-parters, all based on Rex Stout's original novels. "A Doorbell Rang" finds Wolfe accepting a case which implicates the FBI in cold-blooded murder; "Champagne for One," directed by series regular Timothy Hutton, focuses on the curious "suicide" of an unwed mother at a fancy dinner party; and "Prisoner's Base" has Wolfe not only exposing a scheme to steal a fortune by hook or by crook, but also clearing Archie of a charge of impersonating a police officer. Following three self-contained hour-long episodes, the series offers another two-parter to close the season, Over My Dead Body," centering upon a sinister fencing academy and a young woman who may or may not be Nero Wolfe's long-lost daughter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide