Julian Rebolledo Movies

MTV's favorite disaffected teen stumbles through her first romance, suffers through an awful summer job, and pines away for witty banter with her absent and estranged best friend in this feature-length entry in the animated series Daria. It's the summer before Daria Morgendorffer's senior year at Lawndale High, and her best friend, Jane Lane, is heading off to the Ashfield Artists' Colony for the summer. Jane withholds this piece of information until the last possible moment, presumably in retaliation for the relationship that has developed between her ex-boyfriend, Tom, and Daria. Unable to deal with her feelings for Tom and the rift they've caused between her and Jane, Daria blows the boy off, nearly sabotaging her nascent dating career. Daria's mother, however, refuses to let the girl spend the summer moping. Daria soon finds herself manning the OK to Cry Corral, a day camp where one of her teachers, Mr. O'Neill, bores and oppresses the children with his sensitive new age ways. Meanwhile, supporting players Kevin, Brittany, Jodie, and Mack suffer through employment horrors of their own. As for Daria's shallow younger sister, Quinn, she ignores the dictates of the Fashion Club and enlists the help of a tutor to get her test scores up and prove she's not stupid; along the way, she learns a little bit about depth and maturity. Jane, too, decides to act her age after Daria arrives for a weekend visit at Ashfield -- just in time to save Jane from the manipulative poseurs who surround her. Is It Fall Yet? premiered nearly commercial-free on MTV on August 27, 2000, serving as a bridge between the show's fourth and fifth seasons. MTV host Carson Daly and musicians Dave Grohl and Bif Naked provided guest voices, Daly in the role of Quinn's tutor. A second movie, Is It College Yet? followed in January 2002, putting an end to Daria's five-year run. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

If the first season of MTV's animated comedy Daria set up the show's enduring themes and characters, then the 1998 second season provided the first glimpses of the more grownup issues that would come to dominate as the series progressed. The most obvious examples include dating angst and college-admissions anxiety, but a different kind of fear emerges as a subtle constant that will later pick up steam. With Daria (voice of Tracy Grandstaff) already established as the world's most cynical teen, season two begins to map out the flipside of willful alienation -- that is, the alluring danger of letting one's guard down and fully engaging with life. From the poster contest of the season opener "Arts 'n' Crass" to the short-story competition in the finale "Write Where It Hurts," school activities provide the reluctant Daria with an audience for her creativity and dare her to connect with people beyond best friend Jane (voice of Wendy Hoopes). Of course, this being Daria, these scenarios almost always end poorly. But each time, the disaffected teen returns to her apathy with a little less resolve. Meanwhile, the show's writers have a ball expanding their supporting cast and extending the back stories of their existing characters. Kid sister Quinn (also voice of Wendy Hoopes) shows the first signs of the stubborn, Daria-esque individuality that will eventually cause a rift with her Fashion Club compatriots, while both Jane and Daria find friends and foes within their extended families. The politics of stupid high schoolers remain the focus of the plotlines, but the equally clueless antics of parents and teachers also generate laughs. As for the show's style, its ensemble-sitcom approach broadens to include movie parodies and elaborate set pieces (including an over-the-top Renaissance fair). By season's end, even TV critics had begun to notice Daria's sharp writing and thematic resonance. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

For its 2002 fourth season, Daria revisited the themes and comic approaches it had employed on MTV the previous three years. High-school politics, family warfare, and the occasional movie parody kept the titular angsty teen (voice of Tracy Grandstaff) -- and her audience -- in stitches. But even as it wandered around familiar territory, the show found time to explore one new milieu: that of the soap opera. Daria's friendship with Jane (voice of Wendy Hoopes) and her love/hate relationship with Jane's boyfriend, Tom (voice of Russell Hankin), provided Daria with its first-ever season-long through-line. From its opener to its cliffhanger finale and beyond, Daria's penultimate season wove a dense continuing plot out of the title character's sexual awakening and the resulting stress on her friendship with Jane. Really, the final two seasons and the two movie-length specials that punctuate them can be viewed as one long storyline. Of course, not all episodes focused on Daria's love triangle. Supporting characters sometimes took center stage. Quinn (voice of Wendy Hoopes) continued her metamorphosis into an actual person. And college loomed larger than ever on the horizon. By the time the first special Is It Fall Yet? appeared between the fourth and fifth seasons, a senior-year framework similar to that of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 and not one but two seasons of Beverly Hills 90210 had been established. In short, Daria had become an honest to God continuing serial. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

Widower Frank Goode has had to make plenty of adjustments since losing his wife about a year ago, but maybe the hardest one has been maintaining his relationships with his four adult children. It would seem that Frank's wife was the glue who held the family together, and when all of the kids bug out on a planned visit home, he decides to set out on a trip around the country, dropping in on each of their lives in order to help put things right. But their relationships aren't as simple as they once seemed, and Frank's paternal intuition is telling him that his sons and daughters are hiding something from him - and if the Goodes want to become the family they once were, the truth will have to come out before Frank returns home. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi

The lingering weight of tragedy threatens to pull two men under following a harrowing hit-and-run accident in a quiet revenge drama directed by Terry George and starting Mark Ruffalo and Joaquin Phoenix. When his son is killed in an unsolved hit-and-run accident, a grieving father (Phoenix) spends his waking hours seeking vengeance against the man (Ruffalo) who perpetrated the deadly crime. It was a warm September evening when college professor Ethan Learner (Phoenix), his wife, Grace (Jennifer Connelly), and their daughter, Emma (Elle Fanning), went to see Emma's ten-year-old brother, Josh (Sean Curley), play cello at a recital. As usual, Josh's performance is superb and the rest of his family wells up with pride. Later, a chance stop at a gas station on Reservation Road results in a tragedy that will leave the surviving members of the family forever broken. On that same evening, hours earlier, law associate Dwight Arno (Ruffalo) takes his 11-year-old son, Lucas (Eddie Alderson), to see a Red Sox game. The loving father cherishes the time spent with his young son, and the pair hope to watch their favorite team pave a road to the World Series. When the game ends, Dwight prepares to drop Lucas off with his mother, Ruth (Mira Sorvino) -- who is also Dwight's ex-wife. On the way home, Dwight and Lucas stop at a gas station on Reservation Road. There, the accident happens in a flash -- so fast that Lucas never even realized what his father had done. But this crime wasn't without a witness, because Ethan watched every horrifying second of the tragedy unfold with his own eyes. As the police are called and the investigation ensues, everyone involved responds to the incident in their own ways, and two grief-stricken fathers are faced with making the hardest decisions of their lives. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi