Brian Robbins Movies

Director Brian Robbins helms the true story of Bret Kaiser, a detention officer who helped create an American Idol-like contest at Arizona's Tent City jail, sparking hope and focus through the power of music to the thousands of inmates. The film is based on Joshuah Bearman's L.A. Weekly article that spotlighted Kaiser, a former heavy-metal frontman who made headlines when his "Inmate Idle Singing Con-Test" helped curtail violence within the jail, even so far as to attract Alice Cooper as a guest judge. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

With their home planet in danger and no place in the known universe to seek shelter, a desperate crew of miniature alien humanoids boards a human spacecraft in hopes of saving their doomed world. Eddie Murphy stars in a sci-fi comedy that re-teams the longtime comic actor with Norbit director Brian Robbins. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A mismatched group of bored suburbanites longing to escape the stress of their daily lives and embrace the freedom of the open road finds that it takes more than polished chrome and leather jackets to truly experience the biker lifestyle in this revved-up road comedy starring John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, and William H. Macy. Upon trading the comfort of their couches for the thunderous rumble of two-wheeled street machines, these four adventurous riders cross paths with the notorious Del Fuegos -- an authentic biker gang that doesn't take kindly to the weekend warrior type. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Filmed on location in New York and Connecticut, the ESPN miniseries The Bronx is Burning was a vivid (if not overly expensive) retelling of the New York Yankees' championship year of 1977. Heading the enormous cast of celebrity lookalikes were Oliver Platt as Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and John Turturro as team manager Billy Martin. The infamously volatile relationship between the two men was the heart of the series, with the prickly Martin curiously emerging as the hero of the piece. Setting the story in motion was the hiring of baseball superstar Reggie Jackson (Daniel Sunjata), the first of several measures taken by the Yanks to reclaim the World Series. To place the action at Yankee Stadium in proper historical context, much was made of the other events which kept the citizens of New YOrk on their collective toes in the summer of 1977, including the frantic search for the serial killer known as the "Son of Sam", the devastating power blackout, the fractious mayoral race, and the ongoing violence in the streets of the Bronx. The title of the series derived from the famous TV-news headline "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning", which was also the title of the Jonathan Mahler novel upon which the show was based. The Bronx is Burning first roared into flame on July 10, 2007. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Created by Marco Pennette, ABC's Crumbs was an off-kilter sitcom dealing with such warm-and-fuzzy issues as mental illness, attempted homicide, divorce, closeted homosexuality, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and bitter sibling rivalry. In one of the most spectacular examples of non-typecasting in TV history, Fred Savage starred as Mitch Crumb, a gay screenwriter who was unable to follow up the success of his first film, which he based upon the death of his older brother. While starving in Hollywood, Mitch was summoned to his New England home to help his mother Suzanne Crumb (Jane Curtin), recently released from the Cedar Hill nursing home after suffering a mental breakdown, readjust to life on the outside. Suzanne had been institutionalized primarily because she had tried to kill her philandering ex-husband Billy (William Devane), the owner of a local restaurant called the Stone House Grille. Mitch's surviving brother Jody (Eddie McClintock), a near-sociopathic womanizer and the current manager of the family restaurant, deeply resented the return of his "famous" brother and made no secret of his feelings. As for Mitch himself, he hadn't yet informed his family that he'd come out of the closet -- the only person who knew his secret was his old friend Andrea (Maggie Lawson), a waitress at the Stone House. Also in the cast was Reginald Ballard as Elvis, a young orderly at Cedar Hill with whom Suzanne was having an affair. Crumbs made its first network appearance on January 12, 2006. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A man and his young daughter face almost impossible odds as they struggle to help an injured horse return to the racetrack in this family-friendly drama. Ben Crane (Kurt Russell) is a horse trainer whose career has gone into a bit of a slump, and after years as his own boss, he's signed on to work for Palmer (David Morse), a breeder whose wealth and success has given him a certain degree of arrogance. While Ben has learned to keep his mouth shut around his boss, he forgets himself when one of his favorite horses, Sonador, breaks its leg during an important race. Palmer insists that the horse should be put down on the spot, but Ben doesn't have the heart to kill the animal, especially since his young daughter, Cale (Dakota Fanning), is in the stands watching. Ben and Palmer have harsh words with one another, and Ben is fired, but is allowed to take Sonador with him when he leaves. Ben has a hard time convincing anyone that the injured horse has any potential, especially his father, Pop (Kris Kristofferson), a fellow trainer who rarely sees eye to eye with his son. But Cale loves the horse, and Ben believes that Sonador can make a comeback with the right care, and together with stable men Balon (Luis Guzman) and Manolin (Freddy Rodriguez), he sets out to put the filly on the road to recovery. As its subtitle suggests, Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story was based on the story of Mariah's Storm, a filly who broke a leg during a race in 1993, but a year later came back to win the Arlington Heights Oaks, and in 1995 won the Turfway Breeder's Cup. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The true-life story of a coach who tries to teach his players that there's more to life than basketball is brought to the screen in this sports drama. Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson) was once a star player on the Richmond High School basketball team in Richmond, CA, and years later, after establishing himself in publishing and marketing, he returns to the school and to the team as the new basketball coach. Carter quickly sees that his work is cut out for him -- the team is having an awful season, and their fights off the court are more decisive than their play on the court. While Carter wants to make the Richmond cagers into a winning team, he also wants a lot more -- to teach the boys to respect themselves and one another, and that they must excel in the classroom as well as in the gymnasium. Under Carter's guidance, the team turns their losing season around, with the state title a genuine possibility. However, when Carter learns that a number of his players have let their grade point averages slip below 2.3, as mandated in a contract he entered into with the students, he decides to lock the team out of the gym and send them into study hall until their marks improve. Carter's plan quickly becomes a subject of controversy among parents and team boosters, and their objections are soon picked up by the local news media, many of whom are not sympathetic to Carter's belief that his players must have goals beyond college ball or the NBA. Coach Carter also features Rob Brown and Rick Gonzalez as members of the team, and R&B diva Ashanti in her film debut as the girlfriend of one of Carter's players. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Season three of the Superman-derived adventure series Smallville had ended with young Clark Kent (Tom Welling) disappearing into a mysterious portal opened by his Kryptonian birth father, Jor-El (Terence Stamp), while Clark's Earthling adoptive father, Jonathan (John Schneider), lay comatose. Meanwhile, Clark's high-school sweetheart Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) had gone off to study in Paris; his mercurial friend Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum), having downed a poisoned cocktail, writhed in agony; Lex's crooked industrialist father, Lionel (John Glover), was sitting in the slammer; and while preparing to make public damning evidence against Lionel's criminal activities, budding journalist Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack) was apparently killed in an explosion. As season four begins, Clark is hurtled buck-naked back into "our" dimension -- now armed with the knowledge that he is Kal-El of Krypton, fully aware of his destiny on Earth and that he will continue evincing superpowers, and determined to fulfill the mission set down by his father to retrieve several powerful kryptonite crystals lest they fall into human hands. No sooner has Clark returned than he has his first meeting with big-city reporter Lois Lane (Erica Durance), who has arrived in Smallville to investigate the reported death of her cousin, Chloe -- and to say that Clark and Lois do not exactly hit it off at first sight is an understatement! As it turns out, Chloe is still alive, forcing the jailed Lionel to step up his efforts to silence her for keeps. Likewise, Lex has recovered from his poisoning, but the traumatic experiences of the past few months seems to have aroused his "darker" side -- an aspect of his personality that will reveal itself disturbingly in the form of his evil doppelganger, Alexander, a manifestation brought about by the effects of that renegade kryptonite (which, it is revealed this year, comes in a variety of colors, each with its own special powers).

One of the season's most significant story arcs concerns one Jason Teague (Jensen Ackles), a handsome but strangely off-putting young man whom Lana met in Paris, and who has followed her back to Smallville. Jason's presence precipitates the arrival of his wicked mother, Genevieve Teague (Jane Seymour), who evidently has vital information about the missing kryptonite crystals, and who also has connections with the estimable Luthor family. It also comes to pass that she had carefully stage-managed the meeting between Jason and Lana, the better to solve the mystery of the strange tattoo on Lana's back -- a mystery that stretches all the way back to Lana's previous existence in medieval times. In the season finale, Clark is poised to graduate from high school, but first he must solve a perplexing puzzle left for him by his father -- and this done, Clark is suddenly teleported to the North Pole, just as Lana, with a murder charge hanging over her head, needs him most. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A vehicle for Romeo Must Die star Russell Wong, the weekly, 60-minute adventure series Black Sash cast Wong as Tom Chang, a former San Francisco cop who returned to his homeland in disgrace after being wrongly imprisoned for years in a Hong Kong jail. Hoping to find a new purpose in life, Tom became a martial arts instructor for a group of young trainees, also outcasts from society. Among Tom's pupils (who treated their teacher like a father-confessor, a relationship he did nothing to discourage) were street-smart Bryan (Ray J), shy Allie (Sarah Carter), abused-teen Trip (Corey Servier), and vengeance-seeking Tory (Missy Peregrym). All the while, Tom hoped to reconnect with his estranged daughter, despite a court order forcing him to remain 100 yards away from the girl. Black Sash made its WB network bow on March 30, 2003. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hollywood filmmaker Michael Tollin directs the sports drama Radio, based on a true story and adapted for the screen by Mike Rich (The Rookie). Set in a small South Carolina town during the '60s, the film stars Ed Harris as Harold Jones, a high school football coach who barely has time to spend with his daughter, Mary Helen (Sarah Drew), or his wife, Linda (Debra Winger). When Coach Jones meets the mentally challenged student who goes by the name of Radio (Cuba Gooding Jr.), he allows him to help out with his football team. While the townsfolk just aren't sure about Radio hanging around the team, the star player Johnny Clay (Riley Smith) is downright mean about it. Nevertheless, Radio continues to support the team for the next three decades. Also starring Alfre Woodard as the principal. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Season three of Smallville brought several more hidden facts about the Kryptonian heritage of young Clark Kent (Tom Welling) to the forefront -- and also provided a few additional links to Clark's future life as Superman. The series also found the unsavory past of billionaire industrialist Lionel Luthor (John Glover) catching up with him, profoundly affecting his mixed-up son, Lex (Michael Rosenbaum), who had already been battered about when a team of doctors attempted to purge him of his "delusions" (read: his memories of Lionel's perfidy). The season began with Clark, still under the addictive influence of red kryptonite, angrily renouncing his friends and family in Smallville and exiling himself to Metropolis, where he briefly entered into a life of crime under the tutelage of sinister Morgan Edge (played variously during this season by Rutger Hauer and Patrick Bergin), who, like many villainous characters on the series, was an associate of the redoubtable Lionel Luthor. In order to rescue Clark, the boy's adoptive father, Jonathan Kent (John Schneider), entered into a strange bargain with Clark's Kryptonian birth father, Jor-El (Terence Stamp), the ramifications of which would permeate the action for the remainder of the season. Once safely returned to Smallville, Clark underwent the by-now-standard curious experiences wherein he was obliged to utilize his unique powers wisely and without giving his dual identity away. He also discovered a few new powers, among them super-hearing and (it was implied) the ability to fly. On the romantic front, Clark's relationship with Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) went through a variety of ups and downs -- especially during a rather harrowing story arc involving a mercurial young man named Adam Knight (Ian Somerhalder) -- reaching a climax of sorts at season's end when Lana decided to leave Smallville in order to study art in Paris. Meanwhile, another of Clark's female acquaintances, budding girl reporter Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack) drew ever closer to unearthing a number of secrets involving both Clark and Lex. She also revealed something that many viewers had long suspected: she was related to a certain high-profile Metropolis reporter named Lois Lane (who would become a regular character in season four). Not satisfied with dangling this tantalizing foretaste of things to come for young Clark Kent, the Smallville producers also used season three to introduce Clark's future boss, Perry White, here played by Michael McKean -- the real-life husband of Annette O'Toole, the actress who played Clark's adoptive mother, Martha Kent.

As season three drew to a conclusion, Clark had come face to face with another refugee from Krypton, a superpowered girl named Kara (Adrianne Palicki), who urged our hero to renounce his earthly ways and fulfill his "destiny." Meanwhile, the true nature of Lex Luthor was exposed in all its tawdry glory, and two of the series' most stalwart characters, Chloe Sullivan and Pete Ross (Sam Jones III), were poised to make their respective exits -- and it was painfully clear that at least one of them would never, ever return. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Season two of the WB network's popular Smallville upheld its excellent ratings by adhering religiously to the same mixture as before: combining tantalizing elements of the Superman legend with the sort of "teen angst" indigenous to such series as Beverly Hills 90210 and Dawson's Creek, all the while effectively weaving a mythos of its own. The first episode of the new season resolved the cliffhanger left over from season one, with teenager Clark Kent (Tom Welling) -- who 13 years earlier had crash-landed in a spaceship in the tiny Kansas farming community of Smallville -- rescuing local high school homecoming queen Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) from a devastating tornado. At the same time, local playboy and aspiring business mogul Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum), heir apparent to the billion-dollar LutherCorp firm, forgot his differences with his ruthless CEO father, Lionel Luthor (John Glover, graduating from "recurring" to "regular" status), long enough to rescue his dad from a certain-death situation. Also returning to the series were John Schneider and Annette O'Toole as farming couple Jonathan and Martha Kent, adoptive parents to Clark; Allison Mack as budding journalist and teenaged paranormal specialist Chloe Sullivan, who by now had resigned herself to being merely Clark's friend rather than his sweetheart; and Sam Jones III as Clark's best bud, Pete Ross, who a few episodes into season two became the only person other than Jonathan and Martha to be apprised that Clark was actually a "visitor" from the planet Krypton. Gone were Eric Johnson as Whitney Fordham, Clark's rival for the hand and heart of Lana Lang; and Tom O'Brien as unscrupulous reporter Roger Nixon, who was conveniently killed off just as he was poised to reveal Clark's true identity to the world.

Among the more prominent of the new cast members was Emmanuelle Vaugier as Dr. Helen Bryce, an anger-control specialist hired by Lionel Luthor to curb Lex's violent temper. Ultimately, Lex and Helen would fall in love and marry, but this union was sorely threatened by events occurring in the second season's cliffhanger finale. New plot complications involved another of Clark's newly emerging superpowers, "heat vision," and the introduction of red kryptonite, a mineral indigenous to Clark's home planet, which in true hallucinogenic fashion had the capability of transforming our straight-arrow hero into a violently rebellious teenaged punk. In other developments, the orphaned Lana Lang discovered that her biological father was still alive, while Martha Kent went to work for LutherCorp as Lionel Luthor's personal assistant. In the extraordinary season-closing cliffhanger, Clark Kent received mystical messages from his late Krypton-dwelling father, Jor-El, informing him that he was destined to rule the world. Choosing instead to continue striving for "human" normality, Clark was moved to a desperate act that had devastating consequences on his friends and loved ones -- and pushed him into a dangerous dependence on the addictive red kryptonite, which led him into a life of crime in the wicked city of Metropolis. Hoping to retrieve his adopted son, Jonathan entered into a bargain with the spirit of Jor-El, briefly developing superpowers of his own, while wife Martha mourned the death of her unborn child (one of those aforementioned devastating consequences). And as if that wasn't enough, Lex Luthor found himself on a plane that was doomed to crash -- a disaster that may or may not have been engineered by someone very, very close to him. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide