Lois Smith Movies

A writer in the midst of an existential crisis finds his life transformed after adopting an abused border collie in this emotionally uplifting comedy. Based on author Jon Katz's best-selling memoir of the same name, A Dog Year opens to find the writer at an emotionally precarious stage in his life. The proud owner of two laid back Labrador Retrievers, Jon (Bridges) finds his staid existence shaken up as the twitchy new companion proves much more than a handful. Later, as Jon struggles to overcome a bad case of writer's block, his daughter Emma (Lauren Ambrose) returns home from college for a visit, and him know exactly how much she disapproves of his current living conditions. Finally inspired to make a change for the better, Jon relocates to a quiet farmhouse and seeks out the help of a compassionate dog trainer (Lois Smith), whose patience and insight help to improve not only the condition the traumatized dog, but the outlook of its troubled owner as well. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A woman struggles to win back the son she lost when she divorced her husband in a gritty drama that marks the directorial debut of actor Chris Eigeman. Kailey (Famke Janssen) is a woman who makes her living playing high-stakes poker and hustling pool, a trade she learned from her longtime friend Quinn (Rip Torn). Kailey's rough-and-tumble life drove a wedge between her and her husband, David (Matt Ross), and when they split up he won custody of their son, Gulley (Jaymie Dornan). However, while David was seemingly the sober and respectable one in their relationship, in truth he's a heavy drinker whose life is controlled by his wealthy, bullying mother, Abigail (Lois Smith). Gulley is unhappy living with David, and unbeknown to his father the boy has been corresponding with Kailey as they plan to start a new life together in Canada. However, Kailey is unable to get legitimate papers for herself and her son, so she heads to New York City to raise the 50,000 dollars she'll need to get passports on the black market. Turn the River also stars Marin Hinkle, John Juback, and Terry Kinney. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Ed Stone's bittersweet drama Griffin & Phoenix concerns Griffin (Dermot Mulroney), a divorcee suffering from cancerous lesions in his chest that give him a life expectancy of less than two years. He falls in love with academic advisor Phoenix (Amanda Peet), and the pair decide to 'live life to the fullest' by fulfilling all of Griffin's childhood fantasies, from painting water towers to sneaking into movies to hopping freight trains. But a secret of Phoenix's threatens to damper the joy of their time together. Sarah Paulson, Blair Brown, Alison Elliott and Lois Smith co-star; John Hill authored the script. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

A European exile finds herself a stranger in a strange land when she comes to the United States in this independent romantic comedy-drama. As a man ponders what to do with his family's estate after the death of his grandmother, he thinks back to how she first came to America shortly after World War I. Olaf (Tim Guinee) is a Norwegian-American farmer looking for a wife to share his home on the Minnesota prairie, and with eligible women in short supply locally, he sends away for a mail-order bride. Inge Ottenberg (Elizabeth Reaser) soon arrives at Olaf's doorstep, but while she's pretty, smart, and amiable, he's taken aback to discover she's not Norwegian but German, which after several years of anti-German propaganda does not make her popular with her new neighbors. Inge isn't very good with English, making it even harder to keep her background a secret, and the local pastor, Rev. Sorrensen (John Heard), is so outraged at the presence of a presumed Hun he refuses to perform their wedding. But Inge struggles to make friends with her new neighbors, in particular Olaf's best friend, Frandsen (Alan Cumming), a gadget fancier whose wife, Brownie (Alex Kingston), is better with mechanical items than he is. In time, Inge's cheerful nature and love of music begin to make an impression on the community as she shares her favorite tunes on her ever-present gramophone. Sweet Land was the first feature film from writer and director Ali Selim. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Directed by Dylan Kidd, P.S. follows Louise Harrington (Laura Linney), a divorcee who works in Columbia University's School of Fine Arts and at first glance seems utterly satisfied with her life. The thirties-odd woman has found success in the workplace, is respected among her peers, and is fairly confident in her own abilities -- yet, she can't help but feel something is missing. When she arranges to interview a prospective student at least 15 years younger than she is, she's shocked to find out he is the spitting image of her high-school sweetheart, an artist who had died in a tragic car accident before they graduated. After the interview, Louise and Scott (Topher Grace) waste no time before getting romantically involved. Their motives aren't entirely clear -- Louise may be longing for her former flame, while Scott could be trying to assure himself a position in the Ivy League by whatever means necessary -- but that doesn't stop them. Elsewhere, Missy (Marcia Gay Harden), Louise's best friend from high school makes a play for Scott herself. Complicating issues further is the looming presence of Peter (Gabriel Byrne), Louise's ex-husband, and her recently sober brother (Paul Rudd). ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi

For his first filmmaking effort without brother Josh Kornbluth by his side, Jacob Kornbluth followed up the duo's Haiku Tunnel by writing and directing this offbeat drama about a family struggling to cope with unexpected strife and the pitfalls of adolescence. The Best Thief in the World stars Mary-Louise Parker (Boys on the Side, Angels in America) as the family matriarch, a public-school English teacher whose husband has recently suffered a stroke, leaving her the household's lone breadwinner. Meanwhile, her oldest son Izzy is rebelliously acting out in response to the tumult at home and his own growing pains by breaking into apartments and rearranging the furniture. The Best Thief in the World screened in competition at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi

The ninth and final season of Touched by an Angel finds all four of our favorite Heavenly operatives--Monica (Roma Downey), Tess (Della Reese), Andrew (John Dye, and Gloria (Valerie Bertinelli)--way out West, where amateur astronomer Joe Collette (Robert Pastorelli) is hoping for a reconciliation between himself and his son Ricky (Taylor Handley), a recovering drug addict. When Joe and Gloria simultaneously discover that an asteroid is hurtling toward the earth, it appears as though the present mission is pointless, but Tess grimly insists that the job at hand be completed regardless of whether or not anyone is left alive afterward! Meanwhile, elderly Mildred (Lois Smith) is rather looking forward to the impending Armageddon, reasoning that at least she will be reunited with her late husband--but she'd like to experience at least one genuine miracle before she dies. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Sean Penn directed this tense drama of loyalty, honor, and obsession, based on a novel by Friedrich Durrenmatt. Jerry Black (Jack Nicholson) is a veteran police detective who lives and works in a small Nevada town. On the day of his retirement, it falls to Jerry to handle an especially unpleasant assignment -- a seven-year-old girl has been brutally murdered, and Jerry has to check out the crime scene, and then tell the girl's parents the awful news. The girl's mother (Patricia Clarkson), understandably distraught, demands to know if the killer will be brought to justice, and Jerry promises her that he will personally see to it, "on my soul's salvation." A younger detective also on the case, Stan Krolak (Aaron Eckhart), thinks he's traced the crime to Toby Jay Wadeneh (Benicio Del Toro), a mentally retarded man who confesses to the murder shortly before killing himself. Stan considers the case closed, but Jerry can't shake his belief that Toby Jay wasn't actually the murderer, and Jerry begins to investigate the case on his own time, over the objections of his former boss, Eric Pollack (Sam Shepard), who reminds Jerry that he's no longer an official member of the police force. Before long, Jerry's personal investigation has taken over his life, and he uncovers evidence that suggests the girl's murder was just one in a series of killings involving young girls and a mysterious man called "the Wizard." When Jerry becomes close to a young single mother, Lori (Robin Wright-Penn), he feels he has reason to believe the murderer may be targeting her eight-year-old daughter, and finds himself using her as a decoy in order to bring the killer to justice. The Pledge marked Jack Nicholson's second starring role in a film directed by Sean Penn following 1995's The Crossing Guard; The Pledge's stellar supporting cast includes Vanessa Redgrave, Helen Mirren, Harry Dean Stanton, and Mickey Rourke. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Gavin O'Connor directed, co-wrote and plays a major supporting role in this drama about a mother and daughter coming to terms with each other's problems. In Tumbleweeds, Janet McTeer plays Mary Jo Walker, a single mother with a long string of bad marriages and a habit of hitting the road when things start to turn sour. Her 12-year-old daughter Ava (Kimberly J. Brown) has learned to live with her Mom's nomadic ways and comfortably slips into the pattern of each new town. At the film's outset, Mary Jo and Ava depart Missouri for San Diego, California, with Mary Jo falling for a rough-hewn trucker named Jack (Gavin O'Connor) along the way. Once in San Diego, Mary Jo's relationship with Jack fails to run smoothly and her new job presents more than its share of challenges, while Ava has romantic problems of her own when she gains her first boyfriend. McTeer, an established stage actress in England, made her American screen debut in this film, which also features notable character actor Michael J. Pollard as Mary Jo's eccentric boss. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Roz (Peri Gilpin) has an almost pathological fear of growing old. Hoping to help her overcome this, Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) suggests that Roz use the "community service" time forced upon her by a traffic violation to volunteer at a local retirement home. Needless to say, this situation only serves to make things worse, as the oldsters begin dropping like flies after Roz's visits! James Earl Jones guest stars as one of the home's more outspoken residents. ~ Rovi

Bill Murray teams up with his biggest co-star to date (with the exception of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man) in this family-oriented comedy. Jack Corcoran (Bill Murray) is a motivational speaker who makes his living advising others how to tie up the loose ends of their lives, but he has plenty of his own left dangling. Jack is emotionally at the mercy of his mother (Anita Gillette) and his fiancée Celeste (Maureen Mueller), while his booking agent Walter (Jeremy Piven) keeps promising him bigger and better things that don't materialize. Jack has grown up believing that his father died before he was born while trying to rescue a drowning child, but he learns that was not the case at all -- Dad spent a long career working as a circus clown, and died only a few weeks ago. However, Dad was kind enough to bequeath Jack a large stack of debts and his only tangible asset, an Indian elephant named Vera (Tia). Jack is in no position to keep a pachyderm at home, and he has two options for getting rid of the animal -- sell Vera to Terry (Linda Fiorentino), a mean spirited animal trainer, or donate her to Mo (Janeane Garofalo), a zoologist who hopes to return her to the wilds. Either way, Jack has to get Vera from the East Coast to California, and in order to make an important speaking engagement, he and the elephant have five days to cross the country. Larger Than Life also features Matthew McConaughey as an excitable truck driver; Keith David, Harve Presnell, and Pat Hingle also highlight the supporting cast. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A young woman at a crossroads in her life finds herself receiving plenty of advice from her older and wiser counterparts in this drama. Finn Dodd (Winona Ryder) is a graduate student trying to finish up her doctoral thesis on women's folk art while deciding if she should marry her fiancé Sam (Dermot Mulroney); she's not sure if she's ready to settle down, and suspects that Sam is unfaithful to her. Needing time to sort things out, Finn chooses to spend the summer with her grandmother Hy (Ellen Burstyn) and great aunt Gladys Jo (Anne Bancroft). Hy and Gladys Jo are avid quilters, and with a group of their friends, they work on a special quilt for Finn's wedding; as the women work together, they share stories of their lives, and Finn finds herself learning as much from hearing them talk as she does from her schoolwork. Finn also receives a visit from her free-spirited mom Sally (Kate Capshaw) and finds herself infatuated with a good looking young man who lives nearby. Maya Angelou plays one of the quilters, as do Kate Nelligan, Jean Simmons, and Alfre Woodard. How to Make an American Quilt was the directorial debut of Jocelyn Moorhouse, and was based on a novel by Whitney Otto that itself began as a doctoral thesis. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi