Brian Levant Movies

A man (Jackie Chan) is forced to defend some neighborhood children who have been put in his care against secret agents looking for a stolen secret code in this Relativity Media family action film. Are We There Yet's helmer Brian Levant directs from a script by Jonathan Bernstein and Jim Greer. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

Jonathan Silverman, Oscar Nunez, Cesar Millan, Rhea Perlman, and Eddie Griffin headline this installment of the popular film series featuring everyone's favorite fun-loving St. Bernard. Animal handler Eddie (Silverman) may deal with some of the best beasts in the business by day, but when it comes to his personal life there are no pets allowed. So strict is Eddie in enforcing this policy that when his young son Billy discovers a stray dog named Beethoven and his young litter of puppies, he insists that the boy find another place for the homeless pooches to live. But when dog-nappers make off with the canine star of the latest film that Eddie is working on, producers start to turn up the pressure for Eddie to find a replacement. Now, the harried father's only hope is to replace the missing canine with Beethoven, a natural star if there ever was one. Of course it doesn't take long for Beethoven to win Eddie's heart, and take Hollywood by storm, in the process proving that you can teach an old dog new tricks after all. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Two Oscar-winning actors add a family-oriented comedy to their resumes with this Disney-produced arctic adventure. Snow Dogs stars Cuba Gooding Jr. as Ted Brooks, a Florida-dwelling dentist with a successful chain of offices and a comfy, poolside lifestyle. All this changes, however, when he finds out that he was actually adopted as a child, and that his birth mother has died and left him an inheritance in her home state of Alaska, of all places. After arriving in the snow-bound clime, Ted learns that he has been willed a pack of cutely named sled dogs: Demon, Diesel, Dutchess, Nana, Mack, Scooper, Sniff, and Yodel. Problem is, the town's premiere sled-dogger, Thunder Jack (James Coburn), wants the pack for himself, and encourages Ted to go back to his tropical environs. But with a major sled-dog race looming, Ted's inspired to learn the ropes, as it were, and prove himself worthy of his birth mother's inheritance -- any way he can. Snow Dogs was directed by Jingle All the Way's Brian Levant and features some animatronic dog effects by Jim Henson's Creature Shop; the script was very loosely adapted from popular author Gary Paulsen's nonfiction book Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

The Cleaver Family makes the jump from the small black and white screen to color and Panavision in this updated version of the classic TV sit-com. Eight-year-old Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver (Cameron Finley) is a good natured kid with a habit of getting in trouble; he's not bad, mind you, just a bit absent-minded. Beaver lives with his 12-year-old brother Wally (Erik Von Detten), his father Ward (Christopher McDonald), and his mother June (Janine Turner) in a small town in Ohio. Beaver wants a new bicycle more than anything, but his father wishes that he had more of an interest in team sports; someone suggests to Beaver that if he joined the school's football team, Ward might be impressed enough to buy him the bike. Beaver signs up, but his skills on the gridiron fall somewhere between slim and none, and the experience proves more than a bit embarrassing for both Beaver and Ward. Before long, Beaver has quit the team, but he tries to hide this fact from his father. Beaver does get his bike -- but he doesn't get to do much with it before it's stolen by a bigger kid in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, Wally's best friend, the mildly sleazy Eddie Haskell (Adam Zolotin), has fallen for a cute girl at school, Karen (Erika Christensen), and wants Wally to help him impress her; however, Karen seems to like Wally more than Eddie. This puts Wally in dutch with his best friend, and Wally feels even worse when he and Karen begin to quarrel. Ken Osmond, who played Eddie Haskell on the original TV series, plays Eddie's father here, and Barbara Billingsley, the original June Cleaver, appears as Aunt Martha. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The good (if not fully evolved) citizens of Bedrock make their way to the big screen in this live-action adaptation of the popular animated series of the 1960s. Fred Flintstone (John Goodman) and his best friend Barney Rubble (Rick Moranis) work together at the Slate and Company Rock Quarry. When Fred loans Barney some money that allows him and his wife Betty (Rosie O'Donnell) to adopt a child, Barney is looking for a way to show his gratitude. Barney thinks he's found one when the executives at Slate and Company announce that they're giving all their employees intelligence tests to help determine future promotions. When Barney switches his high-scoring test with Fred's, his plan works -- but not quite the way he had hoped: Fred is deemed executive material and given a big promotion, complete with a sexy secretary (Halle Berry) who makes his wife Wilma (Elizabeth Perkins) jealous, while Barney is soon out of a job and can't pay his bills. Bill Hanna and Joseph Barbara, who created the original television series, make cameo appearances here; Elizabeth Taylor gives a fine comic performance as Wilma's nagging mother, and Harvey Korman provides the voice of the Dictabird. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the adoption agency, along comes this sequel to the 1990 comedy hit Problem Child. Ben Healy (John Ritter) and his sociopathically unruly son Junior (Michael Oliver) move out of town after Ben and his wife split up. Ben discovers that his new city is overrun with divorced women looking for husbands, and Lawanda Dumore (Laraine Newman) soon sets her predatory sights on Ben. However, Lawanda doesn't care for Junior (not difficult to understand) and intends to ship him off to boarding school as soon as she and Ben tie the knot. Junior gets wind of her plans and does all in his power to scuttle them. Meanwhile, Junior finds a new playmate -- Trixie (Ivyann Schwan), a girl even more obnoxious than himself, who is the daughter of Annie (Amy Yasbeck), the school's nurse, who also has her eye on Ben. Oddly enough, Amy Yasbeck also appeared in the original Problem Child as Flo, the wife that Ben divorced in this picture. Yasbeck and Ritter married in real life in 1999. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide