Steven Poster

Courtroom drama series Raising the Bar focuses on a group of young lawyers who are friends by night and enemies by day. Some of these law men and women work for the public defender's office, and others work for the district attorney, putting them at odds with each other in the courtroom - and sometimes in the living room as well. Each side of this clique represents a vital part of the legal system, but that system isn't prepared for the complications brought by flawed human relationships, and they soon find that both personal and professional relationships have to be decided on a case by case basis. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide

California is at the epicenter of a political and environmental disaster that threatens to destroy the world in this ambitious fusion of comedy, drama, dystopian science fiction, and music from writer and director Richard Kelly, his first film after gaining a cult following with Donnie Darko. In the year 2005, a nuclear attack wipes out part of the state of Texas, and three years later America is a virtual police state, with the government taking control of nearly every part of people's lives, supposedly for their own good. A German firm has found a way to generate energy using seawater, but both public and private concerns are desperate to prevent the new technology from being introduced in the gasoline-starved United States. A Marxist underground based on the West Coast is determined to bring down the federal government through violent revolution.

In this midst of this chaos, we follow a number of stories that continually return to three principle characters. Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock) is an actor famous for his role in action films; he's trying to secure financing for a new project, but reality keeps mirroring the events in his script and he struggles to hold on to his identity following a bout with amnesia. Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is a porn star who is reinventing herself as a television pundit offering her views on politics, contemporary culture, and teenage sex. And Roland Taverner (Seann William Scott) is an L.A. police officer whose identity has mysteriously split in two, and he struggles to track down his other half. Featuring a massive supporting cast which includes Mandy Moore, Miranda Richardson, Wallace Shawn, Jon Lovitz, Kevin Smith, Amy Poehler, and Justin Timberlake, Southland Tales received its world premiere at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival; director Kelly also created an accompanying series of three graphic novels that chart these events and characters prior to this story. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Over a hundred leading cameramen (and women) discuss the fine art of motion picture photography in this documentary. Cinematographer Style is compiled from interviews with a broad cross section of respected cinematographers, ranging from award-winning veterans such as Gordon Willis (The Godfather), Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now), Vilmos Zsigmond (Deliverance), and Haskell Wexler (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) to contemporary masters of the craft such as Roger Deakins (A Beautiful Mind), Peter Deming (Lost Highway), Ernest Dickerson (Do the Right Thing), and Remi Adefarasin (Match Point). While several participants discuss the tools of their trade, Cinematographer Style focuses as much on the philosophy behind photographing movies -- how they find a style that matches the material, their visual influences, how to prepare for a shoot, establishing a lighting and color scheme, and how "pretty" the image ought to be to match the story. Sponsored in part by Kodak, Cinematographer Style received its world premiere at the 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Two fathers get a crash course in caring for kids other than their own in this family-friendly comedy. Charlie Hinton (Eddie Murphy) is an advertising executive whose job monopolizes his time, making it difficult for him to stay in touch with his young son, Ben (Khamani Griffin). However, after Charlie and his partner, Phil (Jeff Garlin), are given their pink slips in the wake of a disastrous campaign for a new breakfast cereal, Charlie's wife, Kim (Regina King), goes back to work, and with the family budget tighter than before, Charlie becomes a stay-at-home dad. After pulling Ben out of an expensive and exclusive daycare center run by the humorless Gwyneth Harridan (Anjelica Huston), Charlie comes up with a brainstorm -- since he and Phil watch their own children every day, how much harder could it be to watch a few more kids and open their own day care center? Charlie and Phil discover there's much more to running a daycare center than they ever imagined, but after a very rough start, with the help of likable slacker Marvin (Steve Zahn) their new business becomes a success -- so much so that Harridan finds herself losing customers to the upstart fathers, and she starts searching for a way to shut them down. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This sequel to a family hit based on the popular children's book by E.B. White again mixes live action actors with computer-animated cartoon characters. Michael J. Fox returns as the voice of Stuart Little, a three-inch tall talking mouse adopted by a human family in New York City. When his older "brother", George (Jonathan Lipnicki), starts spending more time with his other friends, playing games that Mrs. Little (Geena Davis) feels are too dangerous for the diminutive Stuart, the lonely fellow goes in search of companionship and finds it when he makes the acquaintance of Margalo (voice of Melanie Griffith), a tiny bird wounded by a sinister falcon (voice of James Woods) that is relentlessly pursuing her. While Margalo's busted wing heals up the Littles' house, Stuart grows closer to her and falls in love, but his new pal is hiding a secret that involves the villainous falcon and jewelry theft. In order to save his friend and their friendship, Stuart must call upon the assistance of the dreaded Snowbell (voice of Nathan Lane), the Little family cat with a Catskills comic delivery and no great love of Stuart. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Actor Bruce Willis and writer/director M. Night Shyamalan reunite after the surprise success of The Sixth Sense for this supernatural thriller. David Dunne (Willis) is taking a train from New York City back home to Philadelphia after a job interview that didn't go well when his car jumps the tracks and collides with an oncoming engine, with David the only survivor among the 131 passengers on board. Astoundingly, David is not only alive, he hardly seems to have been touched. As David wonders what has happened to him and why he was able to walk away, he encounters a mysterious stranger, Elijah Prince (Samuel L. Jackson), who explains to David that there are a certain number of people who are "unbreakable" -- they have remarkable endurance and courage, a predisposition toward dangerous behavior, and feel invincible but also have strange premonitions of terrible events. Is David "unbreakable"? And if he is, what are the physical and psychological ramifications of this knowledge? Unbreakable also stars Robin Wright-Penn as Audrey, David's wife; the supporting cast includes Spencer Treat Clark and Joey Perillo. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Yet another Saturday Night Live alumnus makes his bid for big-screen success as Rob Schneider, best remembered as the "Making copies!" guy, tackles his first leading role in this broad comedy. Deuce (Rob Schneider) earns a meager living as a professional fish tank cleaner until he's asked to housesit for a gigolo. Deuce mistakenly answers the gigolo's business phone and finds himself having sex with a woman he's never met and getting paid for it (not a bad deal, since women generally avoid Deuce like the Ebola virus). It's not long before Deuce learns that there's more to selling your body than one might expect: for example, being re-styled by your pimp or having to explain your new source of income when the owner of the house gets home. Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo was the first feature film produced by Adam Sandler's production company, Happy Madison; Sandler himself makes a cameo appearance, while Oded Fehr, William Forsythe, Eddie Griffin, and Marlo Thomas highlight the supporting cast. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This French comedy-thriller is directed by Patrice Leconte, who was Oscar-nominated for Ridicule (1996). The film reunites Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon, almost three decades after they appeared together in Borsalino (1970). Unaware of her father's identity, car thief Alice Tomaso (Vanessa Paradis) is released from prison one month after her mother's death. She plays an audiocassette in which her mother tells her that 20 years earlier she loved two men and thus never knew which was Alice's father. In true Belmondo fashion, Alice steals a sports car and drives toward the south of France to seek out both possible papas, now semi-retired businessmen. Auto dealer Leo Brassac (Belmondo) and successful Julien Vignal (Delon), who flies his own helicopter, dislike each other, but they team up after Alice steals a car with $50 million of Russian Mafia money in the trunk. The Russian syndicate wants Alice to turn over the money, but she can't; it was taken by undercover cop Carella (Eric Defosse), tracking each illegal Russkie move. Fortunately, former Foreign Legionnaire Leo and jewel-thief Julien have both the weapon power and smarts to help Alice thwart all mob machinations. The French equivalent of Heat -- in which Al Pacino and Robert De Niro are seen noshing during a quiet coffeeshop encounter -- contains a scene where famed French icons Delon and Belmondo order burgers at McDonalds. But then the two gear up for action, and composer Alexandre Desplat heightens the nostalgic mood with Claude Bolling's familiar Borsalino refrain. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, American Experience: A Midwife's Tale is an investigative unfolding of the life of an 18th century midwife, Martha Ballard, living on the Maine frontier. For 27 years, Ballard kept a diary in which she recorded the weather, daily household tasks, her midwifery duties, her medical practice, and countless incidents, which, through Ulrich's exploration, reveals the turmoil of post-Revolutionary America through a woman's eye. Social change, religious conflict, economic instability, as well as the grim realities of disease, domestic violence, and debtor's prison are all culled from the cryptic entries of Ballard's diary. ~ Brooke Hodess, All Movie Guide

Originally made for cable television, Roswell is an entertaining mix of purported actual events and science fiction. The narrative unfolds primarily in flashbacks as retired Army officer Jesse Marcel (Kyle MacLachlan) attends a reunion of the 509th Bomber Group and tries to come to closure on events that had taken place 30 years earlier. Back in 1947, Major Marcel had been part of a military team that investigated a crash site on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. The debris recovered from the site had exhibited some remarkable properties such as being able to repair itself instantly after being cut, suggesting that it might have been of extraterrestrial origin. The military brass had ordered Marcel to go along with their phony story that the material was ordinary metal foil from a weather balloon, and he had reluctantly complied. By the time of the 1977 reunion, Marcel is suffering from a terminal illness, and he feels compelled to try to find out what had really happened at Roswell all those years ago. MacLachlan gives an effective performance, particularly when he portrays Marcel as an older man trying to understand his past. Evocative location shooting in the American Southwest adds cinematic impact. ~ All Movie Guide

If a comedy is to be made from the plight of the homeless, who have to scrape through their days returning deposit bottles and cleaning car windshields to get their daily bread as the rich get richer and more heartless, it may as well be Mel Brooks' Life Stinks. The trademark Brooks humor dominates this fable about a ruthless billionaire, Goddard Bolt (Mel Brooks), who wants to obliterate a poor section of Los Angeles and build a high-tech commercial center in its place. His only problem is that he owns only half the land needed for the construction, the other half belonging to equally ruthless billionaire Vance Craswell (Jeffrey Tambor), who has his own ideas for the land. The two try to buy each other out until, finally, a deal is struck: Craswell bets that Bolt cannot survive a month on the streets as a homeless man. If Bolt makes it, he gets the property. If he doesn't, Craswell gets it. Bolt agrees and, as a poor man, he begins to feel the pain of being uprooted and alone, even meeting a friendly homeless woman, Molly (Lesley Ann Warren) with whom he forms an attachment. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Touted upon its release as the finale of the Rocky saga, this fifth entry in the long-running series of sports dramas reunites star Sylvester Stallone with John G. Avildsen, director of the Oscar-winning original. Stallone is Rocky Balboa, suffering from career-ending brain damage as a result of his punishing bout with Ivan Drago at the finale of the previous film. Upon their return to Philadelphia, Rocky and his wife, Adrian (Talia Shire), discover they are broke, their fortune squandered by an incompetent accountant. Forced to move back to their working-class neighborhood, Rocky finds that his only asset is the run-down gym willed to him by Mickey (Burgess Meredith, who appears in new flashback sequences). Resisting big money offered to him by Don King-like boxing promoter George Washington Duke (Richard Gant), Rocky becomes a trainer and finds a talented comer in Tommy Gunn (real-life boxer Tommy Morrison, nephew of John Wayne). Rocky's son (played by Stallone's real-life son Sage Stallone) feels neglected by his father, who lavishes attention on his protégé, but Tommy ultimately turns his back on his mentor to sign a more lucrative deal with Duke, leading to a street-fight showdown. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide