Gifts For Her

Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, Sanaa Lathan, and John Stamos all return to reprise the roles they originally played on Broadway in this made for television take on Lorraine Hansbury's timeless play about a 1950s-era Chicago family longing for a better life. Walter Lee has died, and now his widow Lena Younger (Rashad) is about to receive a $10,000 check from her late-husband's insurance company. Everyone in the family dreams about the ways their lives will be changed with the arrival of the money, family matriarch Lena - who longs to retire from her job as a domestic servant for a wealthy white family - in particular. Having lived in a one room tenement apartment ever since she and her late husband originally married, Lena is eager to purchase a house of her own and provide her family with a real home. Lena's son Walter Lee, Jr. (Combs), currently employed as a chauffer, and has recently become taken with the idea of purchasing a liquor store as a means of solving his family's financial woes. Like her mother-in-law, Walter's wife Ruth (McDonald) is also a domestic servant for a white family, and dreams of the day she can walk away from her job. While Walter's sister Beneatha (Lathan) strives to become a medical professional, tuition is expensive and she is currently being pursued by two men - wealthy but superficial George Murchison (Sean Patrick Thomas) and intellectual classmate Joseph Asagai (David Oyelowo). Much to everyone's surprise, Lena uses the lion's share of the money to purchase a home in the all-white residential neighborhood of Cllaybourne, splitting the remainder between Walter (for his entrepreneurial endeavor) and Beneatha (for tuition). Around the same time Walter loses his share of the inheritance to a smooth talking con man who claimed he could help finance the liquor store, the Claybourne "home improvement" association makes the discovery that the Youngers are black and sends emissary Mr. Lindner (John Stamos) to try prevent their neighborhood from becoming integrated by buying the house back. Now faced with the prospect of losing it all, Walter considers making a deal with Mr. Lindner in order to recover his losses. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

This comedy drama focuses on the trials and tribulations that a family goes through, always reconnecting over Sunday dinner. As a mother and father observe the sometimes difficult events of their grown children's lives, they have to pick when and where to become involved. From Alex, who opened a failed restaurant with her husband Sam, to Robert Jr. who's just welcomed a new baby into the world, the dinner table sees its share of laughter and tears, but over time each family member learns that they depend on each other to get through it - even when they're at each other's throats. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, and Marisa Tomei star in director Sidney Lumet's thriller concerning two brothers who hatch a plan to rob their parent's jewelry store. When the job goes awry, the entire family is set on a collision course with tragedy. Andy (Hoffman) is an overextended broker in desperate need of some cash. His brother Hank (Hawke) isn't much better off, so when Andy hatches a plan to rob their parent's modest jewelry store it seems like a foolproof way to make a quick buck. But Andy's trophy wife Gina (Tomei) is secretly sleeping with libidinous younger brother Hank, and when the robbery proves a complete disaster it isn't long before loyalties start to shift. Now Andy and Hank's father Charles (Finney) is determined to make the unidentified robbers pay for their crime. What's a father to do when he discovers that the ones he loves most become are his worst enemies? ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The warm-hearted drama Country Remedy concerns an ambitious doctor who must leave the familiar environs of the city in order to tend to a clinic in a rural North Carolina town. While there, he learns that he has been concentrating on the wrong elements in his life. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

As Constance (Natasha Richardson) and Nina (Toni Collette) gather at the deathbed of their mother Ann (Vanessa Redgrave), they learn for the first time that their mother lived an entire other lifetime during one evening 50 years ago, one she kept secret all their lives. In vivid flashbacks, the young Ann (played by Claire Daines) spends one night with a man named Harris, who she'd remember so many years later as the love of her life. As her daughters try to face the loss of their mother and the struggle to be happy in their own lives, they piece together an idea of love, happiness, and the woman they called their mother. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide

Jane Fonda, Felicity Huffman, and Lindsay Lohan star in director Garry Marshall's tale of a rebellious young woman who is sent to spend the summer with her grandmother when her frustrated mother fails to find a means of curbing her unruly behavior. Rachel (Lohan) is an out-of-control teen whose reckless drinking, foul mouth, and hysterical fits have become a constant source of embarrassment for her long-suffering mother, Lily (Huffman). When Rachel crashes her car, Lily determines that the only way to tame her savage daughter is to take her as far away from San Francisco as possible. Though Lily had once sworn never to return to the Idaho farm presided over by her demanding mother, Georgia (Jane Fonda), desperation has a funny way of dulling the pains of the past, and it's not long before Lily is packing Rachel in the car and setting out for potato country. Contrary to the common image of the sweet and doting grandmother, Georgia is a stern matriarch whose beliefs in the power of God and a hard day's work stand in stark contrast to the carefree lifestyle of the tempestuous Rachel. An interesting thing happens as the summer wears on, though; despite her initial efforts to disrupt the quiet Mormon community, Rachel's rage is gradually tempered as she learns the value of structure and responsibility. Later, as Rachel's protective walls begin to crumble and she begins to embrace compassion and kindness, the doors are opened for three generations of family to confront the long-buried secrets of their past and finally move forward in the healing process. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Created by the same team responsible for the quirky, iconoclastic HBO western series Deadwood, John from Cincinnati was a magical mystery tour of the California surfing scene. Set in the town of Imperial Beach, the story focused on the multigenerational Yost family, led by Mitch Yost (Bruce Greenwood), a onetime surfing legend who had been forcibly retired (except for a few early-morning forays into the waves) by a serious knee injury. The fall of the Yost fortunes had a deleterious effect upon Mitch's son Butchie (Brian Van Holt), who had become a seemingly hopeless druggie; conversely, Butchie's own son Shaun (Grayson Fletcher) was a surfing phenom who bade fare to surpass his grandfather's celebrity--if he ever got the chance. Holding the family together was Mitch's levelheaded wife Cissy (Rebecca De Mornay), owner of the surfing-goods store that provided their income. Into this dysfunctional family unit came a fabulously wealthy and truly bizarre dude known as John Monad (Austin Nichols), who when pressed for details identified himself as "John from Cincinnati." Outwardly a boorish dimwit with an annoying habit of repeating everyone else's conversations, John was clearly operating on some Higher Plane or other, implicitly possessing the ability to heal the sick and revive the dead, and holding out the hope of redemption for the fractured Yosts. With John in the vicinity, no one found it odd that, for example, Mitch suddenly developed the ability to float in the air; everyone seemed to accept the newcomer without question or prejudice. Only the Yosts' friend Bill Jacks (Ed O'Neill), a fancier of birds and pro wrestlers, distrusted John and his motives, suspecting that he was more Satan than Saint. The series' events--subtly but inextricably linking each character with the other--unfolded in a leisurely, day-by-day "need to know" basis, with small, tantalyzing clues as to the story's outcome (Rapture? Armageddon? The Perfect Wave?) buried within each episode. Cocreated by Deadwood's David Milch and "surf noir" novelist Kern Nunn, and featuring Luke Perry and Deadwood alumnus Jim Beaver in key supporting roles, John from Cincinnati began its HBO run on June 10, 2007. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Margot at the Wedding, writer/director Noah Baumbach's follow-up to his Oscar-nominated The Squid and the Whale, stars Nicole Kidman as Margot, a woman who travels with her son to the wedding of her sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh). The relationship between the two siblings has never been harmonious, a situation that is exacerbated when Margot discovers she cares very little for her sister's fiancé (Jack Black). Soon the high-strung Margot escalates a feud between her sister and the neighbors, and family secrets come to light, forcing everyone to rethink their various feelings toward each other. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

An aspiring stand-up comic realizes precisely how precious the developmentally disabled brother he so frequently took for granted truly is in writer/director Anthony Lover's sensitive family drama. Poetically told by his terminally ill mother L'Tisha Morton (Vanessa Williams) that he and his developmentally disabled brother James (Christopher Scott) share a single soul despite having separate bodies, resentful thirty year-old Isaiah (Nashawn Kearse) longs to explore his stifled independence by testing his meddle on the comedy club circuit. When his dreams go up in smoke, Isaiah falls back on a courier job - initially assigned the task of delivering a mysterious package for an intimidating gang of Middle Eastern thugs. Later, when the package goes missing, the goons who hired Isaiah arrive at his apartment to rough up the frightened courier and his unsuspecting sibling. It's only then, when faced with the prospect of their own mortality, that Isaiah truly begins to comprehend the true depth of his brotherly bond with James. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Their relationship permanently fractured by the fact that their father gave preferential treatment to his "favorite" son, two brothers attempt to make amends for the past as an unforeseen tragedy begins to unfold on the campus of the college they both attend. Ryan Jackson Sr. always seemed to favor his son Jason over his other boy Ryan, Jr., and as a result the two brothers always shared a contentious bond. Now, Jason and Ryan, Jr. are both seniors in college: Ryan is on his way to medical school while Jason is set to become the number one pick in the upcoming baseball draft. Just as it begins to appear that these siblings are set to overcome their differences, however, it begins to appear as if their dreams of forgetting the past will be shattered by an approaching catastrophe in the present. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A pair of siblings are forced to set aside their discomfort with one another for the sake of their father in this low-key comedy drama from writer/director Tamara Jenkins. Wendy Savage (Laura Linney) is a struggling playwright living in New York City who works a day job to support herself and can't shake the feeling that she's failed as an artist. Wendy isn't especially happy about her love life either, gaining little self-esteem from her on-and-off affair with oversexed, married neighbor Larry (Peter Friedman). Wendy's anxieties about her writing career are intensified by the success of her brother, Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who teaches theater history at a college in Buffalo, NY, and has published a number of books. While Jon's life seems fine on the surface, a case of writer's block has stalled work on his latest project, and he's deeply upset that his girlfriend is soon to leave the United States to return to her native Poland. Wendy and Jon don't get along and prefer not to see one another, but an unfortunate circumstance brings them together -- their father, Lenny Savage (Philip Bosco). Elderly Lenny has began showing signs of dementia, and shortly after he takes to smearing his feces on the walls of his Arizona home, his ailing long-term girlfriend suddenly dies. Wendy and Jon have little choice but to fly to Arizona and see what can be done for Lenny, but their long-simmering animosity makes it hard for them to deal with the realities of Lenny's condition. The Savages received its world premiere at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide