Better Than Escape (1993)
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Summer in L.A., it's hot. Homeland Security has set the threat level at red; they're searching for several Arabs alleged to be terrorists. Mustafa, an Egyptian immigrant who runs a falafel shop, comes to the FBI's attention; they investigate him. He has other problems: his young teen son no longer wants to be a Muslim; his sister, a nurse, objects to Mustafa arranging her marriage to a cousin from Egypt. She has a non-Arab suitor of her own. Omar, an employee of Mustafa, is a struggling actor who doesn't want to play only terrorists. Mustafa hopes to open a real restaurant and has a potential partner in Sam, a Jew, whose family objects. What price the American dream?
Bored with her marriage to burnt out poet turned corporate executive Thierry, Zandalee falls prey to an old friend of her husband, the manipulative and egotistical Johhny and becomes enmeshed in a sensual, passionate and destructive affair.
A stylish political thriller where love and war collide in Southeast Asia. Set in early 1950s Vietnam, a young American becomes entangled in a dangerous love triangle when he falls for the beautiful mistress of a British journalist. As war is waged around them, these three only sink deeper into a world of drugs, passion, and betrayal where nothing is as it seems.
In the 1950s, brothers Jacey and Doug Holt, who come from the poorer side of their sleepy Midwestern town, vie for the affections of the wealthy, lovely Abbott sisters. Lady-killer Jacey alternates between Eleanor and Alice, wanting simply to break the hearts of rich young women. But sensitive Doug has a real romance with Pamela, which Jacey and the Abbott patriarch, Lloyd, both frown upon.
A woman is unhappy in her marriage to a boring, stiff judge, so she takes up with a wild-living RAF pilot, who ends up being more than she can handle. (TCM.com)
A college graduate goes to work as a nanny for a rich New York family. Ensconced in their home, she has to juggle their dysfunction, a new romance, and the spoiled brat in her charge.
A couple of angels, O'Reilly (Holly Hunter) and Jackson (Delroy Lindo), are sent to Earth to make sure that their next supervised love-connection succeeds. They follow Celine (Cameron Diaz), a spoiled rich girl who has just accidentally shot a suitor (Stanley Tucci) and, due to a misunderstanding, is kidnapped by janitor Robert (Ewan McGregor). Although Celine quickly frees herself, she stays with Robert for thrills. O'Reilly and Jackson pursue, hoping to unite the prospective lovers.
Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) is an exuberant American expatriate in Paris trying to make a reputation as a painter. His friend Adam (Oscar Levant) is a struggling concert pianist who's a long time associate of a famous French singer, Henri Baurel (Georges Guétary). A lonely society woman, Milo Roberts (Nina Foch) takes Jerry under her wing and supports him, but is interested in more than his art.
"All Good Things" is a love story and murder mystery based on the most notorious unsolved murder case in New York history. The original screenplay uses newly discovered facts, court records and speculation as the foundation for an imaginative spellbinding story of family, obsession, love and loss.
Hank Marshall is a tough, square-jawed, straitlaced Army engineer and nuclear science expert, assigned to help conduct weapons-testing in 1950's America. Hank has become a thorn in the side of the Army, though, for a couple of very different reasons. He is an outspoken opponent of atmospheric testing, though his superiors hold contrary views and want to squelch his concerns...and his reports. The other problem is his wife, Carly. She is voluptuous and volatile, wreaking havoc in his personal life and stirring up intrigue at each new Army base.
An American girl on vacation in Italy finds an unanswered "letter to Juliet" -- one of thousands of missives left at the fictional lover's Verona courtyard, which are typically answered by a the "secretaries of Juliet" -- and she goes on a quest to find the lovers referenced in the letter.
At his bachelor party, Jason has a one-night fling with Nikki, a radiant beauty with whom he forms an immediate bond. They agree to keep their secret locked away forever. Two years later, Jason, his wife, Andy and his fiancee plan a reunion weekend. Jason is shocked to discover that Andy's fiancee is Nikki. Now, secret and passionate affairs are played out.
Filmed during the German occupation, this French milestone centers around the theatrical life of a beautiful courtesan and the four men who love her. Voted the "Best French Film in History" by the French Film Academy in 1990.
A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist.
A young American has her ship torpedoed by a German U-boat but makes it back to her ancestral home in France, where she witnesses German brutality firsthand.
A movie-theater employee adjusts to a new life after the cinema he worked at for over 25 years is forced to shut down.
Me and Orson Welles is a period-drama film directed by Richard Linklater and starring Zac Efron, Christian McKay and Claire Danes. Based on Robert Kaplow's novel of the same name, the story, set in 1937 New York, tells of a teenager hired to star in Orson Welles' production of Julius Caesar, where he becomes attracted to a career-driven production assistant.
Louisiana football star Gavin Grey had it all. He was an All-American champion who married his high-school sweetheart, homecoming queen Babs Rogers, and who was a hero to his hometown. Yet after a failed professional career, Gavin realizes that fame and success have passed him by and that he no longer is the hero everyone keeps reminding him he should still be. His dissatisfaction with his life leads to strains in his marriage, and Gavin begins to wonder who he is, if he's not a hero anymore.
Accomplished British screenwriter Christopher Hampton directs the political drama Imagining Argentina, based on the novel by Lawrence Thornton. Set during the unsettling disappearances in Buenos Aires during the dictatorship of the 1970s, the film involves theater director Carlos Rueda (Antonio Banderas) and his wife Cecilia (Emma Thompson). Shortly after Cecilia writes an editorial commentary questioning the mysterious abductions, she is herself abducted and taken into police custody. Soon Carlos develops the supernatural ability to see into the future and he imagines his wife meeting an awful fate during an escape attempt. To make matters worse, their teenage daughter Teresa (Leticia Dolera) is also kidnapped. Imagining Argentina was nominated for the Golden Lion at the 2003 Venice Film Festival. SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Venice Film Festival (ref. Amazon)
J.R. is a typical Italian-American on the streets of New York. When he gets involved with a local girl, he decides to get married and settle down, but when he learns that she was once raped, he cannot handle it. More explicitly linked with Catholic guilt that Scorsese's later work, we see what happens to J.R. when his religious guilt catches up with him.
The Brothers Bloom are the best con men in the world, swindling millionaires with complex scenarios of lust and intrigue. Now they've decided to take on one last job - showing a beautiful and eccentric heiress the time of her life with a romantic adventure that takes them around the world.
Little Women is a "coming of age" drama tracing the lives of four sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. During the American Civil War, the girls father is away serving as a minister to the troops. The family, headed by thier beloved Marmee, must struggle to make ends meet, with the help of their kind and wealthy neighbor, Mr. Laurence, and his high spirited grandson Laurie.
During the Battle of the Bulge, an anachronistic count shelters a ragtag squad of Americans in his isolated castle hoping they will defend it against the advancing Germans.
The story of a family troupe of English actors in India. They travel around the towns and villages giving performances of Shakespearean plays. Through their travels we see the changing face of India as the old is replaced by the new, Maharajas become hotel owners, sports become more important than culture and the theater is replaced by Bollywood movies. Based on the travels of Geoffrey Kendal with his daughter Felicity Kendal.
An adaptation of Sinclair Lewis' novel about a middle-aged American automobile tycoon who retires and goes to Europe, where he and his appearance-conscious, snobbish wife find differing sets of values... and new relationships.
An American journalist played by George Clooney arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who washes up at a lakeside mansion during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers. Soon his investigation connects with his search for his married pre-war German lover played by Cate Blanchett.
A Farewell to Arms is a 1957 American drama film directed by Charles Vidor. The screenplay by Ben Hecht, based in part on a 1930 play by Laurence Stallings, was the second feature film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's 1929 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. It was the last film produced by David O. Selznick.
A 50 year-old woman who analyses her past. She pictures herself when she was 20 years old and she re-creates the story of her life through a game of innumerous possibilities... What if she wouldn't have gone to that ball? What if... instead of meeting the man of her life, with whom she married and had kids, she would have called a girlfriend and they went to the theater? What would be her destiny? What would have happened? In the plot the present talks to the past. A young woman projects her future in a fascinating game between memories and desires.
Set in the early 90s, Dana (Shea Curry), a recently divorced young woman embarking on an acting career. Months earlier she met a young, charismatic, theater cast-mate, Jack (Michael Buie) in the Spring play at the local dinner theater. They seemingly look like good friends until flashbacks expose their history and brush with romance. Thus, "can a man and woman really be "just friends". Only For You is a story about life, love, friendships, choices and believing in ourselves at all costs. It addresses the question: "What happens when you find the right love at the wrong time?" and it is a story about life, love, friendships, choices and believing in ourselves at all costs.
A woman and three men. Nina, who's come to Paris to act and sleeps with any man at hand, meets Paulot, a young estate agent; he's smitten. She also meets Paulot's flatmate Quentin, a compulsive who stalks her. To Paulot's jealous dismay, she's willing to sleep with Quentin, and wants Paulot's friendship. After a desperate act by Quentin, Nina and Paulot share a flat, but she still won't take him as a lover; instead, her energy goes into a production of "Romeo and Juliet" directed by a detached, intense man who becomes her father figure. Quentin's ghost taunts her, Paulot wants to end all contact, and the director plans to return to London. The art of the theater may be her only refuge.
The adventures of the Lafayette Escadrille, young Americans who volunteered for the French military before the U.S. entered World War I, and became the country's first fighter pilots.
A Japanese-American fisherman may have killed his neighbor Carl at sea. In the 1950's, race figures in the trial. So does reporter Ishmael.
Widowed U.S. president Andrew Shepherd, one of the world's most powerful men, can have anything he wants -- and what he covets most is Sydney Ellen Wade, a Washington lobbyist. But Shepherd's attempts at courting her spark wild rumors and decimate his approval ratings.
As the English and French soldiers battle for control of the North American colonies in the 18th century, the settlers and native Americans are forced to take sides. Cora and her sister Alice unwittingly walk into trouble but are saved by Hawkeye, an orphaned settler adopted by the last of the Mohicans.
In 1964, atomic war wipes out humanity in the northern hemisphere; one American submarine finds temporary safe haven in Australia, where life-as-usual covers growing despair. In denial about the loss of his wife and children in the holocaust, American Captain Towers meets careworn but gorgeous Moira Davidson, who begins to fall for him. The sub returns after reconnaissance a month (or less) before the end; will Towers and Moira find comfort with each other?
During the build-up to D-Day in 1944, the British found their island hosting many thousands of American soldiers who were "oversexed, overpaid, and over here". That's Charlie Madison exactly; he knows all the angles to make life as smooth and risk-free as possible for himself. But things become complicated when he falls for an English woman, and his commanding officer's nervous breakdown leads to Charlie being sent on a senseless and dangerous mission.
Drama critic Larry McKay, his wife Kay, and their four sons move from their crowded Manhattan apartment to an old house in the country. While housewife Kay settles into suburban life, Larry continues to enjoy the theater and party scene of New York. Kay soon begins to question Larry's fidelity when he mentions a flirtatious encounter with Broadway star Deborah Vaughn
A dancer disappears from a theater and then William Powell and society beauty Ginger Rogers solve the murder.
The whole gang are back and as close as ever. They decide to get even closer by spending the summer together at a beach house. They decide to hold the biggest party ever to be seen, even if the preparation doesn't always go to plan. Especially when Stifler, Finch and Jim become more close to each other than they ever want to be and when Jim mistakes super glue for lubricant...
A wannabe Hollywood player sets out to Americanize an Indian girl from the Himalayas.
Charlie Reader is a successful theater agent. He is also successful with young ladies. One day he is visited by his old friend Joe, married with three children. Joe falls in love with Charlie's girl Sylvia while Charlie spends his time with young actress Julie. Written by Mattias Thuresson
Nineteenth century Wyoming: the wild West. Mild-mannered Tom Healy has a two-wagon theater troupe hounded by creditors because Angela, his leading lady and the object of his affection, constantly buys clothes. In Cheyenne, they meet with applause, so they hope to stay awhile: the theater owner likes Angela, and she keeps him on a string. She's also the object of the attentions of Mabry, a gunslinger who's owed money by the richest man in Bonanza. Complications arise and the troupe heads for Bonanza, through hostile Indian territory. Is the troupe doomed to a peripatetic life, is Mabry in danger, and does Tom stand a chance with Angela, a hellion in pink tights?
In search of an emissary to represent the American theater at an arts expo in Paris, a State Department bureaucrat (Ray Bolger) invites Ethel Barrymore to appear -- too bad her invitation is sent to chorus girl Ethel "Dynamite" Jackson (Doris Day) instead! Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Miss Jackson hightails it to Paris -- with the bureaucrat in pursuit. A plethora of song-and-dance numbers ensues in this Sammy Cahn-scored musical.
A Chinese-American lesbian and her traditionalist mother are reluctant to go public with secret loves that clash against cultural expectations.
At the turn of the 20th century, travelling salesman Virgil Smith journeys to Vienna in the hope he can sell a gramophone to Emperor Franz Joseph, whose purchase of the recent American invention could spur its popularity in Austria.
Constance Shaw, a Broadway dance star, and Joseph Rivington Reynolds, a keen fan of hers, marry after she breaks up with her fiancé. Connie thinks Joseph owns a gold mine, but he actually works as a presser at a hotel valet shop. When everyone learns what he really is, Joseph is banned from the theater. When he sneaks in again, he learns of a plot to set off a bomb in the adjoining munitions warehouse.
Americans Jeff and Tommy, hunting in Scotland, stumble upon a village - Brigadoon. They soon learn that the town appears once every 100 years in order to preserve its peace and special beauty. The citizens go to bed at night and when they wake up, it's 100 years later. Tommy falls in love with a beautiful young woman, Fiona, and is torn between staying or going back to his hectic life in New York.
In Albany, the marriage of Caleb end Catherine Holt is in crisis and they decide to divorce. However, Caleb's father, John, proposes that his son delays their separation process for forty days and follow a procedure called "The Love Dare" to make them love each other again.
Impelled by a spirit which still preserves a patina of idealism, Alfredo arrives to Madrid with the intention to create "a performance that is free, straight from the heart, capable of making people feel alive". His concept of what acting should be begins beyond the stage, out in the streets face to face with the public. Outdoors, in any town square, in a park or in the city's most commercial street, Alfredo and his troupe November start the show; demons to provoke passers-by, displays of social conscience, actions taken to the extreme to put the forces of law and order on full alert. There are no limits, no censorship; only ideas which are always valid so long as the public ceases to be the public and becomes part of the show swept by surprise, fear, tears or laughter. Theater as life, life as theater⦠there is no longer any difference.
An ingratiating bride develops warm ties to her father-in-law while her cold husband blithely slights her for another woman.
The London police is having trouble with organized crime commited by juvenile delinquents. Their leader is an American who is an expert at turning young men into ruthless gangsters. American cop John Harris is asked to help the London police to break up the organization.
After five (or six) years of vanilla-wedded bliss, ordinary suburbanites John and Jane Smith (Pitt and Jolie) are stuck in a rut the size of the Grand Canyon?until the truth comes out! Unbeknownst to each other, they are both coolly lethal, highly paid assassins working for rival organizations. And when they discover they're each other's next target, their secret lives collide in a spicy, explosive mix of wicked comedy, pent-up passion, nonstop action and high-tech weaponry that gives an all-new meaning to "Till death do us part!"
A man's story parallels Hitler's rise. Austrian Klaus Schneider, wounded in World War I, recovers in the care of Dr. Emil Bettleheim. Bettleheim discovers that Schneider possesses powers of empathy and of clairvoyance, such that could aid suicidal patients. After the war, with one friend as his manager and another as his lover, Schneider changes his name to Eric Jan Hanussen and goes to Berlin, as a hypnotist and clairvoyant performing in halls and theaters. He always speaks the truth, which brings him to the attention of powerful Nazis. He predicts their rise (good propaganda for them) and their violence (not so good). He's in pain and at risk. What is Hanussen's future?
An engineer and his wife move to Zenica where the construction of the first plants is taking place, during highly progressive industrialization of the country. Her dreams are not in accordance with the reality, which makes their marriage impossible to function.
American soldiers stranded in the Philippines after the Japanese invasion form guerrilla bands to fight back.
The marriage of a bored upper class couple gets in a crisis.
The new season of "American Dreamz," the wildly popular television singing contest, has captured the country's attention, as the competition looks to be between a young Midwestern gal (Moore) and a showtunes-loving young man from Orange County (Golzari). Recently awakened President Staton (Quaid) even wants in on the craze, as he signs up for the potential explosive season finale.
A pair of slackers get in way over their heads when they try to dump the body of a dead girlfriend in the basement of a drive-in movie theater where a satanic cult performs ritual sacrifices.
An intelligent, articulate scholar, Harrison MacWhite, survives a hostile Senate confirmation hearing at the hands of conservatives to become ambassador to Sarkan, a southeast Asian country where civil war threatens a tense peace. Despite his knowledge, once he's there, MacWhite sees only a dichotomy between the U.S. and Communism. He can't accept that anti-American sentiment might be a longing for self-determination and nationalism. So, he breaks from his friend Deong, a local opposition leader, ignores a foreman's advice about slowing the building of a road, and tries to muscle ahead. What price must the country and his friends pay for him to get some sense?
A young married couple does not share the bed. However, they try to hide all the obstacles and their problems in public, presenting their marriage to be an idyllic and exemplary one. Below their provincial mask, one can reveal the intolerance, strong emotions and passions of a spoiled Belgrade girl and an ambitious small-town lawyer.
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