Category Archives: 2003

Calendar Girls

IMDB Rating: 7.00
6772 votes

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Storyline
In the small town of Knapely, Yorkshire, England, Annie Clarke (Julie Walters) has just lost her husband, who was ill with leukemia. Inspired in his speech to the local Women's Institute, where he said that "the flowers of Yorkshire are like the women of Yorkshire", and "the last phase of the women of Yorkshire is always the most glorious", her best friend Chris Harper (Helen Mirren) decides to make a calendar with twelve local middle-age women nude to raise funds for the wing of leukemia treatment in the local hospital. The calendar becomes well succeeded, making them famous and affecting their lives.
Actors
Chris HarperHelen Mirren
Annie ClarkeJulie Walters
John ClarkeJohn Alderton

Matchstick Men

IMDB Rating: 7.40
28332 votes

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Storyline
Meet Roy and Frank, a couple of professional small-time con artists. What Roy, a veteran of the grift, and Frank, his ambitious protégé, are swindling these days are "water filtration systems," bargain-basement water filters bought by unsuspecting people who pay ten times their value in order to win bogus prizes like cars, jewelry and overseas vacations—which they never collect. These scams net the flim-flam men a few hundred here, another thousand there, which eventually adds up to a lucrative partnership. Roy's private life, however, is not so successful. An obsessive-compulsive agoraphobe with no personal relationships to call his own, Roy is barely hanging on to his wits, and when his idiosyncrasies begin to threaten his criminal productivity he's forced to seek the help of a psychoanalyst just to keep him in working order. While Roy is looking for a quick fix, his therapy begets more than he bargained for: the revelation that he has a teenage daughter—a child whose existence he suspected but never dared confirm. What's more troubling, 14-year-old Angela wants to meet the father she never knew. At first, Angela's appearance disrupts her neurotic father's carefully ordered routine. Soon, however, with his own unique spin on parenthood, Roy begins to enjoy a relationship he never dreamed of having with his daughter. But while he develops paternal feelings for the 14-year-old, she's developing a fascination with Daddy's questionable career.
Actors
Roy WallerNicolas Cage
Frank MercerSam Rockwell
AngelaAlison Lohman

Pollyanna

IMDB Rating: 7.50
189 votes

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Storyline
Pollyanna is a young orphan with a positive, cheerful personality who comes to live with her wealthy, embittered, spinster aunt. She introduces everyone to her preacher father's favorite "Glad Game" and ends up transforming not only her aunt's life but the entire town. When the selfless, caring Pollyanna is severely injured in an accident, her spirits dip uncharacteristically, and the townsfolk rally around to help her regain her perspective, to rejoice in God and look for the good.
Actors
Aunt PollyAmanda Burton
Mr. PendletonKenneth Cranham
PollyannaGeorgina Terry

Under the Tuscan Sun

IMDB Rating: 6.60
8606 votes

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Storyline
Academy Award nominee 'Diane Lane (I)' (qv) stars as 'Frances Mayes' (qv), a 35-year-old San Francisco writer whose perfect life has just taken an unexpected detour. Her recent divorce has left her with terminal writer's block and extremely depressed, and her best friend, Patti, is beginning to think she might never recover. Frances decides to take a break and she buys a villa in the beautiful Tuscan countryside and decides to begin anew. Restoring her new home, she eventually finds the fulfillment she was searching for, including love. Based on 'Frances Mayes' (qv)' memoir of the same name.
Actors
FrancesDiane Lane
PattiSandra Oh
KatherineLindsay Duncan

Love Actually

IMDB Rating: 7.80
53732 votes

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Storyline
Set almost entirely in London, England during five frantic weeks before Christmas follows a web-like pattern of inter-related, loosely related and unrelated stories of a dozen or more various individuals with their love lives, or lack of them. The central character is the new bachelor prime minister David who cannot express his growing feelings for his new personal assistant Natalie. The prime minister's older sister Karen slowly grows aware of her husband Harry's flirtation with an office worker named Mia. Karen's friend Daniel is a recently widowed writer whose 11-year-old son asks for love advice about a girl he has a crush on. Meanwhile, Jamie is another writer who leaves his girlfriend after catching her cheating on him and travels to France to write a novel where he pursues a possible romance with his non-English speaking Portuguese maid Aurelia. Also, Harry's American secretary Sarah questions a romance she pursues with the office hunk Karl, but her personal family problems get in the way. Other secondary characters involve a photographer who pursues his best friend's new wife Juliet; a pair of movie stand-ins, named John and Judy, who grow closer after their simulated love scenes; a libidinous chum who wants to travel to Wisconsin, USA to score with women; and a burned-out former rock star named Billy Mack who is the main connection between all stories involved.
Actors
Billy MackBill Nighy
JoeGregor Fisher
EngineerRory MacGregor

Seabiscuit

IMDB Rating: 7.50
21002 votes

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Storyline
In an era when Americans were in great need of heroic figures to help them forget their troubles, SEABISCUIT comes to the rescue. The picture relates a moving story of friendship and devotion in rehabilitating the main characters'fractured lives, as it interweaves the interactions between horse, jockey, trainer and owner and their adoring fans. The film accurately portrays the real people and events of those troubled times and how Seabiscuit "fixed us, every one of us."
Actors
NarratorDavid McCullough
Charles HowardJeff Bridges
Bicycle SupervisorPaul Vincent O'Connor

Betrayal

IMDB Rating: 2.80
421 votes

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Storyline
Jayne Ferré needs to get out of Los Angeles fast. A strikingly beautiful woman, yet ruthless assassin for the mob; she is on the run with a suitcase full of a million dollars in blood money, stolen from mob boss Frank Bianci. Sixteen-year-old Kerry is on the run from a drug dealer set on payback. His mother Emily decides to take Kerry and start a new life in Texas, but doesn't have enough money to get there. Jayne, who is now carrying a price on her head, must take out one would-be assassin at the train station before she offers to cover Emily's expenses if she can hitch a ride to San Antonio. Emily and her son gladly accept the offer. The unlikely trio's car breaks down and needs parts. They are left without a choice, so they check into a small motel for one night. While Jayne is showering, kerry sneaks a look through her belongings and discovers the case of cash. During the night, a well-meaning Kerry snakes into Jayne's room and steals the briefcase, then hitches a ride back to Los Angeles. Jayne realizes what happened but first has to deal with Bianci's men in a blazing gun battle outside the motel. Jayne forces Emily into a car and heads back to L.A. until Emily makes a daring escape. Alex Tyler, an FBI agent and seemingly Good Samaritan, picks Emily up and takes her back to L.A. At Emily's house mob boss Frank Bianci is dead, along with a crooked detective, when Alex gets a call from Jayne, and it becomes clear that they are working together. Jayne has Kerry hostage and Emily must bring her money or she'll kill him. But when Emily gets her hands on a gun, she turns the tables and a deadly standoff ensues between two trained killers, a couple of dirty cops, the mob, and a mother and son in what becomes a deadly game of wits to stay alive.
Actors
Emily ShawErika Eleniak
Det. Mark WinstonAdam Baldwin
Jayne FerréJulie Du Page

The Sleeping Dictionary

IMDB Rating: 6.40
1902 votes

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Storyline
In 1936, the expatriated young and naive just-graduated British John Truscott (Hugh Dancy) arrives to the Sarawak, a British colony, to work in the Iban society. The beautiful Selima (Jessica Alba) is assigned to be his "sleeping dictionary", to live and sleep with him and teach him the language and habits of the locals. The reluctant John and Selima fall in love for each other in a forbidden romance.
Actors
SelimaJessica Alba
AggieBrenda Blethyn
John TruscottHugh Dancy

The Rundown

IMDB Rating: 6.50
10223 votes

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Storyline
In order to get out of hock with mobster Billy Walker, restaraunteur-turned-"retrieval expert" Beck has to go down to Brazil and retrieve Billy's ne'er-do-well archaeologist-wannabe son Travis, who is searching for an ancient gold idol called the Gato del Diablo. This idol is prized by not only the local population as the path to their salvation, but by Cornelius Hatcher, slavedriving operator of the Helldorado mining town who oppresses said population in the name of profits, and Hatcher just won't let Beck leave with Travis.
Actors
BeckChris Rock
BeckThe Rock
TravisSeann William Scott

Gothika

IMDB Rating: 5.70
20650 votes

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Storyline
A criminal psychologist (Berry) awakens to find herself a patient in the institution where she works, with no memory of the murder she's accused of committing. As she tries to regain her memory - and her freedom - a vengeful spirit manipulates her.
Actors
Dr. Douglas GreyCharles S. Dutton
Miranda GreyHalle Berry
Pete GrahamRobert Downey Jr.