Tag Archives: dysfunctional family

Christmas Vacation

IMDB Rating: 7.10
15945 votes

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Storyline
It's Christmas time - Clark decided to invite all the family to have 'the most fun-filled old-fashioned family Christmas', which nobody shall ever forget. When the first relatives arrive, Clark soon flees on the roof to rig the lighting. The one thing the loving father wants to surprise the whole family with is the installation of a pool, which he already ordered. Unfortunately, the bonus check Clark expects any minute is overdue - and tempers rise, but not only because of the check. A big event is the arrival of uninvited cousin Eddie with his family in their mobile home, as well as a little sledding afternoon with a new lubricant from Clark's company, or his shifting relationship with the very hip and clean neighbours. Cousin Eddie chooses to top off all presents with his very own special creation, only intending to deliver a real reason to be jolly.
Actors
Clark GriswoldChevy Chase
Ellen GriswoldBeverly D'Angelo
Audrey GriswoldJuliette Lewis

Purple Rain

IMDB Rating: 5.60
3652 votes

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Storyline
A young man with a talent for music has begun a career with much promise. He meets an aspiring singer, Apollonia, and finds that talent alone isn't all that he needs. A complicated tale of his repeating his father's self destructive behavior, losing Apollonia to another singer (Morris Day), and his coming to grips with his own connection to other people ensues.
Actors
The KidPrince
ApolloniaApollonia Kotero
MorrisMorris Day

Black Christmas

IMDB Rating: 4.40
3450 votes

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Storyline
Not all Christmas stories are full of cheer - take the disturbing childhood of Billy Lenz, for example. Born during Christmas, little Billy Lenz suffered from Jaundice because of a liver defect, and was unwanted by his cruel mother (who only saw the husband she'd come to despise when she looked at her son). While she let her true feelings be known to him with beatings and abuse, only his father showed him compassion like a parent should. But on Christmas Eve in 1975, his unfaithful mother gave him one of the most cruelest gifts of all, as she made five-year-old Billy observe his beloved father's brutal murder at her own hands and those of her lover with a claw hammer. Before burying him under the house, she locked Billy in the attic for good, to hold his silence of what he'd witnessed that night. His only contact from then on was when she came to punish him for making a noise or other such trivial nuisances, while she was with her lover and starting a "new" family. As Billy's mother fell pregnant with a daughter and treated her with love, which Billy had never experienced with his mother, Billy came out of the attic on Christmas Eve 1991, taking a rolling pin to his mother's head, and a pointed tree ornament to her lovers eye before leaving his sister as disfigured as he was by blinding her. Before he could finish the job police forced there way in and dragged him off to mental institution and his sister a foster home, whose eye sight was saved in one eye... but not the other. Cut to the present where a security guard has been monitoring Billy's progress since he came into his care, back in 1991. Knowing full well that during this time for fifteen years, Billy has made a break from this asylum, but never succeeding... until now. Far away, his childhood home is now a sorority house, where nine sisters and their house-mother are celebrating the holiday season together ...but tonight they're about to get a surprise visitor... and it's not Santa.
Actors
Kelli PresleyKatie Cassidy
Melissa KittMichelle Trachtenberg
Dana MathisLacey Chabert

Bridge to Terabithia

IMDB Rating: 7.20
5911 votes

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Storyline
Fifth grader Jesse Aaron's hopes of becoming the fastest runner in his class are dashed when new girl Leslie Burke outruns everybody, including him. However, Jess and Leslie soon begin a friendship, and create a magical kingdom in the forest, where the two of them reign together as king and queen.
Actors
Jesse AaronsJosh Hutcherson
Leslie BurkeAnnaSophia Robb
Ms. EdmondsZooey Deschanel

Running with Scissors

IMDB Rating: 5.80
4294 votes

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Storyline
The story of how a boy was abandoned by his mother and how he, later, abandoned her. The year he'll be 14, the parents of Augusten Burroughs (1965- ) divorce, and his mother, who thinks of herself as a fine poet on the verge of fame, delivers him to the eccentric household of her psychiatrist, Dr. Finch. During that year, Augusten avoids school, keeps a journal, and practices cosmetology. His mother's mental illness worsens, he takes an older lover, he finds friendship with Finch's younger daughter, and he's the occasional recipient of gifts from an unlikely benefactor. Can he survive to come of age?
Actors
Deirdre BurroughsAnnette Bening
Dr. FinchBrian Cox
Neil BookmanJoseph Fiennes

The Weather Man

IMDB Rating: 7.00
16094 votes

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Storyline
Clever and insightful movie on the subject of growing-up in upper middle class America. Dave Spritz, a weatherman without meteorological qualifications in Chicago, is confronted with his own rage that life hasn't proceeded as he had planned. A talented man who finds it difficult to see his own talent because he compares himself with his Pulitzer winning, distant father is at a low ebb. Not to mention that "fans" delight in recognizing him on the street and throwing food at him. The other problems in his life, an angry ex-wife, a daughter bullied at school and a son just leaving rehab don't help. And Spritz would really rather just think about sex. Through finding a hobby, connecting with his dying father and standing by his kids we see the character grow and become a hero.
Actors
David SpritzNicolas Cage
Robert SpritzelMichael Caine
NoreenHope Davis

The Family Stone

IMDB Rating: 6.30
12580 votes

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Storyline
The Stone family unites in common cause when their favorite son brings his uptight girlfriend home for the Christmas holiday, with plans of proposing. Overwhelmed by the hostile reception, she begs her sister to join her for emotional support, triggering further complications.
Actors
Julie MortonClaire Danes
Sybil StoneDiane Keaton
Amy StoneRachel McAdams

The Squid and the Whale

IMDB Rating: 7.70
10777 votes

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Storyline
The patriarch (Jeff Daniels) of an eccentric Brooklyn family claims to once have been a great novelist, but he has settled into a teaching job. When his wife (Laura Linney) discovers a writing talent of her own, jealousy divides the family, leaving two teenage sons to forge new relationships with their parents. Linney's character begins dating her younger son's tennis coach. Meanwhile, Daniels' character has an affair with the student his older son is pursuing.
Actors
Frank BerkmanOwen Kline
Bernard BerkmanJeff Daniels
Joan BerkmanLaura Linney

Bee Season

IMDB Rating: 5.50
1879 votes

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Storyline
11-year-old Eliza Naumann comes from an odd family; they all divert their emotional frustrations into secret channels. When Eliza unexpectedly begins winning spelling bees, what had been a stable dynamic within the family becomes disrupted; long held secrets emerge, and a latent spiritual yearning is awakened in her withdrawn father Saul and compulsive mother Miriam. As Eliza moves closer and closer to the national spelling bee, the Naumann family finds itself in a spiral of surprising discovery and jarring uncertainty...
Actors
SaulRichard Gere
MiriamJuliette Binoche
ElizaFlora Cross

The Upside of Anger

IMDB Rating: 7.10
7330 votes

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Storyline
A sharp-witted suburban wife, Terry Wolfmeyer, is left to raise her four headstrong daughters when her husband unexpectedly disappears. Things get even more hectic when she falls for her neighbor Denny, a once-great baseball star turned radio d.j. This leaves her daughters out on a limb. They are forced to juggle their mom's romantic dilemmas as well as their own.
Actors
Terry Ann WolfmeyerJoan Allen
Denny DaviesKevin Costner
Andy WolfmeyerErika Christensen