Posts Tagged ‘based-on-novel’

Notes on a Scandal (2006)

Friday, March 21st, 2008
Genres: Drama
Countries: UK
Actors: Judi Dench | Cate Blanchett | Tom Georgeson | Michael Maloney | Joanna Scanlan | Shaun Parkes | Emma Kennedy | Syreeta Kumar | Andrew Simpson | Philip Davis | Wendy Nottingham | Tameka Empson | Leon Skinner | Bill Nighy | Juno Temple
Directors: Richard Eyre
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Barbara Covett is a veteran and cynical schoolteacher who is close to retirement. She is barely tolerated by her less brilliant and acerbic colleagues who know nothing about her private life which consists mainly of taking care of Portia, her aging cat, and spending countless hours alone. The only means she has found to take the edge off her desperate loneliness is writing in her journal. When Sheba Hart, a younger, attractive woman, joins the faculty as an art teacher, Barbara watches her from afar and has nothing but caustic things to say in her diary about her clothing and her care-free manner. Despite her disdain for this woman, Barbara finds herself reaching out to her. Sheba responds by inviting her to dinner at her house to meet Sheba’s lecturer husband, who is twenty years her senior, and their two children, a sexy and rebellious 16-year-old daughter and a younger boy with Downs Syndrome. Instead of opening herself to these people, Barbara immediately sees them as competition to be beaten in the battle for Sheba’s attention. Later, when Barbara discovers her new friend in a classroom having sex with Steven, a 15-year-old from the school who has artistic talent; she realizes that knowledge of this secret gives her power over Sheba which she can use for her own purposes. Barbara promises to not tell anyone but insists that the affair must end immediately. Sheba says she will but finds herself drawn back to the boy again and again. Sheba seems uneasy with Barbara’s friendship and is appalled when she discovers the older woman might have a sexual interest in her. The tenuous relationship between the two women reaches a crisis point when Barbara’s cat is dying and she asks Sheba to go with her to the vet. She chooses to go with her family to see their son in a play instead. In revenge, Barbara sets in motion the scandal that will rock both their lives in ways they never imagined.

Cape Fear (1991)

Friday, March 21st, 2008
Genres: Crime | Drama | Horror | Thriller
Countries: USA
Actors: Robert De Niro | Nick Nolte | Jessica Lange | Juliette Lewis | Joe Don Baker | Robert Mitchum | Gregory Peck | Martin Balsam | Illeana Douglas | Fred Dalton Thompson | Zully Montero | Craig Henne | Forest Burton | Edgar Allan Poe IV | Rod Ball
Directors: Martin Scorsese
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Sam Bowden is a small-town corporate attorney/”Leave It to Beaver”-esque family-man. Max Cady is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, bible-quoting, psychotic rapist. What do they have in common? Fourteen years, ago Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady’s rape trial, and he made a serious error: he hid a document from his illiterate client that could have gotten him acquitted. Now, the cagey, bibliophile Cady has been released, and he intends to teach Sam Bowden and his family a thing or two about loss.

The Notebook (2004)

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
Genres: Drama | Romance
Countries: USA
Actors: Tim Ivey | Gena Rowlands | Starletta DuPois | James Garner | Anthony-Michael Q. Thomas | Ed Grady | Renée Amber | Jennifer Echols | Geoffrey Knight | Kevin Connolly | Ryan Gosling | Heather Wahlquist | Rachel McAdams | Andrew Schaff | Matt Shelly
Directors: Nick Cassavetes
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An old man in a nursing home reads a story to an old woman each day. The story he reads follows two young lovers named Allie Hamilton and Noah Calhoun. They met one evening at a carnival many years ago. Allie’s parents separate Noah and Allie. They disapprove of Noah’s lack of wealth, and move Allie away. After waiting for Noah to write her for several years, Allie meets and becomes engaged to a handsome young soldier named Lon. In a local newspaper, Noah’s picture catches Allie’s eye. He is standing in front of a fully restored, 200 year old home. The article is filled with praise for his accomplishments. Allie’s heart nearly bursts. The last time she saw this house it was a rotted decaying shamble. She stood enfolded in Noah’s arms in the great entryway and listened to his plans to buy and restore this house. Just the way she wanted it. With her love for Noah still alive, the picture pulls at her heart. She has to go back, see if Noah is okay, and tell him about her marriage. They both think the echo deep in their hearts, the one that has lasted all these years, is not shared by the other. The cry they could not stifle. It wasn’t over for me.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)

Monday, March 17th, 2008
Genres: Crime | Drama | Mystery
Countries: USA
Actors: John Cusack | Kevin Spacey | Jack Thompson | Irma P. Hall | Jude Law | Alison Eastwood | Paul Hipp | Lady Chablis | Dorothy Loudon | Anne Haney | Kim Hunter | Geoffrey Lewis | Richard Herd | Leon Rippy | Bob Gunton
Directors: Clint Eastwood
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This panoramic tale of Savannah’s eccentricities focuses on a murder and the subsequent trial of Jim Williams: self made man, art collector, antiques dealer, bon vivant and semi-closeted homosexual. John Kelso a magazine reporter finds himself in Savannah amid the beautiful architecture and odd doings to write a feature on one of William’s famous Christmas parties. He is intrigued by Williams from the start, but his curiosity is piqued when he meets Jim’s violent, young and sexy lover, Billy. Later that night, Billy is dead, and Kelso stays on to cover the murder trial. Along the way he encounters the irrepressible Lady Chablis, a drag queen commedienne, Sonny Seiler, lawyer to Williams, whose famous dog UGA is the official mascot of the Georgia Bulldogs, an odd man who keeps flies attached to mini leashes on his lapels and threatens daily to poison the water supply, the Married Ladies Card Club, and Minerva, a spiritualist. Between being Jim’s buddy, cuddling up to a torch singer, meeting every eccentric in Savannah, participating in midnight graveyard rituals and helping solve the mysteries surrounding Billy’s murder, Kelso has his hands full.

Meet the Robinsons (2007)

Monday, March 17th, 2008
Genres: Adventure | Animation | Comedy | Family | Sci-Fi
Countries: USA
Actors: Angela Bassett | Daniel Hansen | Jordan Fry | Matthew Josten | John H. H. Ford | Dara McGarry | Tom Kenny | Laurie Metcalf | Don Hall | Paul Butcher | Tracey Miller-Zarneke | Wesley Singerman | Jessie Flower | Ethan Sandler
Directors: Stephen J. Anderson
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Meet the Robinsons is filled with extraordinarily inappropriate and insensitive messages about adoption that will be disturbing to many children. The basic story is about an adorable baby whose birthmother leaves him on the doorstep of an orphanage. Portrayed as loving, sweet, extremely smart and overly appealing, he spends the next 12 years of his life wanting a family and being turned down by one family after another - in all, 114 couples refuse to adopt him. One disturbing scene shows a prospective dad losing interest in adopting the child because the youngster is more interested in science than sports. When he accidentally splatters them with food from his science project, both prospective parents walk out in a huff , leaving one very sad and disappointed little boy. Since no one else wants him, the child invents a time machine that will take him back in time to find his birth mother. The “bad guy” in his time travel journey turns out to be his best childhood buddy who was once his orphanage roommate. Now an emotional wreck resulting from being left behind when the orphanage was closed and shut down, the once-cute orphan is now mean and devious. The story continues with numerous monsters attacking the child as he continues to search for his birth mother.

Papillon (1973)

Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
Genres: Adventure | Biography | Drama
Countries: USA
Actors: Steve McQueen | Dustin Hoffman | Victor Jory | Don Gordon | Anthony Zerbe | Robert Deman | Woodrow Parfrey | Bill Mumy | George Coulouris | Ratna Assan | William Smithers | Val Avery | Gregory Sierra | Vic Tayback | Mills Watson
Directors: Franklin J. Schaffner
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Based on the true story of Henri Charriere, also known as Papillon, which is French for ‘butterfly’ (the character even sports a large tattoo of a butterfly. A petty criminal, Papillon is wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to life in a French penal colony in ‘Guiane’ (French Guiana, South America). Papillon is determined to escape but attempt after attempt meets with difficulty, resulting in eventual recapture. He continues his attempts to escape despite incarcerations in solitary confinement as punishment.

Spencer’s Mountain (1963)

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
Genres: Comedy | Drama
Countries: USA
Actors: Henry Fonda | Maureen O'Hara | James MacArthur | Donald Crisp | Wally Cox | Mimsy Farmer | Virginia Gregg | Lillian Bronson | Whit Bissell | Hayden Rorke | Kathy Bennett | Dub Taylor | Hope Summers | Ken Mayer | Bronwyn FitzSimons
Directors: Delmer Daves
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Clay Spencer is a hard-working man who loves his wife and large family. He is respected by his neighbors and always ready to give them a helping hand. Although not a churchgoer, he even helps a newly arrived local minister regain his flock after he and Clay get into a bit of trouble. If he has one dream in life it’s to build his wife Olivia a beautiful house on a piece of land he inherited on Spender’s mountain. When his eldest son, Clayboy, graduates at the top of his high school class and has the opportunity to go to college, Clay has only one option left to him.

Misérables, Les (1998)

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
Genres: Crime | Drama | Romance
Countries: Germany | UK | USA
Actors: Liam Neeson | Geoffrey Rush | Uma Thurman | Claire Danes | Hans Matheson | Reine Brynolfsson | Peter Vaughan | Christopher Adamson | Tim Barlow | Timothy Bateson | David Birkin | Václav Chalupa | Ian Cregg | Ben Crompton | Zdenek David
Directors: Bille August
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Jean Valjean, a Frenchman imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a police officer named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men’s lives, and soon Valjean finds himself in the midst of the student revolutions in France.

Jaws (1975)

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
Genres: Adventure | Horror | Thriller
Countries: USA
Actors: Roy Scheider | Robert Shaw | Richard Dreyfuss | Lorraine Gary | Murray Hamilton | Carl Gottlieb | Jeffrey Kramer | Susan Backlinie | Jonathan Filley | Chris Rebello | Jay Mello | Lee Fierro | Jeffrey Voorhees | Craig Kingsbury | Dr. Robert Nevin
Directors: Steven Spielberg
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Martin Brody is the new police chief of Amity, an island resort town somewhere in New England. He has a wife named Ellen, and two sons named Michael and Sean. On a Summer morning, Brody is called to the beach, where the mangled body of Summer vacationer Chrissie Watkins has washed ashore. The medical examiner tells Brody that it could have been a shark that killed Watkins. Mayor Larry Vaughn, who is desperate to not lose the money that will be brought in by 4th of July tourists, wants Brody to say Watkins’s death was caused by a motorboat propeller instead of a shark, because the thought of a shark in Amity’s waters would drive tourists away from Amity. It looks like Vaughn is a mayor who puts money ahead of people’s lives. Shark expert Matt Hooper believes Watkins was killed by a shark. Hooper is proven right a few days later, when Alex Kintner is killed by the shark that killed Watkins. Looking for the quickest solution, Vaughn tells all of the local fishermen to let him know if they see the shark. A shark hunter named Quint offers to find the shark and kill it, but Vaughn thinks Quint’s price of $10,000 is too high. When a tiger shark is killed and hauled in by a couple of boaters, Vaughn hastily says that the shark crisis is over, but Hooper says the shark that’s been killing people a huge great white shark is still in Amity’s waters, but Vaughn leaves the beaches opened because all he cares about is the 4th of July tourist money. On the 4th of July, Vaughn encourages people to swim at the beach, and Hooper is proven right again when the shark kills a man, biting the man’s leg off. Michael, who was in the water at the time of the attack, is taken to the hospital, where he’s treated for shock after watching the shark kill the guy. Brody asks Vaughn to hire Quint to find the shark. Because his own kids were at that beach too, Vaughn agrees to hire Quint to find the shark. Quint, Hooper, and Brody are sent out to sea in Quint’s boat, the Orca, ready to do whatever it takes to find the shark.

In Cold Blood (1967)

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
Genres: Crime | Drama
Countries: USA
Actors: Robert Blake | Scott Wilson | John Forsythe | Paul Stewart | Gerald S. O'Loughlin | Jeff Corey | John Gallaudet | James Flavin | Charles McGraw | Will Geer | John McLiam | Ruth Storey | Brenda Currin | Paul Hough | Vaughn Taylor
Directors: Richard Brooks
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Truman Capote wrote the ‘non-fiction novel’ from which the film is drawn, using the novelist’s craft to render reality. The reality was that at two a.m. on November 15, 1959 in the rural town of Holcomb, Kansas, the four members of the Clutter family were roused from their sleep, bound and gagged, and then brutally murdered by two unknown assailants. After the latters’ capture, sentencing and imprisonment prior to execution, Capote researched the case thoroughly, spent weeks talking with the prisoners, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, jurors, police, friends and neighbors, trying to unearth why such a senseless act was committed, and what society’s response might have been.