Russell Crowe and Ron Howard make for quite a formidable partnership in this biopic of the acclaimed mathematician John Nash. Like so many folk with an acute scientific ability, his social skills bordered on the wrong side of inept and a combination of his good looks and his superiority complex soon lead him to a life that vacillates between the extremely happy and the downright depressing. There are maybe two people in his life whom he has made some sort of connection with. His Princeton college "Charles" (Paul Bettany) and the exceptionally patient "Alicia" (Jennifer Connelly) whom he met whilst teaching her and whom he eventually marries. Meantime, his brainpower has attracted the attention of Uncle Sam, and that's when he meets "Parcher" (Ed Harris) who embroils him in a plan to crack some top secret Soviet codes. The enemy also knows he's been drafted in to help and so he is soon a target for their assassins and their network of fifth columnists too. A combination of his own inherent insecurities and this way more palpable threat lead Nash to a paranoia that threatens to destroy himself and everything he holds dear. It's also a testament to Howard's direction that he manages to create quite a menacing character from the usually charming Christopher Plummer, whose "Rosen" is a dab hand with an hypodermic. Crowe is at his best here, his portrayal of this frankly rather selfish and obnoxious man is almost perfect and though I can't say I ever liked the character, nor felt especially sorry for his predicaments, I did feel invested in just how he could emerge from the internal conflicts he faced unsure of what was true and what was not. A bare minimum of romance to clutter it up and both Harris and Connelly contributing well to a story of a flawed yet brilliant human being makes this well worth a few hours.
The brief life of Jean Michel Basquiat, a world renowned New York street artist struggling with fame, drugs and his identity.
A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground "fight clubs" forming in every town, until an eccentric gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion.
After a whirlwind romance in Mexico, a beautiful heiress marries a man she barely knows with hardly a second thought. She finds his New York home full of his strange relations, and macabre rooms that are replicas of famous murder sites. One locked room contains the secret to her husband's obsession, and the truth about what happened to his first wife.
The true story of technical troubles that scuttle the Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1970, risking the lives of astronaut Jim Lovell and his crew, with the failed journey turning into a thrilling saga of heroism. Drifting more than 200,000 miles from Earth, the astronauts work furiously with the ground crew to avert tragedy.
20 volunteers agree to take part in a seemingly well-paid experiment advertised by the university. It is supposed to be about aggressive behavior in an artificial prison situation. A journalist senses a story behind the ad and smuggles himself in among the test subjects. They are randomly divided into prisoners and guards. What seems like a game at the beginning soon turns into bloody seriousness.
Suzanne Stone wants to be a world-famous news anchor and she is willing to do anything to get what she wants. What she lacks in intelligence, she makes up for in cold determination and diabolical wiles. As she pursues her goal with relentless focus, she is forced to destroy anything and anyone that may stand in her way, regardless of the ultimate cost or means necessary.
Wounded Civil War soldier John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.
During the final weeks of a presidential race, the President is accused of sexual misconduct. To distract the public until the election, the President's adviser hires a Hollywood producer to help him stage a fake war.
Throughout his life Edward Bloom has always been a man of big appetites, enormous passions and tall tales. In his later years, he remains a huge mystery to his son, William. Now, to get to know the real man, Will begins piecing together a true picture of his father from flashbacks of his amazing adventures.
"The Hours" is the story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.
A paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.