Browse Movies : 2005 : Drama (Page #3)

Millions of devoted fans worldwide have been spellbound by the dark invention of its adventures . . . have awaited its every incarnation with urgent anticipation . . . and have devoted countless hours, days and weeks to conquering its hidden mysteries: Doom. When the home-computer game "Doom" was first launched in 1993, no one could have foreseen the legion of fans it would create and the mania surrounding its every new permutation. "Doom" and its successive installments have transfixed gamers worldwide for over a decade and have sold millions of copies (while chalking up an unprecedented tens of millions of downloads as shareware). It is, simply, the most explosive home-computer game franchise phenomenon in history. Now, the game that made history is jumping from computer screens to the motion picture screen: get ready for "Doom". Set countless years in the future and told in the hyper- kinetic, kamikaze style that made its gaming predecessor a global phenomenon, the science fiction action adventure "Doom" takes the viewer to the far corners of the galaxy with a fully-realized vision of a dark and disturbing future.

Mamie is being blackmailed. This filmmaker named Nick claims to know Mamie's son—the one she gave up for adoption—but Nick won't introduce her to him unless he can film the reunion. Enter Javier, Mamie's massage therapist boyfriend, who convinces Nick to film him instead. Now they're all making a movie about massage. And ‘happy endings'…

Charley has a longtime boyfriend named Gil. Their best friends, Pam and Diane, once tried using Gil as a sperm donor. They said his sperm didn't take, but Charley thinks those selfish, control-freak lesbians are lying. Pam and Diane's two-year-old son looks exactly like Gil. And it's time to set the record straight…

Jude is pissed. Not at anyone in particular. Just in general. When her cousin kicks her out of the house, Jude shacks up with Otis, who's still trying to convince his father, Frank, that he's straight. Frank's a widower. And he's rich. So Jude decides to sleep with him, too. Really. The last thing she expected was to fall in love…

An American artist living a bohemian existence in Paris, Tom Warshaw (David Duchovny) is trying to make sense of his troubled adult life by reflecting upon his extraordinary childhood...The year is 1973, and thirteen-year-old Greenwich Village native Tommy Warshaw (Anton Yelchin) is on the brink of becoming a man. While his bereaved single mother (Téa Leoni) continues to mourn the death of his father, Tommy escapes his own grief by causing trouble at school and making afternoon meat deliveries with his best friend Pappas (Robin Williams), a mentally challenged janitor. Following the romantic advice offered by Lady (Erykah Badu) - incarcerated in the infamous Greenwich Village Women's House of Detention for shadowy reasons—Tommy even experiences his first taste of love. Yet when an unexpected tragedy radically alters his world, Tommy must make a life-defining choice—one that will compel the adult Tom Warshaw, thirty years later, to confront his unfinished past.

Produced by John Singleton and the Winner of the Sundance Film Festival, "Hustle & Flow" is the redemptive story of a Memphis street hustler who struggles to break out of his gritty world to fulfill his life long dream of becoming a respected rap musician. He teams up with his middle class friend who is stuck in an office routine having missed the opportunity of becoming the music producer he always wanted to be. Together they have one last chance to follow their dream.

In the 1970s, a group of teenage surfers from a tough neighborhood known as "Dogtown" in Venice, California pioneered a revolutionary new style of skateboarding. Riding the waves at the Pacific Ocean Park pier, the Z-Boyz, known for their aggressive style and hard street attitude, combined the death-defying moves of surfing with the art of skateboarding and became overnight sensations and local legends. With empty pools as their canvas, the Z-boyz paved the way to what is now referred to as "extreme sports," and created a lifestyle that spread infectiously to beomce a worldwide counterculture phenomenon. But all of this fame would take its toll on the friendships that they thought would last a lifetime as the sport that started out as an afternoon hobby turned into big business.

The true story of a dying river town in Indiana, which in 1971 succeeded in becoming the host for the Gold Cup of hydroplane boat racing. Competing on the racing circuit requires deep-pocketed sponsorships and top-of-the-line technology and equipment. Jim McCormick, even though he's now a father with a family to support and has a steady job, has never abandoned his dream of piloting the community-owned Miss Madison to victory in the sport's biggest event. Alas, the economic struggles of this trade-diminished municipality have severely crimped its level of support. But faced with the opportunity to welcome the prestigious championship, McCormick wins, or more correctly hustles, the town's backing and, despite the misgivings of his wife and a sizable percentage of his neighbors, undertakes to race Miss Madison and compete with the big boys.

Melinda and Melinda combines romantic comedy and drama in a way that Woody Allen, unique among filmmakers, likes to contrast. It takes place in Manhattan and chronicles a pair of crises that give great reign to the funny and serious talents of Chiwetel Ejiofor, Will Ferrell, Jonny Lee Miller, Radha Mitchell, Amanda Peet, Chloë Sevigny and Wallace Shawn. All the usual Allen areas are explained - the fragility of love, marital infidelity, sophisticated romance, the inability to communicate. As a character in the movie puts it, "He's despondent, he's desperate, he's suicidal. All the comic elements are in place."

"MirrorMask" centers on Helena, a 15 year old girl in a family of circus entertainers, who often wishes she could run off and join real life. After a fight with her parents about her future plans, her mother falls quite ill and Helena is convinced that it is all her fault. On the eve of her mother's major surgery, she dreams that she is in a strange world with two opposing queens, bizarre creatures, and masked inhabitants. All is not well in this new world - the white queen has fallen ill and can only be restored by the MirrorMask, and it's up to Helena to find it. But as her adventures continue, she begins to wonder whether she's in a dream, or something far more sinister.

Deep in the Romanian forest, a team of scientists stumbles upon the ruins of a 13th century Abbey. On further inspection, they make a startling discovery - the Abbey is built over the entrance to a giant underground cave system. Local biologists belive the cave could be home to an undiscovered eco-system, so they hire a group of American cave-explorers to help them investigate its depths. Jack (Cole Hauser) and his brother Tyler (Eddie Cibrian) are thrill-seeking professional cave explorers who run a team of the top divers in the world. They arrive in Romania with all the latest equipment, including a new type of scuba tank allowing a diver to remain submerged for up to 24 hours. The crack unit, which also includes Charlie (Piper Perabo) and Buchanan (Morris Chestnut), immediately begin their exploration. But what they find deep inside the caves is not just a new eco-system, but an entirely new species altogether...

"The Chumscrubber" is a surreal cautionary tale about an alienated youth forced to confront the disconnect between parents and teenagers in suburbia, rendered with a razor's edge balance of comedy and drama.

On November 15, 1959, the brutal murder of a family in a small Kansas town sent shockwaves through the nation - and captured the attention of one of the most distinctive minds of our time. One-of-a-kind author Truman Capote was sent to Kansas to pen an article about the crimes for "The New Yorker" magazine. He ended up writing one of the most celebrated books of the century.

"Capote" follows Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman) on his odyssey to create the landmark bestseller "In Cold Blood". With signature style and mordant wit—and his friend Harper Lee (Catherine Keener) in tow—Capote attempts to charm the locals and work his way into the story behind the murders. He's soon shocked, however, to find himself forming a friendship with one of the killers, Perry Smith (Clifton Collins, Jr.). As the book nears completion and execution day approaches, Capote finds himself torn in directions he never anticipated and is forever changed by his experiences.

Heath Ledger plays the fabled romantic as a man who, after failing to win the affection of a particular Venetian woman, strives to discover the real meaning of love.

A Brentwood housewife and her DA husband. A Persian store owner. Two police detectives who are also lovers. A black television director and his wife. A Mexican locksmith. Two car-jackers. A rookie cop. A middle-aged Korean couple... They all live in Los Angeles. And in the next 36 hours, they will all collide... A provocative, unflinching look at the complexities of racial conflict in America, "Crash" is that rare cinematic event—film that challenges audiences to question their own prejudices. Diving headlong into the diverse melting pot of post-9/11 Los Angeles, this compelling urban drama tracks the volatile intersections of a multi-ethnic cast, examining fear and bigotry from multiple perspectives as characters careen in and out of one another's lives. No one is safe in the battle zones of intolerance. And no one is immune to the simmering rage that sparks violence—and changes lives...

Flying at 40,000 feet from Berlin to New York, Kyle Pratt (Foster) faces every mother's worst nightmare when her young daughter Julia (Lawston) vanishes mid-flight. Already emotionally devastated by the unexpected death of her husband, Kyle desperately struggles to prove her sanity to the disbelieving flight crew and passengers, while facing the very real possibility that she may be losing her mind. Though neither Captain Rich (Bean), nor Air Marshal Gene Carson (Sarsgaard) want to doubt the bereaved widow, all evidence indicates that her daughter was never on board, resulting in paranoia and doubt among the passengers and crew of the plane. Desperately alone, Kyle can only rely on her own wits to solve the mystery and save her daughter.

Harry (Bryce Johnson), aged 23, is a former boy band idol who is watching his younger brother Max (Cole Williams), aged 16, follow in his footsteps. Harry escorts Max on a long-promised camping adventure to the San Gabriel mountains above Los Angeles but things quickly turn serious as the boys discuss Harry's contradictory relationship with their family. Max's longing to connect with Harry both physically and emotionally grows even more, wanting to bring stability to Harry's life. In an effort to create a type of alternative family for his brother, Max goads Harry to rekindle his affections for his former girlfriend, Nikki (Rain Phoenix). Back from the weekend, Max realizes that he must redefine his relationship with his brother, and that only by setting boundaries can the boys grow into adulthood together.

On a summer night in New York City, five lives intertwine and unravel. Isabel, a beautiful twenty-five year old photographer, wavers on her commitment to her upcoming wedding. Her mother Diana, a legendary actress, discovers her husband is cheating. Jonathan, Isabel's fiance, tries to protect a secret that will endanger his marriage. Peter, a young writer, faces his lover's past while researching a story for "Vanity Fair" and Alec, an actor, wonders if his affections will ever be returned. Set in the nightspots, theaters, rooftops, and streets of Manhattan over one night, Heights is a contemporary story of young people in New York City that sparkles with the wit that is a trademark of Merchant Ivory films. At the center of the story is Isabel, a young woman trying to decide between her life in the city and the prospect of a quiet existence as a suburban wife. In a script full of unique New York City settings and characters the story takes us from downtown bars, to upscale roof gardens, to gay bars in Chelsea, to the geriatric participants at a Jewish wedding. Isabel, much like a modern day Jane Austen heroine, a woman on the verge of adulthood must decide in the course of a single night what kind of life she is going to lead. In a small Prague apartment, Franta (Jiri Machacek) and Mila (Natasa Burger) dream of having a child, but Franta—on probation because of his soccer hooliganism past—is not allowed to adopt, and Mila is unable to conceive. After cashing in on her savings, Mila decides to buy a baby from a pawnshop that fronts a den of thieves and pickpockets. Meanwhile, an unusual family reunion is taking place: Academy professor Otto (Jan Triska) collapses while teaching, prompting his estranged son Martin (Petr Forman, son of director Milos) to return to Prague from Australia to see his father and his mother, Vera (Emilia Vasaryova), long separated from Otto whom she still pines for. Otto is now living with the beautiful and much younger Hana (Ingrid Timkova), who works in a refugee aid center helping immigrants to adjust to their new lives.

Paul, a prize-winning war journalist, returns to his remote New Zealand hometown due to the death of his father, battle-scarred and world-weary. For the discontented sixteen-year-old Celia he opens up a world she has only dreamed of. She actively pursues a friendship with him, fascinated by his cynicism and experience of the world beyond her small-town existence. But many, including the members of both their families, frown upon the friendship and when Celia goes missing, Paul becomes the increasingly loathed and persecuted prime suspect in her disappearance. As the violent and urgent truth gradually emerges, Paul is forced to confront the family tragedy and betrayal that he ran from as a youth, and to face the grievous consequences of silence and secrecy that has surrounded his entire adult life.

When New York's hottest nightclub deejay Darrell (Usher) saves a mob boss's life (Chazz Palminteri), he is rewarded for his bravery with the responsibilty of watching over the don's beautiful daughter Dolly (Emmanuelle Chriqui). The sparks soon begin to fly between this attractive couple from very different worlds, against her formidable father's wishes. Meanwhile, the don has other things on his mind—quashing a potential war with an arch-rival and controlling a young, ruthless challenger to his throne. In the end, all's fair in love and gangster warfare in this hip, romantic comedy, "In the Mix".

A Chicago art dealer marries a Southerner from an uptight North Carolina family. When she attempts to track down a reclusive back-woods artist, her in-laws get their petticoats in a twist in various and sundry ways.

When David (Mark Ruffalo) sublet his quaint San Francisco apartment, the last thing he expected—or wanted—was a roommate. He had only begun to make a complete mess of the place when a pretty young woman named Elizabeth (Reese Witherspoon) suddenly shows up, adamantly insisting the apartment is hers. David assumes there's been a giant misunderstanding…until Elizabeth disappears as mysteriously as she appeared. Changing the locks does nothing to deter Elizabeth, who begins to appear and disappear at will—mostly to rebuke David for his personal living habits in her apartment. Convinced that she is a ghost, David tries to help Elizabeth cross over to the "other side." But while Elizabeth has discovered she does have a distinctly ethereal quality—she can walk through walls—she is equally convinced that she is somehow still alive and isn't crossing over anywhere. As Elizabeth and David search for the truth about who Elizabeth is and how she came to be in her present state, their relationship deepens into love. Unfortunately, they have very little time before their prospects for a future together permanently fade away.