Browse Movies : Completed : Released : 2003 (Page #5)

In this documentary, Nathaniel Kahn examines the life and career of his father, Philadelphia architect Louis I. Kahn (1901-1974), whose work included the Salk Institute and the Parliament and Capitol Buildings in Dhaka, Bangladesh, before dying of a heart attack in a Penn Station bathroom in 1974, unidentified and broke despite having been one of the century's most influential architects. Louis Kahn also led three different personal lives, with three different families, fathering a daughter with his wife, and a child each by two other lovers (one of whom was the mother of Nathaniel, who was 11 when his father died).

Nola (Emmy Rossum), an aspiring songwriter who grew up in a trailer park, abused by her stepfather, travels to New York City in hopes of both starting her career and finding, and establishing a relationship with, her biological father. Along the way, she gets a job at a coffee shop owned by a high-class madam, Margaret (Mary McDonnell), and finds herself involved with a court case against one of Dorothy's powerful clients.

It's 1955 and industries are booming as America undergoes a postwar metamorphosis. However, in the small town of Northfork, the townspeople are being evacuated because of the construction of a dam that will wash away their homes. A group of trench-coat-wearing government employees, hired to get rid of the proud few who remain, go about the business of destroying lives with efficiency. Meanwhile, a young orphan boy lies sick in bed, being cared for by a devoted priest. The boy's fever dreams include fantastic beings that might be angels... but are they simply in his head?

A love story spanning two continents, "Nowhere in Africa" is the extraordinary true tale of a Jewish family who flees the Nazi regime in 1938 for a remote farm in Kenya. Abandoning their once-comfortable existence in Germany, Walter Redlich, his wife Jettel (Juliane Kohler) and their five-year-old daughter Regina each deal with the harsh realities of their new life in different ways. Attorney Walter is resigned to working the farm as a caretaker; pampered Jettel resists adjustment at every turn; while the shy yet curious Regina immediately embraces the country-learning the local language and customs, and finding a friend in Owuor, the farm's cook. As the war rages on the other side of the world, the trio's relationships to their strange environment become increasingly complicated as Jettel grows more self-assured and Walter more haunted by the life they left behind. As they eventually learn to cherish their life in Africa, they also endeavor to find a way back to each other.

This documentary examines the careers of the 1950s-1970s Stax Records and Motown soul and R&B singers who "kept on keeping on" right through (and after) the disco scene into today, through the use of interviews with and performance footage by such Motown luminaries as Isaac Hayes, the Chi-Lites, Sam Moore (of Sam and Dave), Mary Wilson (of the Supremes) and others. The focus of the film is how these performers managed to keep thriving through the 30 years of change in the music industry since the heydays of classic R&B.

When the police chief (Denzel Washington) of a small Florida town "borrows" money from the evidence room so he can run away with a woman (Sanaa Lathan) he's always been in love with, she quickly betrays him, revealing that she only began having an affair with him as a way to seek revenge... Now, with his reputation and career on the line, an otherwise good cop must resolve his life before he runs... "Out of Time".

Polite, mild-mannered Dan Mahowny is an assistant bank manager with a head for numbers, a knack for making decisions, and a devastating appetite for gambling. Dan Mahowny is the unlikely hero who takes on two of the financial institutions everyone loves to hate, the bank and the casino, and, for a brief while, he wins.

Set in the New York nightclub scene of the late 1980's and 1990's, this is the story of Michael Alig (Macaulay Culkin), a Club Kid party organizer originally from Indiana, whose extravagant life was sent spiralling downward when he boasted on television that he had killed his drug dealer and roommate, Angel Melendez (Wilson Cruz).

Based on the short story by Philip K. Dick, "Paycheck" is about world famous genius Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck), who does specialized projects for high-tech corporations. Once a job is complete, his memory is erased so as not to divulge any company secrets. Highly paid for his work, Jennings expects to earn $4.4 billion for his latest 5-year project, but upon completion of the job, instead of a big paycheck, he is given an envelope full of random objects and told that he has agreed to forfeit all payment. With his memory erased per usual, Jennings has no defense, until he discovers that the objects are clues to his past. Now, with the help of Rachel (Uma Thurman), the woman he has worked with and loved for the last three years, Jennings is in a race against time to put the pieces of his past together before the people he once worked for have him killed.

A phone call can change your life, but for one man it can also end it. Set entirely within and around the confines of a New York City phone booth, "Phone Booth" follows a slick media consultant (Colin Farrell) who is trapped after being told by a caller - a serial killer with a sniper rifle - that he'll be shot dead if he hangs up.

A chronicle of the true story of Kurt Gerron, a well known and beloved German-Jewish actor, director and cabaret star in Berlin in the 1920's and '30's. Among his greatest accomplishments, he co-starred with the legendary Marlene Dietrich in the film classic, "The Blue Angel." He also sang "Mack The Knife" in the original production of "Threepenny Opera." Ultimately, Gerron was captured and sent to a concentration camp, where he was ordered to both write and direct a pro-Nazi propaganda film.

Victor Vargas (Victor Rasuk), a 16-year-old Dominican boy growing up on New York's Lower East Side, finds his self-image as a burgeoning ladies man deflated when the neighborhood finds out that he's dating an unpopular and overweight girl (Donna Maldonado) who lives two stories above his grandmother's apartment (where he lives, along with his brother and sister). So, he sets his sights on the most beautiful girl at the local swimming pool, "Juicy" Judy Rodriguez (Judy Marte).

Shaolin was an art practiced through the ages; a skill mastered in the heart. In "Shaolin Soccer", it is so much more than a philosophy for six young believers. It is a complete way of life. But as the world changed around them, and Honor and Discipline become forgotten virtues, they lose their way - except for one loyal follower, Sing (Stephen Chow). With the help of a former soccer star, he reunites his old, out of shape, misfit friends, and recruits a young woman with extraordinary Kung Fu skills. Together, they're out to combine the ancient power of Shaolin with the modern game of soccer and in the process, just might take the world's most popular sport to its most extreme.

This documentary follows eight children of various ages as they compete their ways through regional finals, with their eyes on going to the 1999 Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., and hopefully, winning. Nine million kids try each year, but only 250 make it to the Nationals. The kids seen in this movie come from vastly different backgrounds, from families ranging from the affluent to the struggling (and some in-between).

This documentary, filmed over six years (1996-2002), is about Mark "Gator" Rogowski, a pro skateboarding star in the '80s currently serving a life sentence for the rape and murder of a woman he barely knew. The film mixes old footage of Gator skating and carousing with recent interviews with such skateboarding icons as Tony Hawk and Stacey Peralta. It examines what drove a charming, rich, and famous bad-boy skater to kill.

"Super Sucker" is a hilarious comedy about rival door-to-door vacuum cleaner sales teams. In addition to writing and directing, Jeff Daniels, once again, the underdog heads up his team of misfits as Fred Barlow. Barlow meets Howard Butterworth, played by fellow Michigan native and Purple Rose Theatre (a repertory theatre founded by Daniels) alumnus Matt Letscher ('Good Morning Miami'). The two, with the help of Purple Rose Theatre veterans Leonard (Guy Sanville), Rhonda (Sandra Birch), Shelby (John Seibert) and Darlene (Kate Peckham) team up against Barlow's cross-town rival, and nemesis, Winslow Schnaebelt. Schnaebelt, played by Harve Presnell is the razzle-dazzle red-suited competitor who will do anything to undermine Barlow. Barlow and Schnaebelt battle for territory and survival in a ‘winner takes all' contest.

In director Antoine Fuqua's new action-adventure film, Bruce Willis stars as Lt. A.K. Waters, the loyal veteran officer of a Navy S.E.A.L unit. When he's sent into the heart of Africa, the usually hard-bitten Waters finds himself deeply conflicted at having to choose between following orders and the dictates of his own conscience. Though a fictionalization, Tears of the Sun deals with the gritty realism of human conflict as Lt. Waters travels to war-torn central Africa to rescue Dr. Lena Kendricks (Monica Bellucci), a U.S. citizen who runs a mission in the countryside. But when Lt. Waters arrives Dr. Kendricks refuses to abandon the refugees under her care. She implores Waters to escort them on a dangerous trek through the dense jungle to the nearby border. During the journey the S.E.A.L.s find themselves the unwitting guardians of a man sought by the rebel militia. This further endangers their already hazardous mission, but all the while strengthening Waters' resolve to protect Lena and the refugees, and to deliver them safely across the border.

A revisiting, some 15 years later, of the principal characters of Denys Arcand's 1986 comedy drama film, "The Decline of the American Empire". Rémy, now divorced and in his early fifties, is hospitalized. His ex-wife, Louise, asks their son Sébastien to come home from London where he now lives. Sébastien hesitates; he and his father haven't had much to say to one another for years now. He relents, however, and flies to Montreal to help his mother and support his father. As soon as he arrives, Sébastien moves heaven and earth, brings his contacts into play and disrupts the system in every way possible to ease the ordeal that awaits Rémy. Around his father's bedside, Sébastien also reunites the merry band of folk who were all players in Rémy's complicated past: relatives, friends and former mistresses.

This ensemble drama portraits the life of several dancers of a Chicago troupe, focusing on a young dancer who's on the verge of becoming a principal dancer, but finds herself distracted by other interests.

Posey plays a district attorney in New York investigating a series of unexplained deaths in the gay community. As she digs deeper, she discovers some shocking facts behind the cases.