2013 Best Reviewed Movies (Page #20)

At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, as India proclaims independence from Great Britain, two newborn babies are switched by a nurse in a Bombay hospital. Saleem Sinai, the illegitimate son of a poor woman, and Shiva, the offspring of a wealthy couple, are fated to live the destiny meant for each other. Their lives become mysteriously intertwined and are inextricably linked to India's whirlwind journey of triumphs and disasters.

Linda Sinclair (Julianne Moore) is a forty-year-old unmarried high school English teacher in the small town of Kingston, Pennsylvania. She shares a small apartment with two Siamese cats and her rich collection of great literature. She maintains no close personal relationships aside from those she has with her favorite authors and stories. Her life is far less complicated than the dramas she devours on the page, and she likes it that way.

But Linda’s simple life turns an unexpected page when former star pupil Jason Sherwood (Michael Angarano) returns to Kingston after trying to make it as a playwright in New York. Now in his 20s, Jason is on the verge of abandoning art, pressured by his overbearing father, Dr. Tom Sherwood (Greg Kinnear), to face reality and go to law school. Linda can’t stand the thought of Jason giving up on his dreams so she decides to mount his play – a dark, angst-ridden, ambitious work – as a Kingston High School production, with flamboyant drama teacher Carl Kapinas (Nathan Lane) directing.

As Linda, now well out of her normal comfort zone, takes further risks in life and love, the stage is set for highly comic downfall. With the play, her reputation, and her teaching career on the line, Linda finds an unlikely ally in herself. Amidst the ruins of her formerly perfect life, can she find a way to her own unique storybook ending?

The story of affable underachiever David Wozniak, whose mundane life is turned upside down when he finds out that he fathered 533 children through sperm donations he made twenty years earlier. In debt to the mob, rejected by his pregnant girlfriend, things couldn't look worse for David when he is hit with a lawsuit from 142 of the 533 twenty-somethings who want to know the identity of the donor. As David struggles to decide whether or not he should reveal his true identity, he embarks on a journey that leads him to discover not only his true self but the father he could become as well.

Parker (Jason Statham) is a professional thief who lives by a personal code of ethics: Don’t steal from people who can’t afford it and don’t hurt people who don’t deserve it. But on his latest heist, his crew double crosses him, steals his stash, and leaves him for dead. Determined to make sure they regret it, Parker tracks them to PalmBeach, playground of the rich and famous, where the crew is planning their biggest heist ever. Donning the disguise of a rich Texan, Parker takes on an unlikely partner, Leslie (Jennifer Lopez), a savvy insider, who’s short on cash, but big on looks, smarts and ambition. Together, they devise a plan to hijack the score, take everyone down and get away clean.

Chile has it all: gorgeous landscapes, smokin’- hot women, cool dudes, great wine, and the wildest parties. For a hapless American tourist, nicknamed Gringo (Eli Roth) by his two Chilean pals Ariel (Ariel Levy) and Pollo (Nicolás Martínez), the trip has been heaven on earth — except that he just can’t hook up with the ladies. Gringo’s luck seems to change when the group meets a trio of babes — Russian model Irina (Natasha Yarovenko), non-stop party girl Kylie (Lorenza Izzo) and her serious sister Monica (Andrea Osvárt) — who agree to accompany them on a trip to the coastal town of Valparaíso. The new friends are having the best of times whooping it up in a dance club, until a violent earthquake brings the entire city down around them. With this one-time paradise now a landscape of death and destruction that’s seething with terror and panic, our unlucky heroes must run for their lives from looters, escaped convicts, and the inevitable aftershocks.

Follows the surprising detours we encounter on the road to happiness. Straight-laced Princeton University admissions officer Portia Nathan (Tina Fey) is caught off-guard when she makes a recruiting visit to an alternative high school overseen by her former college classmate, the free-wheeling John Pressman (Paul Rudd). Pressman has surmised that Jeremiah (Nat Wolff), his gifted yet very unconventional student, might well be the son that Portia secretly gave up for adoption many years ago. Soon, Portia finds herself bending the rules for Jeremiah, putting at risk the life she thought she always wanted -- but in the process finding her way to a surprising and exhilarating life and romance she never dreamed of having.

In an America wracked by crime and overcrowded prisons, the government has sanctioned an annual 12-hour period in which any and all criminal activity—including murder—becomes legal. The police can’t be called. Hospitals suspend help. It’s one night when the citizenry regulates itself without thought of punishment. On this night plagued by violence and an epidemic of crime, one family wrestles with the decision of who they will become when a stranger comes knocking.

When an intruder breaks into James Sandin’s (Ethan Hawke) gated community during the yearly lockdown, he begins a sequence of events that threatens to tear a family apart. Now, it is up to James, his wife, Mary (Lena Headey), and their kids to make it through the night without turning into the monsters from whom they hide.

Follows the story of an advertising executive (Josh Brolin) who is abruptly kidnapped and held hostage for 20 years in solitary confinement. When he is inexplicably released, he embarks on an obsessive mission to discover who orchestrated his bizarre and torturous punishment only to find he is still trapped in a web of conspiracy and torment.

The famed horror team of director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell reunite with the original cast of Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Lin Shaye, Barbara Hershey and Ty Simpkins in Insidious: Chapter 2, a terrifying sequel to the acclaimed horror film, which follows the haunted Lambert family as they seek to uncover the mysterious childhood secret that has left them dangerously connected to the spirit world.

Superstar magicians Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carell) and Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi) have ruled the Las Vegas strip for years, raking in millions with illusions as big as Burt’s growing ego. But lately the duo’s greatest deception is their public friendship, while secretly they’ve grown to loathe each other. Facing cutthroat competition from guerilla street magician Steve Gray (Jim Carrey), whose cult following surges with each outrageous stunt, even their show looks stale. But there’s still a chance Burt and Anton can save the act—both onstage and off—if Burt can get back in touch with what made him love magic in the first place.

Wade Walker is eager to propose to his girlfriend, Grace Peeples. But after a year of living together, the beautiful, successful Grace is still cagey about introducing average guy Wade to her ambitious, upper crust family. So when Grace leaves for an annual reunion at her parents’ swanky Sag Harbor compound, Wade decides to crash the gathering, charm his soon-to-be in-laws and slip a ring on Grace’s finger. However Wade's plans go hilariously awry when he meets the high-powered, seemingly picture-perfect family who’ll do whatever it takes to keep up appearances. Wade soon finds himself caught in a web of white lies and comic dysfunction, and realizes that his only hope of ever marrying Grace means a take-no-prisoners face-off with Judge Peeples, Grace’s disapproving dad who won’t accept anything less than the very best for his favorite daughter.

Val is released from prison after serving twenty-eight years for refusing to give up one of his close criminal associates. His best friend Doc is there to pick him up, and the two soon re-team with another old pal, Hirsch. Their bond is as strong as ever, and the three reflect on freedom lost and gained, loyalties ebbed and flowed, and days of glory gone by. And despite their age, their capacity for mayhem is still very much alive and well - bullets fly as they make a hilariously valiant effort to compensate for the decades of crime, drugs and sex they've missed. But one of the friends is keeping a dangerous secret- he's been put in an impossible quandary by a former mob boss, and his time to find an acceptable alternative is running out. As the sun rises on the guys' legendary reunion, their position becomes more and more desperate and they finally confront their past once and for all.