Hammerin' Hank Greenberg's career during the Golden Age of Baseball contains all the makings of a true American success story. As an extraordinary ball player, whose accomplishments rivaled those of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, Greenberg's career was an inspiration to all and captured the headlines and admiration of sportswriters and fans alike. This is the humorous and nostalgic true story of how he became a beacon of hope as a true American hero.
Bond, James Bond. Perhaps the greatest fictional cinema icon ever, he first appeared on the big screen in 1962 in Dr. No, and has remained the most powerful action hero ever since. The secret to his success is his adaptability. No matter what tight spot he finds himself, he always appears to be suave, sophisticated and cool.
Based on a true story, Net Worth blows the lid off the image of the "golden era" of the National Hockey League, to reveal the bloody battles and hard knocks dealt the players off the ice. Ted Lindsay, Detroit Red Wings captain and nine time National Hockey League All-Star put up the fight of his life after being refused a request for a modest raise and seeing a former teammate reduced to living in his car. Lindsay headed a small group of men who risked their careers to take on the czars of the NHL by organizing the first players' association.
In 19th century New Orleans a new class of colored people has arisen. They are creoles, a result of relations between African-Americans and wealthy European people. Children are born, there is love, but marriage is out of the question. Colored people are still not considered equal. Henriette Delille is a very religious creole. The time she has she spends on educating, care and helping out in church. On the day her father Jean-Baptiste leaves her mother Pouponne to marry a white woman, Henriette is supposed to meet her arranged future 'caretaker' Paul Cartier.
Are all relationships based on lies? Jake Bianski runs a fish market in north Boston, surrounded by Italians. For years, he's carried a torch for Isabella, an ex-girlfriend now married with three children and no interest in Jake. Yet, he tells everyone she's his girlfriend, including Marisa, a veterinarian his employees set him up with at the Italian singles club. She's interested in him until he tells her about his girlfriend, then he's persistent in asking her to be his friend.
There's no rule against rock anthems from the 1970s in the soundtrack for a movie about a medieval jousting champion, but if you're going to attempt such jarring anachronisms, you'd better establish acceptable ground rules. Writer-director Brian Helgeland does precisely that in A Knight's Tale and pulls off this trick with such giddy aplomb that you can't help but play along.
On January 20, 1942, with the tide of war turning in favor of the Allies, a small group of SS officers, government ministers, and Nazi officials met near Berlin to decide the fate of Europe's Jews. Based on the only surviving record of that meeting, Conspiracy is a powerful combination of historical reconstruction and speculation that attempts to offer new insights into a pivotal moment in history. The cast does a marvelous job of fleshing out the documentary evidence to create convincing characters.
Ah, Barbra. Of all her onscreen personas, she sparkles in none as she does in her role as 1930s comedian Fanny Brice in the musical Funny Girl. Portraying the life of this star of stage and radio, Brice preens and prances and sings, captivating her audience both onscreen and off. Fanny Brice started life on the Lower East Side of New York, the daughter of a Jewish saloon owner. Not the prettiest girl around, Brice still managed to quickly rise to stardom as a performer in the Ziegfield Follies.
Scottish Ewan McGregor and Irish Colin Farrell play two Cockney brothers who get in over their heads when a wealthy relative asks for a favor. Woody Allen's sleek thriller Cassandra's Dream begins in innocent times: Ian (McGregor) and Terry (Farrell) buy a sailboat and name it Cassandra's Dream. But soon Terry falls afoul of gambling debts and Ian falls head over heels for a sultry actress who doesn't take him seriously, leading them to ask their uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) for money, which he's happy to give them--if they'll get rid of a man who's going to testify against him.
One of Woody Allen's best films of the '90s, Bullets over Broadway stars John Cusack as a virtual Woody surrogate, a neurotic, Jazz Age writer whose new play sounds wooden and unrealistic to a low-level mobster (Chazz Palminteri) assigned to watch over his boss's actress-girlfriend (Jennifer Tilly). When the hood starts contributing better story ideas and dialogue than what the official playwright can conjure, questions (not unlike those of Amadeus) about the price we pay to make art at the expense of other responsibilities are intriguingly raised.
