Scott Rudin Movies

Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon's novel of a murder mystery shadowed against the forced misplacement of Jewish settlers is brought to the screen in this Columbia Pictures' production adapted by the writing/directing team of Joel and Ethan Coen. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

Akira Kurosawa's High and Low is set for the remake game with this Mike Nichols-directed production for Miramax Films. David Mamet provides the screenplay for the modern noir about a business executive's crisis of conscious after putting up a ransom for a kidnapped boy he thought was his son, but turns out to be his driver's. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

Jack Black returns to the classroom with School of Rock 2: America Rocks, which follows his character Dewey Finn as he takes his summer-school students on a road trip in order to learn the country's musical roots. Richard Linklater returns to direct, with Mike White once again stepping into the writer's seat for the Paramount Pictures production. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

Ben Stiller falls for his brother's assistant (Greta Gerwig) while suffering from a midlife crisis in Noah Baumbach's (The Squid and the Whale) latest comedy drama. Scott Rudin produces the Focus Features production, with Rhys Ifans, Brie Larson, and Juno Temple heading up the rest of the cast. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

An aged, divorced mother becomes "the other woman" in her ex-husband's life when the pair enters into an unexpected affair during an out-of-town trip. Jane (Meryl Streep) has been divorced from Jake (Alec Baldwin) for a decade. The mother of three grown children, she owns a successful Santa Barbara bakery/restaurant and maintains a friendly relationship with Jake, who has since been remarried to the much younger Agness (Lake Bell). Jane and Jake are attending their son's college graduation when they agree to an innocent meal together. Before long a simple dinner date has erupted into an all-out affair, and when architect Adam (Steve Martin) falls for Jane, he realizes he's been drawn into a most peculiar love triangle. Is love sweeter the second time around, or should Jane and Jake just be happy with what they had, and finally move on with their lives? ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A wily fox uses his formidable cunning to outsmart three feeble-minded farmers, who resort to extreme tactics to protect their chickens in director Wes Anderson's animated adaptation of the popular Roald Dahl children's book. For 12 years, Mr. and Mrs. Fox (voices of George Clooney and Meryl Streep) have lived a peaceful life in the wilderness with their son, Ash (voice of Jason Schwartzman). Shortly after their young nephew Kristofferson (voice of Eric Anderson) arrives for a visit, Mr. Fox's long-suppressed animal instincts begin to take over and the faithful family man resorts back to his old ways as a cunning chicken thief, endangering not only his family but the entire animal community as well. When evil farmers Boggis, Bunce, and Bean force the animals underground in a desperate attempt to capture the audacious Mr. Fox, dwindling food supplies force the frightened animals to band together in one last attempt to fight for the land that is rightfully theirs. Bill Murray, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe, and Owen Wilson provide additional voices. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Titanic shipmates Kathy Bates, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Kate Winslet step onboard for director Sam Mendes' tale of suburban malaise in 1950s-era Connecticut. Adapted from the classic 1961 novel by author Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road tells the tale of a young Connecticut couple whose once-idealistic relationship steadily deteriorates into a ceaseless cycle of petty jealousy and bickering as they strive to retain their independence in the conformity-obsessed world of picket fences and perfectly manicured lawns. Ever since they first met, Frank (DiCaprio) and April (Winslet) saw themselves as special and different. They strive to form their relationship around higher ideals, though upon moving into their new home on Revolutionary Road, the defiant couple pledges never to be confined by the social conventions of the era. As time passes, however, Frank and April gradually become the very thing that they both feared most -- a typical suburban family complete with abandoned dreams and faded hopes. Frank loses his nerve after taking a comfortable job with a reliable salary, and April morphs into an unsatisfied homemaker desperate for passion and excitement. But April's independent spirit hasn't been suffocated just yet, and when she hatches a plan to head for Paris, her need to escape at all costs stands in direct contrast to Frank's desire to hold on to what they already have. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

When the principal (Meryl Streep) of a Bronx Catholic High School accuses a popular priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) of pedophilia, a young nun caught in between the feuding pair becomes hopelessly swept up in the ensuing controversy. 1964, St. Nicholas, the Bronx: The winds of change are sweeping through this tight-knit religious community, and charismatic priest Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is doing his best to adapt by revisiting the school's notoriously strict disciplinary practices. Unfortunately Father Flynn's progressive ideas stand in stark contrast to the longstanding beliefs of Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep), the iron-willed principal, who believes that an oppressive environment of punishment and fear is the only way to keep the student body in line. Suddenly into this tempestuous environment appears young Donald Miller, St. Nicholas' first black student. When hopeful innocent Sister James (Amy Adams) reluctantly reveals to Sister Beauvier that Father Flynn and Donald have been spending an unusual amount of time together in the church rectory, the unrelentingly righteous headmistress begins a merciless crusade to reveal the beloved clergyman as a lecherous child molester and have him permanently expunged from the school. Yet despite her moral certainty that Father Flynn has committed such an unspeakable transgression, Sister Beauvier has not a shred of actual evidence to back up her audacious claim. Now, as Sister Beauvier and Father Flynn enter into an epic battle of wills, the shock waves set into motion by their explosive confrontation threaten to destroy one man's reputation and tear apart the entire surrounding community. John Patrick Shanley adapted his own play for the screen under the guidance of producer Scott Rudin (The Queen, Notes on a Scandal). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes star in The Hours director Stephen Daldry's haunting period drama concerning the relationship between a 15-year-old German boy and a mysterious woman twice his age, and the way that it grows doubly complex when the man reencounters the woman years later and discovers a shocking truth about her past. Based on author Bernhard Schlink's best-selling novel of the same name, the film opens on the character of Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes) in middle age -- cold, remote, and emotionally withdrawn. It then moves back in time to 1950s Berlin, where ailing teenager Michael (now played by David Kross) has fallen ill with fever, and is discovered in the street by Hanna, a woman in her thirties. After Michael recovers, the two immediately lapse into a torrid affair and Michael falls prey to the confusion of his own burgeoning sexuality. Their liaisons are often marked by Hanna's request that Michael read to her (hence the title). Later, when Michael returns to Hanna's flat and finds it deserted, her absence becomes an emotional blow for which he is completely unprepared, and indeed, scarred for life. The film then moves forward in time by eight years. Michael -- now a law student -- walks into a courtroom and comes across Hanna, one of a series of Nazi prison guards being tried for murderous war crimes during World War II. As he watches her on the witness stand, memories of their past experiences together bring him to the point of realization concerning a startling, long-buried truth about Hanna -- and Michael knows that if he divulges this information, it could modify the prison sentence handed out and dramatically alter her fate. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson steps outside his contemporary world of dysfunctional Angelenos to explore a very different dysfunctional man -- an oil pioneer whose trailblazing spirit is equaled only by his murderous ambition. There Will Be Blood is Anderson's loose adaptation of the novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair, and it focuses its attentions on Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), a miner who happens upon black gold during a disastrous excavation that ends in a broken leg. Pulling himself up from the bowels of the earth, both literally and metaphorically, Plainview embarks on a systematic and steadfast approach to mastering the oil business. Using plain-spoken and straightforward language, Plainview launches a campaign to convince small-town property owners they should let him drill their land. Without him, they won't have the equipment to access the profit beneath their feet. He builds an empire this way -- and gradually becomes obsessed with the intrinsic value of power, growing increasingly irascible and paranoid in the process. Plainview meets his match in Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), a teenage preacher in the small California town of Little Boston, whose brother tipped Plainview off to the town's plentiful supply of untapped oil. To fully reap the benefits of the land, Plainview must suffer the opposing whims of this "prophet," whose legitimacy is questionable at best. And it's unclear if either man is prepared to pay the humiliating price the other wants to exact. There Will Be Blood features an anachronistic soundtrack by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, and it was shot in the same town where the James Dean epic Giant was filmed. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide

Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited stars Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, and Adrien Brody as three brothers who, at the insistence of the oldest, take a train ride through India together in order to strengthen their bond. Even though the vacation goes wrong in ways they do not anticipate, the strangeness of their setting and some revealing honesty produces some surprising changes between them all. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

When a Vietnam veteran discovers two million dollars while wandering through the aftermath of a Texas drug deal gone horribly awry, his decision to abscond with the cash sets off a violent chain reaction in a stripped-down crime drama from Joel and Ethan Coen. Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) has just stumbled into the find of a lifetime. Upon discovering a bullet-strewn pickup truck surrounded by the corpses of dead bodyguards, Moss uncovers two million dollars in cash and a substantial load of heroin stashed in the back of the vehicle. Later, as an enigmatic killer who determines the fate of his victims with the flip of a coin sets out in pursuit of Moss, the disillusioned Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) struggles to contain the rapidly escalating violence that seems to be consuming his once-peaceful Lone Star State town. Woody Harrelson, Javier Bardem, and Kelly MacDonald co-star in a distinctly American crime story that explores timeless biblical themes in a contemporary Southwestern setting. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide