Kate Mara Movies
American actress Kate Mara realized many an ingenue's dream in late 2005, when she nearly stole Ang Lee's film Brokeback Mountain. As Ennis Del Mar's (Heath Ledger) 19-year-old daughter, Alma Jr., who becomes one of the first familial recipients of Ennis' newfound ability to project love and affection, Mara walked away with one of the most powerful scenes in the picture. It marked a small contribution but a masterful one, and it made audiences take notice of her for the first time. Admirers of this scene may not have realized that Mara's onscreen history stretched back a decade prior to this.As the granddaughter of Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney and New York Giants progenitor Tim Mara, Kate Mara began life in Bedford, NY, and came of age in the Westchester neighborhood of the City of Angels. Mara debuted on-camera in her early teens, in a 1997 episode of Law & Order, and took her cinematic bow two years after that, as Kristin Scott Thomas' daughter in Sydney Pollack's romantic drama Random Hearts. The film struck audiences as laborious and unsatisfying, but great things lay in store for Mara -- and if she scraped bottom with the direct-to-video slasher flick Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005) and paid her dues with bit roles in such blockbuster series as CSI and 24, her extraordinary contribution to Brokeback (playing, ironically, the daughter of an actor only a few years older than the actress herself) paved the way for more covetable assignments.
Thanks in no small part to an inherited football passion, Mara particularly warmed to the part of Annie Cantrell in McG's sports drama We Are Marshall. Mara then appeared as Sarah Fenn, opposite Mark Wahlberg, in Antoine Fuqua's action saga Shooter (2007). She followed that up with a role in Machinist director Brad Anderson's tense thriller Transsiberian, alongside Ben Kingsley and Woody Harrelson. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- 1997
A bail bondsman is murdered, and the detectives subsequently haul in a likely perpetrator. Then, an offhand comment made by the suspect leads to irrefutable evidence that a disreputable attorney has been fixing cases for a price. Even more disturbing is the possibility that the attorney's accomplice is a "mole" working within the New York City legal system -- and maybe in the offices of the DA himself. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Two people who've known the pain of loss and the sting of betrayal are brought together under trying circumstances in this romantic drama. Dutch van den Broeck (Harrison Ford) is a police detective based in Washington D.C. whose wife works for an upscale department store; flying to Miami on business, she dies shortly after takeoff in one of the worst aviation disasters in the city's history. However, Dutch finds out that his wife wasn't actually traveling on business: Kay Chandler (Kristin Scott Thomas) is a prominent political figure whose husband was also killed in the crash, and Dutch and Kay discover that their spouses were on the plane together because they were having an affair. Random Hearts was directed by Sydney Pollack, who also worked with Harrison Ford on his previous film, Sabrina. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harrison Ford, Kristin Scott Thomas, (more)
Most 15-year-old boys are obsessed with the opposite sex, but this may be the only area in which Oscar Grubman (Aaron Stanford) could be called typical. An honor student at an exclusive prep school, Oscar is confident, keenly intelligent, speaks fluent French, and is well versed in the work of a number of French authors, particularly his favorite, Voltaire. Oscar seems to have gotten his fascination with French culture from his mother, who several years ago divorced his father Stanley (John Ritter), a college professor, and moved to Paris. Stanley has recently remarried, taking an attractive woman in her mid-forties, Eve (Sigourney Weaver), as his new wife. Oscar, however, senses that Eve isn't happy in their marriage; certain he can give Eve the affection (both physical and emotional) that she needs, Oscar begins waging a low-key but ardent campaign to seduce his step-mother over the course of Thanksgiving weekend, despite the fact a number of Oscar's female classmates have made no secret of their attraction to him. Oscar's efforts to bed Eve attract the attention of one of her close friends, Diane (Bebe Neuwirth), a smart and sexy chiropractor who also becomes the not-entirely-unwelcome focus of Oscar's romantic attentions. Shot using digital video equipment, Tadpole was enthusiastically received at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, where the film's director, Gary Winick, received the Director's Award. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sigourney Weaver, Aaron Stanford, (more)
A group of old friends realize that it's time to grow up when their reckless ways pave the path towards self-destruction. Oliver Anderson (John Hensley) has only spent one semester away at college when he returns to Kentucky to live with his wealthy, conservative parents. Once home, Oliver quickly reconnects with his former best friends Patrick (Joshua Harto) and Sorn (Billöah Greene) and the three pick up precisely where they left off. Their priorities are simple: get drunk, chase women, and raise hell. One night, during a particularly rowdy excursion, Oliver meets and falls for single mother Abby (Elizabeth Chase), who works as a stripper just to make ends meet. Meanwhile, Oliver's sister Jessica (Kate Mara) has just returned from boarding school. She's the center of attention at her surprise, sweet 16 bash when Patrick begins to see her in a different light than before. As Patrick and Jessica begin a flirtatious romance that will develop into a scandalous affair, Sorn splits his time between caring for his elderly grandmother and being a role model to his ten-year-old cousin. But Sorn has his fair share of secrets, too, because when he's not tackling family responsibilities or partying with his pals, he's out on the prowl for casual sex. When dysfunctional relationships clash with a devastating identity crisis, the gang realizes that they had better grow up before it's too late. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Hensley, Joshua Harto, (more)
Ang Lee's adaptation of E. Annie Proulx's story Brokeback Mountain stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger as young cowboys named Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar. Each of them is hired to corral sheep on the title location and they soon bond very closely. Their platonic relationship explodes into a physical one, but eventually the two are separated when their job comes to an end. Although the two follow different life paths -- one becoming a father of two and the other marrying into a successful business -- they have a reunion years later. Each is affected profoundly by the rekindling of their old feelings for each other. Those feelings lead each to consider what continuing their hidden relationship would cost them. The screenplay was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, (more)
A battle between real estate moguls and environmental activists takes an unexpected turn into affairs of the heart in this satiric update of Henry James' The Bostonians. Gavin Ransom (Noah Wyle) is a successful real estate developer who has made a tidy fortune putting up gated communities filled with expensive suburban homes all over California. Ransom intends to put up another such development in the as-yet-untouched hillsides of Northern California's Marin County, and, just as he's expected, a number of folks living nearby are objecting to the project, including his sister Olive (Illeana Douglas), an environmental activist who has sided with longtime resident Eileen Boatwright (Cloris Leachman) and progressive lawyer Sybil (Jane Lynch) against the development. Olive and her compatriots get some unexpected support when Zoe Tripp (Kate Mara), a modern folk singer and the daughter of old-school Marin County hippies (Keith Carradine and Valerie Perrine), takes an interest in their protests and begins singing out against Gavin's proposal with guitar in hand. Gavin unexpectedly finds himself growing powerfully infatuated with Zoe, and Olive, a long-closeted lesbian, is equally taken with her; consequently, as the siblings battle against building several dozen cookie-cutter mansions, they also wage a private war for the affections of the young songstress. The Californians was directed by Jonathan Parker, who when not busy with film projects is himself a California real estate developer. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
A true story of tragedy, hope, and resilience comes to the screen in this sports drama. Huntington, WV, is home to Marshall University, a school where college football is a way of life. Huntington is also a town that learned to deal with tragedy in the fall of 1970 when Marshall's "Thundering Herd" boarded an airliner to return home after a football game in North Carolina. The jet crashed into a hill due to bad weather, and 75 members of Marshall's football squad and athletic staff died that night. The accident dealt a crippling blow to the city of Huntington, as well as Marshall's faculty and student body, and university president Donald Dedmon (David Strathairn) considered abandoning the school's football program. But instead Coach Jack Lengyel (Matthew McConaughey) was recruited from Ohio's College of Wooster to rebuild Marshall's football program. Lengyel was not naïve about the task ahead of him, and working beside Red Dawson (Matthew Fox), an assistant coach who narrowly missed the doomed flight and was one of the program's only survivors, he came to understand his job was not just to put a team on the field, but help a college and a community heal their wounds from the tragic accident. Together Lengyel and Dawson turned a handful of rookies and second-string players into a competitive team who in 1971 showed the world what they could do in a legendary game against Marshall's rivals, Xavier University. Produced with the cooperation of Marshall University and filmed in part on their campus, We Are Marshall also stars Ian McShane, Anthony Mackie, and January Jones. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matthew McConaughey, Matthew Fox, (more)
When Earth is faced with certain destruction, an over-the-hill superhero is charged with the task of training four super-powered kids to harness their powers and save the planet in an out-of-this-world comedy adventure for the whole family from director Peter Hewitt. Tim Allen, Spencer Breslin, Courteney Cox, and Chevy Chase star in a film written by Adam Rifkin and David Berenbaum and based on Jason Lethcoe's comic book Zoom's Academy for the Super Gifted. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tim Allen, Courteney Cox Arquette, (more)
A top Marine sniper who previously abandoned the military after a routine mission gave way to tragedy is double-crossed by the government after reluctantly being pressured back into service in Training Day director Antoine Fuqua's adaptation of Stephen Hunter's novel Point of Impact. There was a time when Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg) was the best trigger-man in the military, but after growing disillusioned with the system, he disappeared without a trace. After being located at his remote mountain retreat by high-profile government officials following an extensive search, Swagger is coerced back into service in order to stop a determined assassin from taking out the President of the United States. In the process of carrying out his mission, however, Swagger suddenly realizes that he has been betrayed when he becomes the subject of a nationwide manhunt. Now wounded and desperate to reveal the culprits behind the conspiracy before it's too late, Swagger sets into motion a revenge plan that will send shockwaves rippling to some of the most powerful and corrupt leaders in the free world. Danny Glover, Rhona Mitra, and Ned Beatty co-star in this conspiracy-driven action thriller that asks what it truly means to serve one's country. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mark Wahlberg, Michael Peña, (more)
A teenager with a penchant for tall tales becomes tangled in his own complex web of deceit upon transferring to a new school in this cautionary comedy of little white lies starring Craig Kilborn, Carmen Electra, Teri Polo, and Ryan Pinkston. Sam Leonard (Pinkston) is the new kid at Bridgeport High. A few inches shorter and a little less athletic than his new classmates, Sam is sent knocking on the door of high-school guidance counselor after a particularly embarrassing locker room mishap. Upon determining that the only way to win over his skeptical new classmates is to convince them just how cool he truly is, the scheming student quickly begins to concoct a series of outlandish lies about his background. In Sam's new world, his father is a rock star and his mother a successful avant-garde artist. When Sam wakes up the following morning to discover that his vivid exaggerations have seemingly manifested themselves in reality, his priorities begin to shift as he discovers that there's much more to life than just being popular. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ryan Pinkston, Kate Mara, (more)
- 2008
- PG
Prolific actor/director Charles Martin Smith takes the helm for this lighthearted adventure comedy recounting the theft of the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey. Based on the memoirs of Ian Hamilton, Stone of Destiny follows the determined student's reckless quest to make the ultimate symbolic gesture for Scottish independence. Charlie Cox stars in a film featuring Robert Carlyle, Billy Boyd, Stephen McCole, and Kate Mara. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charlie Cox, Kate Mara, (more)
When an American couple (Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer) traveling from China to Moscow on the Trans-Siberian Railway meets an outwardly friendly couple (Eduardo Noriega and Kate Mara) traveling the same route, deception soon gives way to murder in The Machinist director Brad Anderson's tense tale of international intrigue. Ben Kingsley and Thomas Kretschmann co-star as a pair of Russian police officers striving to solve the case and stop the rising body count. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Woody Harrelson, Emily Mortimer, (more)
Jeff Bridges, Justin Timberlake, and Mary Steenburgen star in writer/director Michael Meredith's tale of a young man looking to reconnect with his long-lost father -- a famous athlete -- and bring him back to the bedside of his ailing mother. Lyle Lovett, Harry Dean Stanton, and Kate Mara fill out the supporting cast in the Perfect Weekend production. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeff Bridges, Justin Timberlake, (more)
