John Malkovich

John Malkovich stars in director Steve Jacobs' adaptation of J.M. Coetzee's Booker Prize-winning novel concerning a Cape Town whose flight from scandal leads him into a direct confrontation with the lingering demons of apartheid. Fastidious Cape Town college professor David Lurie (Malkovich) may see himself as somewhat impervious, though he's about to bring about his own downfall due to a selfish and foolhardy relationship with a student who isn't afraid to drag their clandestine affair screaming into the light. When controversy erupts on campus as a result of the affair, David beats a hasty retreat into the countryside in order to lie low on his daughter Lucy (Jessica Haines)' farm in the Eastern Cape. David fears for his daughter's isolation, fears that are soon confirmed when father and daughter are violently attacked by three black youth. In the aftermath of the horrific siege, David is deeply shaken to learn that one of their assailants is in fact a relative of trusted worker Petrus (Eriq Ebouaney), who lives peacefully alongside Lucy in the South African brush, and has even begun constructing a home at the edge of her property. Can these people somehow find grace in a country that's still struggling with its tragic history, or is that history destined to repeat itself forever into the future? ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A CIA agent who is currently in the process of writing a book loses the disc containing his only manuscript in this comedic tale of espionage that reunites filmmaking duo Joel and Ethan Coen with Intolerable Cruelty and O Brother, Where Art Thou? star George Clooney. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Abducted by two men and forced into child prostitution when she was just eight years old, a homeless San Diego street teen is finally reunited with her family only to find that the traumas of the past may have scarred her for life. Leslie (Ryan Simpkins) was walking to school when her neighbors Alex (Tom Arnold) and Frank (Kevin Zegers) pulled up alongside her and asked for help finding their missing dog. After scouring the neighborhood with the young girl to no avail, the men offer Leslie a ride to school so she won't be late for school. Along the way, the men tell Leslie that they work for her father. After school, Leslie is surprised to find the two men waiting to drive her home. Claiming that her parents have been called away on urgent business, Alex and Frank coerce Leslie into the car and give her a drink. Later, after dozing off in the backseat, Leslie awakens in a tiny bedroom with eight year-old Donnie. Like Leslie, Donnie had been drugged and kidnapped. Donnie is led to believe that his parents have sold him for drugs, while Leslie is told that her parents want nothing to do with her anymore. Now, as the two innocent children are forced into prostitution, they use their imaginations to escape into a wondrous world of light where anything is possible.

Years later, Leslie and Donnie are struggling to rebuild their lives on the streets of San Diego. Donnie is deeply in love with Leslie, but Leslie's perception of love has been completely destroyed by her harrowing experience. One day, Leslie walks into a children's shelter and begins the painful process of reconnecting with the past. Though she is soon reunited with her parents, everything is different now and it gradually becomes apparent that any hope she had for a normal life evaporated the fateful day she placed her trust in two monstrous strangers. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Raúl Ruiz's Klimt uses an amorphous, nonchronological narrative to cinematize events from the life of one of the 20th century's most profound artists: the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt (here portrayed by John Malkovich). Ruiz begins with Klimt's painful death from syphilis, and spends the remainder of the film transitioning, loosely and freely, between episodes that befell the painter. The film pays particularly strong attention to the artist's proclivity for scandalizing the European upper crust with overtly erotic subject matter and presentation, and his many affairs -- notably a lengthy one with his perpetual inspiration, Lea de Castro (Saffron Burrows). Throughout Klimt's life, a figure known as the Secretary (Stephen Dillane) comes and goes, who is actually a product of his fevered imagination -- and with whom the painter debates continually about the function of art in contemporary Western civilization, and the relevance of the artist. This enables Ruiz to create both a biographical sketch and a philosophical treatise. Visually, Ruiz and director of photography Ricardo Aronovich make the ambitious decision to recreate Klimt's style of painting on a cinematographic plane.

Unfortunately, difficulty befell this picture from the beginning, when the director (for some unascertainable reason) opted to draft the initial script in French, have it translated into German, and then have the German draft translated into English and revised by author Gilbert Adair -- rendering the dialogue stilted and unconvincing. Complications also arose on the distribution end. Still infuriated by the distributive mutilation that befell his previous film, the whopping Time Regained (and doubtless concerned that this might happen again), Ruiz pliantly struck a bargain with distributors for Klimt. He trimmed his original, 135-minute "director's cut" down to a 96-minute "producer's cut" for general consumption, which rendered much of the material less fluid and coherent. Both versions screened at the 2006 Rotterdam Film Festival. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Filmmaker Terry Zwigoff and comic artist and screenwriter Daniel Clowes, who collaborated for the acclaimed 2001 comedy-drama Ghost World, team up once again for this offbeat satire. Jerome (Max Minghella) is an aspiring artist who arrives at a prestigious East Coast art institute to study. While Jerome enjoys daydreams of becoming the best-respected painter on Earth and winning the hearts of his female classmates, he soon learns the sad truth -- his "cool artist" act is old hat in the big city, and as he's surrounded by every art school cliché on Earth, practically nothing about him stands out. Determined to be recognized whatever the consequences, Jerome maps out a bizarre plan to become famous that has some unexpected consequences. Loosely adapted from a story in Clowes' comic book Eightball, Art School Confidential also stars John Malkovich, Jim Broadbent, Anjelica Huston, and Sophia Myles. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Douglas Adams' oft-adapted tale of an normal guy making his way through the universe (it's already been presented as a novel, a radio serial, a television series, and a comic book) finally makes its way to the big screen in this endearingly goofy sci-fi comedy. Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) is a very ordinary man who is having a truly unusual day -- after discovering that one of his best friends, Ford Prefect (Mos Def), is actually an alien, Ford tells him that the planet Earth is going to be destroyed so that otherworldly forces can make room for construction of a hyperspace bypass. Since Arthur accidentally saved Ford's life years ago, Ford does him a favor -- he first gets him a ride on a spaceship passing by, and then presents him with a guidebook that will tell a beginner everything he needs to know as he hitchhikes through outer space. Along the way, Arthur encounters such interstellar notables as sleazy Galaxy president Zaphod Beebelbrox (Sam Rockwell), the girl of his dreams Tricia McMillan (Zooey Deschanel), perpetually glum robot Marvin (voice of Alan Rickman), interplanetary construction magnate Slartibartfast (Bill Nighy), and cult leader Humma Kavula (John Malkovich). The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was the first feature film for Garth Jennings, previously best known for his work in television commercials and music videos; he was recommended to the producers by director Spike Jonze after Jonze had to turn down an offer to head up the project. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The down-and-dirty side of building management in pre-gentrification Manhattan sets the stage for this dark comedy. It's 1981, and Joe Peltz (David Krumholtz) runs a newsstand in New York City, where he has recently married Annabelle (Clara Bellar), an exotic dancer from France who isn't in love with Joe but asked for his hand so she could get a Green Card. When Annabelle discovers she's pregnant, the couple decides they need a larger apartment, and Joe finds a flat in the East Village that's on the same block where his great-great-grandparents lived when they first came to America. However, the neighborhood is decaying and ridden with crime, and when Joe and Annabelle move into their new apartment, he's immediately drafted onto the building's co-op board, where he has to deal with a variety of eccentrics of various stripes and must often sleep in the lobby armed with a baseball bat to ward off junkies and burglars. But by far his biggest problem is Carlos DeJesus (Paul Calderon), a bully who has been squatting in the building for eight years with his roughneck teenage son, Segundo (Jon Budinoff). Carlos sees no reason why he should start paying rent, and he's made enemies with practically everyone who lives in the building, wasting no time in adding Joe and Annabelle to that list. So when a gasoline fire guts Carlos' apartment, the question is not who wanted him out, but who actually had the nerve to start the blaze. Based on a novel by Joel Rose, Kill the Poor was written for the screen by Daniel Handler, best known as the author of the popular "Lemony Snicket" books. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Ray Johnson was an artist who followed a creative path so individual than even his closest friends were often hard put to explain just what he was up to. Once described as "the most famous unknown artist in America," Johnson was a legend partly for his work (in which he incorporated pop art images, collage, rubber stamps, and any number of other elements in a unique and groundbreaking manner), partly for his striking sense of humor (he once accepted an offer of 1,500 dollars for a piece after someone had offered to pay 2,000 dollars -- but cut 25 percent of the painting away before sending it to its new owner), and partly for his unique behavior (which many saw as a variety of performance art, including his suicide, after which he was found drowned in Sag Harbor -- with a treasure trove of unseen artwork carefully arranged in his home). How to Draw a Bunny (a title which refers to the cartoon rabbit that was Johnson's signature) is a documentary about Ray Johnson's always memorable life and death, and features video footage of the artist's performance pieces, as well as interviews with friends and contemporaries Roy Lichenstein, Christo, Chuck Close, and Billy Name; jazz great Max Roach composed the film's musical score. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The cool and mannered sociopath Tom Ripley returns to the big screen in director Liliana Cavani's 2002 crime thriller Ripley's Game, adapted from the 1974 novel by Patricia Highsmith. Living a life of luxury as an art dealer in northern Italy with his musician wife Luisa (Chiara Caselli), Ripley (John Malkovich) attends a party thrown by Jonathan Trevanny (Dougray Scott) and overhears the host making critical comments about Ripley's fashion sense. Enraged, Ripley immediately plots his retaliation for this slight, which comes via a reunion with his former business partner Reeves (Ray Winstone). Reeves seeks out Ripley's help in finding an unrecognized assassin to kill a Russian gangster, and Ripley suggests he talk to Trevanny -- whom Ripley knows has recently been diagnosed with leukemia and is also desperately strapped for cash. Trevanny reluctantly accepts the offer, in order to insure his family's security -- but is pressured into a repeat performance, which draws the ire of Ripley. The situation quickly spirals out of control to the point of drawing the attention -- and anger -- of the Russian mob, forcing Ripley to intervene. But the master criminal also develops a respect for his unwitting victim, forming an unlikely friendship under the most dire of circumstances. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide

The creative team behind Being John Malkovich -- director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman -- return with this equally offbeat comedy, in which Kaufman himself becomes the leading character. Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) is a gifted but profoundly neurotic screenwriter who, after the success of Being John Malkovich, has been hired to write a script adapted from the nonfiction book The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean. But while Charlie is obsessive about his work, he's also intensely paranoid, given to deep depression, socially inept, and terrified of talking to women, qualities which are making it difficult to get on with his work or hold on to his tenuous relationship with girlfriend Amelia (Cara Seymour). Meanwhile, Charlie's identical twin brother, Donald Kaufman (also played by Cage), has shown up to move in with his brother. Emotionally, Donald is Charlie's polar opposite -- a loudmouthed, over-confident, superficial party animal who has an easy way with the ladies. Donald has decided to follow his brother's footsteps and take up screenwriting as well, but embracing the dictates of screenwriting tutor Robert McKee (Brian Cox), he's cranking out a cliché-ridden serial-killer thriller when not busy making time with new girlfriend Caroline (Maggie Gyllenhaal). As Donald blazes through his screenplay, Charlie slowly picks away at his story, in which author Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep) chronicles John Laroche (Chris Cooper), a scruffy but devoted plant enthusiast who tries to save rare species of orchids by stealing them from their natural home in the swamps of Florida. As John and Susan become better acquainted, they find themselves attracted to one another; similarly, Charlie finds himself increasingly fascinated with Susan, and finds himself falling in love with her, even though he's only seen her photo on the dust jacket of her book. Charlie arranges to meet Susan, but is too nervous to confront her face to face, so he sends Donald (who has just scored a seven-figure deal for his script) in his place, while he attends a screenwriting seminar held by McKee. Adaptation also features Tilda Swinton, Judy Greer, and Stephen Tobolowsky. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide