Scott Rudin Movies

An aging pair of veteran English actors whose success never quite took hold finds their quiet existence suddenly interrupted by the arrival of one of the men's precocious grandnieces in director Roger Michell's affectionate comedy drama. Maurice (Peter O'Toole) and Ian (Leslie Phillips) may still land the occasional paying gig -- Maurice has recently been cast as a corpse in a popular television drama -- but for the most part, their days are spent cataloging their ailments over meals at their favorite café. Though the arrival of Ian's grandniece Jessie doesn't immediately set so well with her curmudgeonly great uncle, Maurice takes an immediate liking to the girl, and makes it a mission to expose the youngster to some of the bustling capitol's best-known sights. As the newly invigorated septuagenarian does his best to teach the wide-eyed youngster a thing or two about life, he soon comes to realize just how little he truly knows about the subject at such a late point in life. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Lust, jealousy, and revenge come cloaked in the guise of friendship in this psychological drama. Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) is a history teacher at a high school in London; while elderly Barbara is very bright, she's also severe and domineering, with a strong personality that tends to put people off. Barbara also takes a voyeuristic delight in recording the actions of those around her in her diary in the most minute detail. When Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), a bright and attractive woman in her mid-thirties, is hired as the school's new art teacher, Barbara believes she may have found someone worthy of her friendship, though she's soon disappointed to discover that Sheba has a husband and two children, a lifestyle that she finds offensively bourgeois. However, Barbara's obsessive interest in Sheba is rewarded when the younger teacher confesses that one of her students, Steven (Andrew Simpson), has developed an obviously sexual interest in her. However, in fact, Steven's crush on Sheba is hardly one-sided, and in time Barbara discover that the two have been making love on a regular basis for months. When circumstances turn Barbara against Sheba, she uses what she knows about the affair to destroy the life of her "friend." Based on the novel by Zoe Heller, Notes on a Scandal also stars Bill Nighy. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Two buddies are taken down different paths in life when one becomes a success and the other fails to grab the brass ring in this comedy drama. Erik (Espen Klouman-Hoiner) and Phillip (Anders Danielsen Lie) are close friends who have known each other since they were children. Erik and Phillip grew up sharing a passion for literature, particularly the work of novelist Sten Egil Dahl (Sigmund Sæverud) and they each dreamed of becoming writers themselves someday. Both Erik and Phillip completed their first novels in their early twenties, but while Phillip's book was accepted by a major publisher and became a best-seller, Erik's book instead earned a sheaf of rejection slips. The harsh glare of the celebrity lifestyle and his obsessive relationship with his girlfriend, Kari (Viktoria Winge), cause Phillip to suffer a nervous breakdown, and after a stay in a treatment facility he tries to resume his relationship with Kari and his friendship with Erik. Erik, meanwhile, is still struggling to join the ranks of the published, and his romance with Lillian (Silje Hagen) begins to fray as the frustrated would-be author spends more time with Phillip and his pretentious compatriots. Reprise received its North American premiere at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

M. Night Shyamalan, the creative mind behind The Sixth Sense and Signs, wrote and directed this characteristically atmospheric thriller. The rustic village of Covington is a small town in rural Pennsylvania that is home to 60 souls. The citizens of Covington lead a quiet and peaceful life, but not without an unusual caveat -- terrible creatures lurk just outside the borders of the village, and the people of Covington have reached an agreement of sorts with the beasts, in which they are allowed to go about their business as long as they never cross the village's boundaries. However, this precarious balance is upset when a headstrong young man, Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix), decides to find out what lies outside Covington, and unwittingly invites the wrath of the creatures upon the town. The Village also stars Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt, Adrien Brody, Judy Greer, and Bryce Dallas Howard; both Kirsten Dunst and Ashton Kutcher were at one time attached to the project, but both left the cast before filming began. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Patrick Marber's acclaimed stage drama about the romantic interactions of four people has been given a reverent screen adaptation by director and producer Mike Nichols. Dan (Jude Law) is a writer in London who wants to finish a novel, but in the meantime supports himself by writing obituaries. One day he chances upon Alice (Natalie Portman), a beautiful young American expatriate, working as a stripper, when he sees her get hit by a car. Alice immediately falls for Dan, and gives him her love without reservation. Dan is initially enchanted with Alice, and returns her affection, but while she inspires him to write his novel (based on her life), her neediness begins to wear on him. Anna (Julia Roberts) is a photographer who is hired to take a portrait of Dan for the dust jacket of his book; Dan is attracted to her easy confidence, and while the two of them flirt, Anna soon (inadvertently through Dan's playful machinations) meets Larry (Clive Owen), a dermatologist, and marries him. Dan can't get Anna out of his mind even though she's married, and the two become lovers, but Dan is frustrated by the fact that Anna is reluctant to leave Larry for him. Patrick Marber wrote the screenplay for this adaptation of Closer; it was the playwright's first feature-film credit. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Five years after achieving commercial and critical success with his film Three Kings, director and screenwriter David O. Russell returns to the more idiosyncratic territory of his earlier work with this intelligent and offbeat comedy. Bernard and Vivian Jaffe (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin) are a married couple who run an existential detective agency where they sift through the lives of their clients in order to discover the source of their angst. The Jaffes' latest client is Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman), an environmental activist who has a very large rock and a great deal on his mind; their study of Albert's problems lead Bernard and Vivian to Brad Stand (Jude Law), a public relations executive with a chain of successful variety stores, Huckabees. While publicly allying himself with Albert's environmental initiatives, behind the scenes Brad is running roughshod over responsible land management with little care for the consequences. When Brad learns he's being watched by the Jaffes, he hopes to co-opt them by hiring them himself; however, the plan has unexpected consequences when their questioning leads Brad's girlfriend, well-scrubbed model Dawn (Naomi Watts), into reassessing her life and relationships. Meanwhile, Albert finds himself joining forces with Tommy (Mark Wahlberg), a firefighter and fellow environmentalist who has been having second thoughts about Bernard and Vivian's ideas and methods after a long-term investigation and has since fallen under the spell of nihilist poet and philosopher Caterine Vauban (Isabelle Huppert). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The best-selling series of subversive children's books from author Lemony Snicket (aka Daniel Handler) come to the screen in this black comedy for the whole family (and how often do you get to see one of those?). The Baudelaire siblings -- gadget freak Violet (Emily Browning), bookworm Klaus (Liam Aiken), and baby Sunny (Kara Hoffman and Shelby Hoffman) -- were living a fairy-tale existence with their parents until they died in a fire that destroyed the family home. With few close relatives and a large fortune the children won't inherit until they reach adulthood, the Baudelaire children are left in the care of the peculiar Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), an out-of-work actor who would love nothing more than to get his hands on the kids' money. It doesn't take long for the children to figure out that Count Olaf is up to no good, and they try to steer clear of his various murderous schemes with the help of wildly paranoid Aunt Josephine (Meryl Streep) and snake-fancying Uncle Monty (Billy Connolly). Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events also features Catherine O'Hara, Timothy Spall, Cedric the Entertainer, and Luis Guzman; Jude Law narrates in the guise of author Snicket. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The world's least-employable heavy metal guitarist is entrusted with the minds of upstate New York's best and brightest in this fish-out-of-water comedy. Jack Black plays Dewey Finn, axe-bearer for a fitfully successful bar band determined to win a regional battle-of-the-bands competition. There's only one thing standing in their way: the self-indulgent solos and crowd-diving antics of their "embarrassing" lead guitarist. When his band votes him out in favor of a would-be rock god, Dewey has to make the rent somehow, and after intercepting a call for his substitute-teacher roomie Ned (Mike White), the pot-bellied slacker finds himself in front of a class of elite elementary school students. At a loss for a lesson plan, Dewey takes offense at the pre-teen prodigies' staid musical regimen and makes it his goal to preach them the gospel of The Who, Led Zeppelin, and AC/DC -- with the ulterior motive of getting them to compete against his former band for a cash prize. But no matter how willing his pupils, Dewey runs up against the consternation of the school's stern headmistress Principal Mullins (Joan Cusack), the battle-of-the-bands' promoter (Frank Whaley), and not least, his identity-deprived roomie Ned. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

Three women, separated by a span of nearly 80 years, find themselves weathering similar crises, all linked by a single work of literature in this film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Michael Cunningham. In 1923, Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) is attempting to start work on her novel Mrs. Dalloway, in which she chronicles one day in the life of a troubled woman. But Virginia has demons of her own, and she struggles to overcome the depression and suicidal impulses that have followed her throughout her life, as her husband Leonard (Stephen Dillane) ineffectually tries to help. In 1951, Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) is a housewife living in suburban Los Angeles, where she looks after her son Richie (Jack Rovello) and husband Dan (John C. Reilly). Laura is also an avid reader who is currently making her way through Mrs. Dalloway. The farther she gets into the novel, the more Laura discovers that it reflects a dissatisfaction she feels in her own life, and she finds herself pondering the notion of leaving her life behind. Finally, in 2000, Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep) is a literary editor who is caring for Richard Brown (Ed Harris), a former boyfriend and noted author, who is slowly losing his fight with AIDS. Clarissa is trying to arrange a party to celebrate the fact that Richard has won a prestigious literary award, but is getting little help from Richard's ex-lover, Louis (Jeff Daniels). As she labors to help Richard through another day, he wonders if his life is worth the unending struggle. The Hours also features Toni Collette, Miranda Richardson, Allison Janney, and Claire Danes. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Some cast and crew from NBC's highly acclaimed, little-seen series Freaks and Geeks reunite for this teen comedy that also marks the first starring role for Tom Hanks' son, Colin. The younger Hanks plays Shaun Brumder, a high schooler eager to propel himself out of the land of surf bums and ranch homes to which the film's title refers. He's had his sights set on Stanford ever since he read the works of professor Marcus Skinner (Kevin Kline), and his transcript is stellar enough to gain him admission. Shaun is understandably furious, then, when he receives a rejection letter in the mail; after some detective work on his part, he realizes that his flaky counselor (Lily Tomlin) mistakenly sent the university the wrong papers. It's up to him to get to Stanford within 24 hours to set the record straight -- literally -- and he enlists the help of his slacker brother Lance (Jack Black) to do so. Orange County co-stars Catharine O'Hara and John Lithgow as Shaun and Lance's slightly unhinged parents; the film was directed by Jake Kasdan and written by Mike White, both of whom contributed to several episodes of Freaks and Geeks. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

Comic actor Ben Stiller co-wrote, directed, and stars in this spoof of the fashion industry that began as a short skit for the 1996 VH1 Fashion Awards. Stiller is Derek Zoolander, an intellectually challenged but bone structure-blessed male model who's despondent after being eclipsed in popularity by an equally vacuous rival, Hansel (Owen Wilson). Upon his reluctant retirement, Derek is invited to a day spa by previously standoffish fashion designer Jacobim Mugatu (Will Ferrell), where the befuddled model is brainwashed by the mysterious Katinka (Milla Jovovich) into assassinating the prime minister of Malaysia. In addition to Stiller's real-life wife Christine Taylor, Zoolander co-stars his father Jerry Stiller, along with Jon Voight, David Duchovny, Andy Dick, and Fabio. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

This action drama puts a new spin on Shaft, one of the key "blaxploitation" films of the 1970s. John Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson), the namesake nephew of the legendary private eye (Richard Roundtree), is a street-smart police detective who with his partner Carmen Velez (Vanessa L. Williams) has been assigned to a racially motivated murder case, in which a black college student was killed in front of a restaurant by Walter Williams Jr. (Christian Bale), the sociopathic son of a New York construction tycoon, who then fled the country rather than face prosecution. Diane Palmieri (Toni Collette), a waitress on a smoke break, saw the murder, but she doesn't want to talk to the police. Two years later, Walter is forced to return to New York, but without Diane's testimony, the city doesn't have much of a case. Soon, Shaft, Walter Junior, and Walter Senior's goons are all looking for Diane, with Junior enlisting the help of Peoples Hernandez (Jeffrey Wright), a small-time drug dealer who will do anything to move into the big leagues. Shaft and Carmen find Diane, but discover that she had a good reason for being on the lam for the past two years. Amidst all this activity, John gets frequent advice from his uncle, with whom he ponders the idea of quitting the force and opening a detective agency. Shaft was directed by John Singleton, from a screenplay by Singleton, Richard Price, and Shane Salerno. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this drama, two U.S. Marines who stood side by side on the field of battle are reunited in a court of law. Attorney Hayes Hodges (Tommy Lee Jones) once aspired to a career as an officer, but a serious injury in Vietnam put an end to his military future, leaving him bitter and resentful. Col. Terry L. Childers (Samuel L. Jackson) fought alongside Hodges and once saved his life; when Childers is threatened with a court martial for ordering his troops to fire on civilians during a raid on an American embassy, Hodges is the only lawyer that he can trust, and the case gives Hodges a chance for revenge against the military system that he feels has wronged him. Rules of Engagement also features Kim Delaney, Ben Kingsley, Blair Underwood, and Anne Archer. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide