1: A white-hot juggernaut at 200 miles per hour! (segment “Death Proof”)
Plot Summary:
From cult movie directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez comes a unique film experience: a double-bill of thrillers that recall both filmmakers’ favorite exploitation films. “Grindhouse” (a downtown movie theater in disrepair since its glory days as a movie palace known for “grinding out” non-stop double-bill programs of B-movies) is presented as one full-length feature comprised of two individual films helmed separately by each director. Tarantino’s film, “Death Proof,” is a rip-roaring slasher flick where the killer pursues his victims with a car rather than a knife, while Rodriguez’s film “Planet Terror” shows us a view of the world in the midst of a zombie outbreak. The films are joined together by clever faux trailers that recall the ’50s exploitation drive-in classics.
Wealthy, brilliant, and meticulous Ted Crawford, a structural engineer in Los Angeles, shoots his wife and entraps her lover. He signs a confession; at the arraignment, he asserts his rights to represent himself and asks the court to move immediately to trial. The prosecutor is Willy Beachum, a hotshot who’s soon to join a fancy civil-law firm, told by everyone it’s an open and shut case. Crawford sees Beachum’s weakness, the hairline fracture of his character: Willy’s a winner. The engineer sets in motion a clockwork crime with all the objects moving in predictable ways.
Brenda wears comfortable, cotton panties; Nikki wears shear, lacy thongs. Richard Cooper is in the middle, with a good job in Manhattan, a house in the suburbs, and two cute children with Brenda, his intelligent, good-looking wife, who’s a teacher. But there’s no sex in this seven-year marriage, so Richard’s bored. Into the mix walks Nikki, a sexy, sassy, single friend he’s not seen in years. Nikki has problems and finds a reason to stop at his office every day. He tries to help, they have some fun, and he doesn’t mention Nikki to Brenda. His work and reputation suffer. Is he about to scratch the seven year itch? What choices does Richard have?
1: She Always Thought She Was Somebody… And She Was
Plot Summary:
In morte veritas. Georgia Byrd clerks at a New Orleans department store. She defers pleasure: cooks gourmet meals, eats Lean Cuisine; likes a co-worker in silence; has savings, but hasn’t left Louisiana. All that changes when an MRI discloses she has three weeks to live. She cashes her savings and heads to Europe’s Grandhotel Pupp, where Chef Didier presides. She checks into the Presidential Suite, orders everything on the menu, snowboards, and comes to the attention of the chef and the hotel’s powerful American guests: a Congressman, a Senator, a retail magnate, and his mistress. She has nothing to lose, so she tells them what she thinks. Will the truth set them free?
Echoes of “Madame Bovary” in the American suburbs. Sarah’s in a loveless marriage, long days with her young daughter at the park and the pool, wanting more. Brad is a househusband, married to a flinty documentary filmmaker. Ronnie is just out of prison - two years for indecent exposure - living with his mother; Larry is a retired cop, fixated on driving Ronnie away. Sarah and Brad connect, a respite of adult companionship at the pool. Ronnie and Larry have their demons. Brad should be studying for the bar; Larry misses his job; Ronnie’s mom thinks he needs a girlfriend. Sarah longs to refuse to be trapped in an unhappy life. Where can these tangled paths lead?
The patriarch (Jeff Daniels) of an eccentric Brooklyn family claims to once have been a great novelist, but he has settled into a teaching job. When his wife (Laura Linney) discovers a writing talent of her own, jealousy divides the family, leaving two teenage sons to forge new relationships with their parents. Linney’s character begins dating her younger son’s tennis coach. Meanwhile, Daniels’ character has an affair with the student his older son is pursuing.
The Human Stain is the story of Coleman Silk (Hopkins), a classics professor with a terrible secret that is about to shatter his life in a small New England town. When his affair with a young troubled janitor (Kidman) is uncovered, the secret Silk had harbored for over fifty years from his wife, his children and colleague, writer Nathan Zuckerman, fast explodes in a conflagration of devastating consequences. It is Zuckerman who stumbles upon Silk’s secret and sets out to reconstruct the unknown biography of this eminent, upright man, esteemed as an educator for nearly all his life, and to understand how this ingeniously contrived life came unraveled.
Massoud Amir Behrani, an Iranian immigrant, has spent most of his savings trying to enhance his daughter’s chances of a good marriage. Once she is married, he spends the remaining funds on a house at an auction, unwittingly putting himself and his family in the middle of a legal tussle with the house’s former owner. What begins as a legal struggle turns into a personal confrontation, with tragic results.
