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Newburgh, N.Y., which boasts the largest historic district in New York State, was once called "The Best All-American City" by a leading publication. Nearly fifty years later, it has been labeled "The State's Most Violent City". Drugs and crime run rampant. Newburgh's history is not unlike many other Hudson River cities. Urban Renewal destroyed many of the magnificent buildings. The building of a bridge, and the introduction of shopping malls took people away from waterfront shopping. But in Newburgh, the added politics and corruption lead to blight. The 2004 documentary examines the past, then provides a revealing probe into the 2003 administration, which was rife with controversy. "Honest Mayor Wanted: Apply Newburgh, N.Y." bumper stickers were left around the city by outraged citizens after $380,000 of city funds were mysteriously transferred to friends of the mayor. An underground web-site sprung up discussing both political and personal issues. As four candidates began their bid for the job of mayor, the notion of "working together to make this a better place" seemed far-fetched. The film follows each candidate in their bid for the mayor's seat, as well as several prominent Newburgh citizens, 'fighting' to bring the city back.
Filmmaker Paul Weitz--whose comic explorations have ventured into the synergistic halls of corporate culture ("In Good Company"), the perils of psychological isolationism ("About a Boy") and the vicissitudes of losing one's virginity ("American Pie")--now delivers a comedy yanked from right-now popular culture...where the nation's shrinking attention span is more focused on "what's hot" than on hot-button headlines: "American Dreamz." On the morning of his re-election, the President (Dennis Quaid) decides to read the newspaper for the first time in four years. This starts him down a slippery slope. He begins reading obsessively, reexamining his black and white view of the world, holing up in his bedroom in his pajamas. Frightened by the President's apparent nervous breakdown, his Chief of Staff (Willem Dafoe) pushes him back into the spotlight, booking him as a guest judge on the television ratings juggernaut (and the President's personal fave), the weekly talent show American Dreamz. America can't seem to get enough of American Dreamz, hosted by self-aggrandizing, self-loathing Martin Tweed (Hugh Grant), ever on the lookout for the next insta-celebrity. His latest crop of hopefuls includes Sally (Mandy Moore), a conniving steel magnolia with a devoted, dopey veteran boyfriend (Chris Klein), and Omer, a recent Southern Californian immigrant (who just happens to be a bumbling, show tune singing, would-be terrorist awaiting activation). When both Sally and Omer make it to the final round of Dreamz--where the President will be judging along with Tweed--the stage is set for a show the nation will never forget. The film also stars Marcia Gay Harden, Jennifer Coolidge, Seth Meyers, John Cho, Judy Greer, and Sam Golzari.
"Separate Lies" is a compelling, humor-tinged romantic mystery that is not so much a "who done it" as an exploration of the riddle of why people make the fatal errors they do - in life, in marriage and when their decisions count the very most. By exposing the raw inner world of an ideal-seeming marriage that has fallen into peril in the wake of a crime, the film weaves themes of secrecy, betrayal and forgiveness through a driving narrative and intense performances focused on uncovering the primal human truths that can lie beneath the most placid surfaces. From Julian Fellowes, the academy award-winning writer of "Gosford Park". Starring Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson, and Rupert Everett.
"Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" trailer
Something wicked this way hops...In this latest masterwork from the creative mind of Nick Park, Wallace and Gromit set out on a quest to rid the neighborhood vegetable gardens of the attacking "beasts" that emerge at night, threatening the annual Giant Vegetable Competition.
Academy Award winner Robert Towne ("Chinatown") writes and directs "Ask the Dust," set under the brutally sunny skies of Depression-era Los Angeles. Based on novelist John Fante's masterpiece, Towne's interpretation focuses on a city exotic and vulgar, glamorous and raunchy - a place of heat and dust. Full of imports - palm trees from Egypt and people from everywhere in search of health and wealth, fame and fortune - L.A. is the city of first and last resort, where all dreams are supposed to come true. So it is for Arturo Bandini (Colin Farrell), a son of Italian immigrants who dreams of becoming a famous novelist and marrying a beautiful blonde, and Camilla Lopez (Salma Hayek) a Mexican who longs to marry a WASP and shed her last name. In a time when Anglo-Chicano relations hang by tattered threads, Bandini and Camilla collide with one another, fighting the city and themselves to make their dreams come true.
Set in the late 21st century, a subculture of humans have emerged who have been modified genetically by a vampire-like disease (Hemophagia), giving them enhanced speed, incredible stamina and acute intelligence, and as they are set apart from "normal" and "healthy" humans, the world is pushed to the brink of worldwide civil war (a war between humans and hemophages) aimed at the destruction of the "diseased" population. In the middle of this crossed-fire is - an infected woman - Ultraviolet (Jovovich), who finds herself protecting a nine-year-old boy who has been marked for death by the human government as he is believed to be a threat to humans.
Late one night in a working class New Jersey suburb, a bloody woman staggers mute and dazed into the emergency room at the Dempsy Medical Center. After treatment for shock and hysteria, Brenda Martin (Julianne Moore) recounts to Dempsy police detective Lorenzo Council (Samuel L. Jackson) a horrific tale of being carjacked on the isolated strip of undeveloped land that divides Dempsy?s urban housing projects from the blue collar town of Gannon, where she lives. She claims she was forced out of her car by a black man, but during the interrogation Council senses he?s not getting the whole story. Only after hours of questioning does Brenda finally break down and confess that her four-year-old son Cody was asleep in the back seat of the stolen car. Led by activist Karen Collucci (Edie Falco), members of the communities of Dempsy and Gannon unite in a search for the missing child, but the criminal investigation into the alleged kidnapping by a suspect who is presumed to be a local from the projects soon ignites long-simmering racial tensions between the two towns. Based on Richard Price's bestselling novel, the film was directed by Joe Roth and also stars Ron Eldard, William Forsythe, Anthony Mackie, and Aunjanue Ellis.
"Good Night, and Good Luck" trailer
In a nation terrorized by its own government, one man dared to tell the truth. The year is 1953, television is still in its infancy and the esteemed broadcast journalist, Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn), anchors the popular news documentary show, See it Now, on CBS. Murrow, alongside producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney), oversees a show that reports on the news items of the day.
A powerful figure at the time is Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who is on a singular crusade to rid the country of communists. His relentless pursuit of anyone he feels may have connections to the Communist party has allowed a sense of paranoia to seep into the public consciousness. Such is the reach of his power that people from the armed services to the creative community are forced to quit their jobs and go into exile based on his attacks.
Edward R. Murrow dares to question Senator McCarthy and his agenda and becomes a target of the Senator himself. Undeterred, the pioneering journalist continues to openly criticize and confront Senator McCarthy on his show and the public's opinion of the Senator finally begins to waiver. Directed by George Clooney. Also starring Patricia Clarkson, Robert Downey Jr., Frank Langella and Jeff Daniels.
This movie was nominated for numerous Academy Awards. Click here to see videos of other Oscar nominees on Download.com.
Storyline:
From Gerald Clarke, author of the book "Capote: A Biography".
"Truman, I've been asked to write your biography. Will you cooperate?"
From the other end of the telephone there was a short pause and an even shorter answer - "Sure." And so I began.
I thought my book would be relatively easy to write. I had, after all, written many profiles of famous and talented people for Time magazine - a list that eventually included everyone from Mae West to Susan Sontag, Elizabeth Taylor to Joseph Campbell. I had also done a series on writers for The Atlantic and Esquire. Gore Vidal. Allen Ginsberg, the Beat poet Vladmir Nabokov, the creator of Lolita. P. G. Wodehouse, the comic genius behind Jeeves. And, finally, Truman Capote, who was then the most celebrated writer in America-the author of In Cold Blood, the publishing phenomenon of the sixties and a book that has influenced the writing of nonfiction writing ever since. It was that last article that prompted a call from a publisher and my own call to Truman.
I thought my book would take two years, three at most, and that writing it would be a lark, interviews at fancy restaurants and gallons of good vintage wine at the best table in the house. When Truman Capote walked through the door, headwaiters did everything but salaam in their desire to please. "You might say Truman Capote has become omnipotent," said one newspaper, and for a decade and more he very nearly was.
I was right about the interviews in fancy restaurants and the giddy gallons of Beaujolais. But I was wrong about everything else. If he had known how long In Cold Blood would take, and what it would take out of him, he would not have stopped in Kansas, Truman later said. He would have driven on - "like a bat out of hell." I sometimes said much the same. What I had not anticipated was the drama that surrounded every minute of Truman's life, dramas in which I sometimes also became a participant. As a result, my own book took more than thirteen years. Some lark! Writing it was the hardest thing I have ever done. It was also the most exhilarating.
In search of information I crisscrossed the United States and traveled several times to Europe. One of my destinations was of course, Kansas, the setting for In Cold Blood. I came to know all but two of the main characters in Capote, the movie. Harper Lee, who helped Truman with his research and who was soon to have her own hugely successful book, To Kill a Mockingbird. Alvin Dewey, the lead detective for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, and his wife, Marie. William Shawn, the editor of The New Yorker. And Jack Dunphy, Truman's longtime companion.
The two I did not interview were the killers, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. They were executed in 1965. But I got to know them - intimately, I thought - through the forty or so letters they wrote to Truman. Most of their letters run several pages, and they are unsparing windows into life on death row. Truman gave them to me, and Dan Futterman, who wrote the screenplay of Capote, is the only one I've ever let see them. Their dialogue in the movie reflects, almost word for word, what Perry and Dick actually said.
The movie's script is all Dan's - and a very good one it is - but I was happy to answer his questions, large and small Would Truman have said this? Would he have done that? Bennett Miller, the film's director, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays Truman, came out to my house on Long Island and asked more questions. Did Truman wear his glasses all the time? was one of the questions Philip asked. (The answer: like a lot of other nearsighted people, Truman often took off his glasses when he was sitting down.) So he could reproduce Truman's odd, childish voice - Truman did not lisp, as some writers have inaccurately stated - I gave him audio tapes from some of my interviews. Philip did the rest, and through the alchemy a few very gifted actors possess, he has done more than impersonate Truman. For the length of the movie he has resurrected him.
In the last week of June 1984 - he died in August - I had lunch with Truman every day on Long Island, followed by long talks at my house or his. "There's the one and only T.C.," he said at one point. "There was nobody like me before, and there ain't gonna be anybody like me after I'm gone." That's true - who could dispute it? For a couple of hours, however, Philip comes close.
This movie was nominated for numerous Academy Awards. Click here to see videos of other Oscar nominees on Download.com.
"Slither" is an edgy blend of heart-stopping terror, wry humor and surprising humanity from genre-bending screenwriter James Gunn, whose "Dawn of the Dead" became one of 2004's most surprising hits. The sleepy town of Wheelsy could be any small town in America-somewhat quaint and gentle, peopled with friendly folks who mind their own business. But just beneath the surface charm, something unnamed and evil has arrived...and is growing. No one seems to notice as telephone poles become clogged with missing pet flyers, or when one of the town's richest citizens, Grant Grant (Michael Rooker), begins to act strangely. But when farmers' livestock turn up horribly mutilated and a young woman goes missing, Sheriff Bill Pardy (Nathan Fillion) and his team, aided by Grant's wife Starla (Elizabeth Banks), uncover the dark force laying siege to their town...and come face-to-face with an older-than-time organism intent on absorbing and devouring all life on Earth. "Slither" is the feature film directing debut of screenwriter James Gunn and stars Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Gregg Henry and Michael Rooker.
