ABCs at the Movies: The Doubles Round!

[Fran]

From IMDb:  A graduate student and obsessive runner in New York is drawn into a mysterious plot involving his globe-trotting brother, his European girlfriend and a Nazi war criminal in hiding. Includes one of the most agonizing torture scenes ever portrayed. "Is it safe?" You'll never see your dentist the same way again.

[memento]

From IMDB: Nicole has no job and is several weeks behind with her rent. Her solution to her problem is to try and snare a rich husband. Enlisting the help of her friend Gloria and the maitre'd at a ritzy New York City hotel, the trio plot to have Gloria catch the eye of Bill Duncan, a handsome millionaire staying at the hotel. The plan works and the two quickly become engaged. Nicole's plan may be thwarted by Bill's friend, Jim Trevor, who's met Nicole before and sees through her plot.

[southendmd]

Plot:  A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.

(Stars our own Michelle Williams.)

IMDb trivia: 

*Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines "synecdoche" as: "a figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole (as fifty sail for fifty ships), the whole for a part (as society for high society), the species for the genus (as cutthroat for assassin), the genus for the species (as a creature for a man), or the name of the material for the thing made (as boards for stage)."


*The title to this movie is a play on Schenectady, New York, where the movie takes place. Schenectady, New York has the distinction of having the ZIP code 12345.


*Synecdoche is pronounced: si-nek-duh-kee (with a stress on "nek").

[Fran]

From IMDb: 

People who love:

• depictions of New York City's Times Square (and New York City, for that matter) as gritty-as-you please and before it was remade as a family theme park
  
• Tim Curry (see him here as a late-night radio DJ speaking to nocturnal urban denizens in verse from the center of Times Square)
  
• movies about youthful rebellion that are half tongue-in-cheek

will get a kick out of this movie. I recommend it, especially if you don't require that you grow spiritually or expand your vocabulary every time you invest 90 minutes in a movie.

[memento]

From IMDB: This is the story of Rico, a man who lives in New York in 1976 but who lives his own life in Paris during the time of the 'New Wave'. He is a photographer who thinks he's a gangster, a loner, and an outsider. He uses his camera like a gun, loading it with bullets of film. He's constantly on the look for a reality to fulfill his fantasy, and as long as he has that energy, he lives. Of course, he's also a romantic, and this is his downfall, because he believes all photographers to be liars. When Rico falls in love, the delicate balance of the world he has made for himself is disrupted.

[Lynne]

From Wiki:

Raghavan (Kamal Haasan) is an honest cop in Tamil Nadu. His wife Kayalvizhi (Kamalinee Mukerji) dies in a violent incident. Arokiyaraj (Prakash Raj) is his colleague. Raghavan is deputized to investigate Arokiya Raj's daughter Rani's murder in some remote village in Tamil Nadu. Arokiya Raj shifts his base to New York after his daughter's murder.

After 9 months, Raghavan receives message about the gruesome murder of Arokiya Raj and his wife. He proceeds to New York to conduct preliminary investigations, with the help of NYPD detective Anderson. There, he saves Aradhana Arun (Jyothika) from committing suicide due to problems with her estranged husband. Raghavan unearths a series of murders of young girls murdered in New York. He finds a pattern in those murders and finds resemblance to Arokiyaraj's daughter's murder in India. Based on these clues, he tracks down two Indian medical students studying in New York. The duo escape to India after severely injuring Raghavan and killing Anderson.

Raghavan, who reveals that his wife was 5 months pregnant when she died, returns to India, and Aradhana, who reveals that she's a single-mother, follows him. She accepts Raghavan's offer of marriage. In India, culprits chase Raghavan and commit a series of murders, including those of Raghavan's driver and security guards. Meanwhile, Aradhana accedes to Raghavan's proposal to marry her. The serial killers see this and kidnap Aradhana in an attempt to blackmail Raghavan. The rest of the story is a graphic depiction of the culprit's acts and how Raghavan traces and brings an end to the chase. At the end of the movie, 6 months after the chase, Raghavan and Aradhana get married, making Raghavan the stepfather of 17-month-old Maya.This movie turned out to be a record breaking hit at box office. It had 150 successfull days in Tamil Nadu. In august 2007 this movie was dubbed in telugu as Raghavan and met with equal success in telugu also. It can be considered as one of biggest hit of Kamal's career until his rescent flick Dasavatharam which breaked all his previous movies records & turned out to be the most successful movie ever made in Tamil Film Industry.

[southendmd]

Plot:  An ex-cop supervises the destruction of corporate bonds redeemed by a New Jersey bank. He plans to steal small amounts of the paper from each shipment without raising suspicion and have a small- time fence from his old neighborhood find a buyer for the stolen bonds. The local mob boss, angry because he is not cut in on the deal, has the 'fence' brutally murdered. He orders his hitman to eliminate the out-of-town buyers and find the 'inside' man. Tom is abducted by the buyers and persuaded to pull off a large scale theft of bonds. He asks help from another ex-cop, his former rookie partner. Tom is killed in a botched exchange and Jimmy and Tom's daughter, DIANE agree to complete the deal and get the men responsible for Tom's death.

Hey Sandy, that looks like Debbie Harry!

[Fran]

From IMDb:  The gritty world of New York City street booksellers is exposed in a remarkable story that chronicles their lives and loves and their unique perspectives on life. Directed by a street bookseller, it explores the other side of the book tables along the streets of the Village, on the Lower East Side, along 6th avenue, and elsewhere in New York City. See the Mayor, the University and the NYPD try to shut them down!

Sidewalk book seller Peter Whitney, one of the free-spirited,
open-air biblio-retailers profiled in Avatar Films' "BookWars."

[oilgun]

Plot:   Using unprecedented degrees of violence, young Joey Tai becomes the head of Chinese mafia in New York and undisputed leader of the Chinese community. Stanley White, the most decorated cop in New York, who hates Asian people since his service in Vietnam, is put in charge of Chinatown. Both men are prone to breaking long-established rules and both men are unlikely to make compromises with each other, which leads to unavoidable and bloody conflict.

[memento]

From IMDB: Six New Yorkers have an interrelated series of relationships. TV producer Tommy, who's just broken up with his girlfriend, has a short relationship with commitment-phobe Maria, who he meets in a video store, and also hooks up with married real-estate agent Annie, who he meets while apartment hunting. Annie is open to a relationship because her husband, Griffin, is cheating on her, which she slowly comes to realize through talking to her friend/co-worker who's gone through the same thing. Griffin, a 39-year-old dentist, is cheating with 19-year-old waitress Ashley, who he picked up in a park; she realizes she can do better when Ben, a hotel doorman and aspiring musician, tries to pick her up, in a belated attempt to recover from his divorce a year ago from schoolteacher Maria (the same Maria from the video store). Most of these relationships seem driven more by a desperate need to be in a relationship than actual love.