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Picture of a movie: At First Sight
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3 Movies

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Picture of a movie: Life as a House
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Life as a House

2001
George Monroe (Kevin Kline) is a lonely and sad man. Divorced for ten years, he lives alone on the southern California coast with his pet dog in the same run down shack in which he has lived for twenty-five years, the shack which his father passed down to him. In the intervening years, ostentatious houses have sprung up around him. He's been at the same architectural firm for twenty years in a job he hates, which primarily consists of building scale models. On the day that he is fired from his job, he is diagnosed with an advanced case of terminal cancer, which he chooses not to disclose to his family. In many ways, this day is the happiest of his recent life in that he decides to spend what little time he has left doing what he really wants to do, namely build a house he can call his own to replace the shack. He also wants his rebellious sixteen-year-old son, Sam Monroe (Hayden Christensen), to live with him for the summer, hopefully not only to help in the house construction, but for the two to reconnect as a family. Getting Sam to do any of it will not be an easy task as Sam, who has embarked on some self-destructive behavior, would rather do anything than spend time with his family, which also includes his mother Robin Kimball (Dame Kristin Scott Thomas), her wealthy but emotionally unaffectionate husband Peter Kimball (Jamey Sheridan), and their adolescent children. In Sam, George sees an unhappy person in every aspect of his life, much like George was before that fateful day. What Sam decides to do for the summer may consider Alyssa Beck (Jena Malone), his pretty classmate and George's next door neighbor. Through the process, George also reconnects with Robin, who admits that she's made some pretty bad decisions in her life. He may not want that reconnection to go too far considering his health. Ultimately, George has much to do to complete all he wants before he dies.
Picture of a movie: The Prince of Tides
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The Prince of Tides

1991
The Wingo family is from South Carolina, they growing up in a house on a tidal plain. The oldest offspring, Lucas, largely acted as the protector for his younger twins siblings, Tom and Savannah, in light of their dysfunctional growing up, with their shrimper father, Henry, distant and abusive if/when he did pay them any attention, and their mother, Lila, while not doting on them most concerned about appearances and striving for social standing. Now in middle age, Savannah is a New York based poet, Tom, still living on the South Carolina coast outside of Charleston with his wife Sally and their own three doting daughters, taking a break from his high school teaching/football coaching job, while Lucas has long since died while still standing up for himself and his beliefs. Lila, divorced and now remarried with that wealth and social standing she so long desired, receives news that Savannah is in the hospital following her most recent suicide attempt. Not wanting to face the blame directly as she suspects, she assigns Tom to go to New York to speak to Savannah's therapist, Susan Loewenstein, to provide any information of a family history nature that could help in Savannah's recovery. Tom agrees despite hating New York, and it being not a good time since he and Sally are experiencing marital problems, they both just knowing that things between them are not working, and not having been intimate in months. As Tom and Loewenstein (as he calls her) begin their sessions, Tom is slow to divulge the Wingo family problems to her. But he learns that she too is having her own family problems, with her concert violinist husband Herbert Woodruff being self absorbed and condescending, with their young adult son, Bernard, hating both largely because of they predestining his life also as a concert violinist. Tom and Loewenstein's sessions blossom into a friendship and romance, where their talks, in addition to helping Savannah, may help them both in dealing with their own life problems, Tom's which have been long buried figuratively and literally.