coyoteugly

Magnolia (1999)

IMDB rating: 8.00

Plot: Magnolia is the study of nine lives in one day in San Fernando Valley, California. These nine lives all connect and revolve around the game show “What Do Kids Know?”(WDKK), where a team of three kids play against adults and everytime the show is on, there is a new team of adults and the kids remain; if they won the previous game. Earl Partridge (the late Jason Robards) produced “WDKK” when it was first on in the late 60s. He is dying of brain and lung cancer and is being taken care of by Phil Parma (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a male nurse. Linda, Earl’s trophy wife (Julianne Moore) starts to fall in love with Earl for real, despite her cheating. Earl, rapidly dying on his bed, asks Phil to find his estranged son, Frank T.J. Mackey (Tom Cruise), who grew up hating Earl and now runs a seminar for single men, which teaches them how to seduce a woman and leave her… The host of “WDKK”, Jimmy Gator (Philip Baker Hall), is also dying, but not as rapidly as Earl. He has a very rocky relationship with his daughter Claudia (Melora Waters), who sniffs crack 24/7 and accuses her father of sexually molesting her. Police Officer Jim (John C. Reilly) goes to Claudia’s house after getting called about a disturbance. He falls in love with her right away… Stanley Specter (Jeremy Blackman) is a contestant on “WDKK”, who is a genius and is being used by his father to make money. If Stanley and his team keep winning, they will set a record on the show and get tons of money. The record Stanley is trying to beat is the 1968 record set by Donnie Smith (William H. Macy), who had the exact same childhood when he was on the show and has now grown up to be a pathetic loser. He’s been recently fired from his job, and is trying to find his way into happiness…

Thank You for Smoking (2005)

IMDB rating: 7.90

Plot: Tobacco industry lobbyist Nick Naylor has a seemingly impossible task: promoting cigarette smoking in a time when the health hazards of the activity have become too plain to ignore. Nick, however, revels in his job, using argument and twisted logic to place, as often as not, his clients in the positions of either altruistic do-gooders or victims. Nick’s son Joey needs to understand and respect his dad’s philosophy, and Nick works hard to respond to that need without compromising his lack of values. When a beautiful news reporter betrays Nick’s sexually-achieved trust, his world seems in danger of collapsing. But there’s always one more coffin nail in Nick’s pack.