BROKEN FLOWERS

GENRE:  Drama/ Comedy/ Mystery
MADE:  2005
CAST:  Bill Murray, Jessica Lange, Sharon Stone
DIRECTOR:  Jim Jarmusch
WRITER:  Jim Jarmusch, Bill Raden, Sara Driver

PLOT:  Bachelor Don Johnston receives an anonymous letter regarding a son, who he never knew he had, was searching for him.  This letter anonymous letter takes Don on a journey to find out which one of his ex-girlfriends wrote him the letter.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE:  Coffee And Cigarettes, The Darjeeling Limited, High Fidelity, Riding In Cars With Boys, Punch Drunk Love

SCORE:

SIDEWAYS

GENRE:  Dark comedy/ Drama/ Romance
MADE:  2004
CAST:  Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen, Sandra Oh
DIRECTOR:  Alexander Payne
WRITER:  Rex Pickett, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor

PLOT:  Miles is a middle-aged man about to get married, so he and his middle-aged friend Jack take a road trip through California's wine country.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE:  Election, As Good As It Gets, Hannah And Her Sisters

SCORE:

HANNAH AND HER SISTERS

GENRE:  Dark comedy/ Drama/ Romance
MADE:  1986
CAST:  Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest, Michael Caine, Woody Allen
DIRECTOR:  Woody Allen
WRITER:  Woody Allen

PLOT:  Love blooms between Hannah's husband and her sister Lee while her ex-husband (a hypochondriac) falls in love with her other sister, Holly.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE:  Annie Hall, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Crimes And Misdemeanors, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

SCORE:

STRANGER THAN FICTION

GENRE:  Comedy/ Romance/ Drama
MADE:  2006
CAST:  Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman
DIRECTOR:  Marc Forster
WRITER:  Zach Helm

PLOT:  An IRS agent, hated by many, single, boring and running on a schedule... the same schedule every day wakes up one day to find that he can hear a mysterious voice narrating his life.  At first he believes himself to be crazy but finds quickly that he is a character in a book that someone is writing, the bad news?  He, Harold Click dies at the end of the story.  With the knowledge of his upcoming fate his life is turned upside down as he tries to find the author to stop the ending from being written during which... he falls in love with a woman least likely to love him back.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE:  Groundhog Day, The Science Of Sleep, Stay

 

SCORE:

CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS

GENRE:  Dark comedy/ Drama
MADE:  1989
CAST:  Martin Landau, Woody Allen, Angelica Huston, Alan Alda, Mia Farrow
DIRECTOR:  Woody Allen
WRITER:  Woody Allen

PLOT:  The story of two men, a documentary film maker with his marriage on the rocks and in love with a producer.  And an optometrist in a happy marriage having an affair with a woman who threatens to expose him.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE:  Hannah And Her Sisters, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Sideways

SCORE:

BEING JOHN MALKOVICH

GENRE:  Dark comedy/ Drama/ Fantasy
MADE:  1999
CAST:  John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, John Malkovich
DIRECTOR:  Spike Jonze
WRITER:  Charlie Kaufman

PLOT:  A puppeteer and his love interest, his coworker, find a way to make easy money when they stumble upon a portal in their office that leads into the head of John Malkovich the movie star.  There on ensues a bizarre love triangle between the puppeteer, his wife and the co-worker.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE:  Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, The Hudsucker Proxy

SCORE:

DUMMY

GENRE:  Dark comedy/ Drama
MADE:  2002
CAST:  Adrien Brody, Milla Jovovich, Illeana Douglas, Vera Farmiga
DIRECTOR:  Greg Pritikin
WRITER:  Greg Pritikin

PLOT:  A young man decides to follow his dream and become a ventriloquist all the while trying to impress his new love interest, a beautiful unemployment counselor, this he finds is hard to do with an off-beat & quirky family and friend.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE:   Garden State, The Beaver, Empire Records

SCORE:

BARTON FINK

GENRE:  Mystery/ Drama/ Dark comedy
MADE:  1991
CAST:  John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis
DIRECTOR:  Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
WRITER:  Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

PLOT:  A dark comedy set in 1941 a playwright coming into popularity strikes a deal with Capital Pictures to write a B-movie wrestling film.  Staying in a grim looking hotel with a jovial neighbor the playwright is befallen with writer's block that continues as weird events begin to unfold in his life.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE:  The Big Lebowski, Fargo, The Hudsucker Proxy

SCORE:

ELECTION

GENRE:  Dark comedy/ Drama
MADE:  1999
CAST:  Reese Witherspoon, Matthew Broderick, Chris Klein
DIRECTOR:  Alexander Payne
WRITER:  Tom Perrotta, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor

PLOT:  A middle-aged high-school teacher has one hell of a year as he gets involved in the high-school elections with the goal to thwart a high-school girl's dream to become student president and being caught trying to cheat on his wife.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE:  Rushmore, Pleasantville, Ferris Bueller's Day Off

SCORE:

THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE

GENRE:  Foreign/Animation/Adventure/Comedy
MADE:  2003
CAST:  Michele Caucheteux, Jean-Claude Donda, Michel Robin
DIRECTOR:  Silvain Chomet
WRITER:  Silvain Chomet

PLOT:  A grandmother and her dog Bruno set off to rescue her kidnapped grandson during the Tour De France by mobsters.  On the way she meets an old song & dance trio by the name "Belleville Sisters" who team up with the grandmother to get the grandson back.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE:  Spirited Away, The Illusionist, The Old Lady And The Pigeons

SCORE:

THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN

GENRE:  Foreign/Drama/Dark Comedy
MADE:  1995
CAST:  Ron Perlman, Danil Emilfork, Judith Vittet, Dominique Pinon
DIRECTOR:  Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet
WRITER:  Gilles Adrien, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro, Guillaume Laurant

PLOT:  The story takes place in a surreal setting in a low, dark, run-down area of France littered with poor orphan kids who steal for a pimp in order to survive.  A mad scientist with his clone of helpers kidnap children to steal their dreams in order to find a way to stay young.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE:  Delicatessen, The Imaginarium Of Doctor Pernassus, Amelie

SCORE:

DELICATESSEN

GENRE:  Drama/Dark Comedy/Crime/Fantasy
MADE:  1991
CAST:  Dominique Pinon, Marie-Laure Dougnac, Jean-Claude Dreyfus, Karin Viard
DIRECTOR:  Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet
WRITER:  Gilles Adrien, Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet

PLOT:  A surreal film set post-apocalyptic times in a small village in France where food is scarce and the people are poor.  An ex-circus performer looking for work comes upon a small apartment community lead by a landlord who owns a butcher shop.  The landlord agrees to let an apartment to the man in trade for handy-work around apartment building.  There the man meets many unusual character and soon finds that something suspicious is afoot.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE:  City Of Lost Children, Amelie, Chocolat

SCORE:

THE BIG LEBOWSKI

GENRE:  Dark comedy
MADE:  1998
CAST:  Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi
DIRECTOR:  Joel & Ethan Coen
WRITER:  Joel & Ethan Coen

PLOT:  A story about mistaken identity between two Lebowskis leading into a story beginning with two bimbo henchmen urinated on a rug, spurring the story on to a deal made for the compensation of the rug, a deal that leads into more funny trouble with a group of nihilist and an eccentric artist.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE:  Barton Fink, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, American Psycho, O' Brother Where Art Thou?

SCORE: 

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

GENRE:  Comedy/Dark Comedy
MADE:  2006
CAST:  Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin, Alan Arkin 
DIRECTOR:  Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris 
WRITER:  Michael Arndt

PLOT:  A funny adventure full of ups and downs of a family keeping it real and trying to keep it together inspite of financial woes and personal problems as they travel from New Mexico to California to get their youngest to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE:  The Djarling Limited,  The Royal Tenenbaums, Transamerica

SCORE: