Julia Reyes, the precocious and strong-willed teenage daughter of first-generation Mexican immigrants, dreams of becoming a famous writer far away from Chicago and her more traditional parents, who wish she were more like her sister Olga, the platonic ideal of a Mexican daughter. However, when Olga is killed in a tragic accident, it is up to Julia to hold her family together. As Julia seeks to break free of her oppressive home, she tries to uncover her sister’s truth, and in the process gains a deep understanding of the wounds her family carries.
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An elderly bachelor, feeling nostalgic for his youth, seeks out his late sweetheart's teenage daughter, now an orphan forced to attend a strict boarding school.
C.S. Lewis, a world-renowned writer and professor, leads a passionless life until he meets spirited poet Joy Gresham.
This drama centers on Hank Chinaski, the fictional alter-ego of "Factotum" author Charles Bukowski, who wanders around Los Angeles, CA trying to live off jobs which don't interfere with his primary interest, which is writing. Along the way, he fends off the distractions offered by women, drinking and gambling.
Edwardian England. A precocious girl from a poor background with aspirations to being a novelist finds herself swept to fame and fortune when her tasteless romances hit the best seller lists. Her life changes in unexpected ways when she encounters an aristocratic brother and sister, both of whom have cultural ambitions, and both of whom fall in love with her.
Shaun Brumder is a local surfer kid from Orange County who dreams of going to Stanford to become a writer and to get away from his dysfunctional family household. Except Shaun runs into one complication after another, starting when his application is rejected after his dim-witted guidance counselor sends in the wrong form.
Fledgling screenwriters retreat to a quiet country manor to work on their script, but a constellation of needy characters produces constant interruptions.
A celebration of love and creative inspiration takes place in the infamous, gaudy and glamorous Parisian nightclub, at the cusp of the 20th century. A young poet, who is plunged into the heady world of Moulin Rouge, begins a passionate affair with the club's most notorious and beautiful star.
A lonely doctor who once occupied an unusual lakeside home begins exchanging love letters with its former resident, a frustrated architect. They must try to unravel the mystery behind their extraordinary romance before it's too late.
Firemen brothers Brian and Stephen McCaffrey battle each other over past slights while trying to stop an arsonist with a diabolical agenda from torching Chicago.
After Martin Lamm's wife Esther announces that she hired someone to kill him, the famous writer's life changes rapidly. Just hours later Esther is found at the bottom of a river.
Blank-faced bug killer Bill Lee and his dead-eyed wife, Joan, like to get high on Bill's pest poisons while lounging with Beat poet pals. After meeting the devilish Dr. Benway, Bill gets a drug made from a centipede. Upon indulging, he accidentally kills Joan, takes orders from his typewriter-turned-cockroach, ends up in a constantly mutating Mediterranean city and learns that his hip friends have published his work -- which he doesn't remember writing.
Charlie Kaufman is a confused L.A. screenwriter overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, sexual frustration, self-loathing, and by the screenwriting ambitions of his freeloading twin brother Donald. While struggling to adapt "The Orchid Thief," by Susan Orlean, Kaufman's life spins from pathetic to bizarre. The lives of Kaufman, Orlean's book, become strangely intertwined as each one's search for passion collides with the others'.
Portrait of the last days of the life of Portuguese writer Camilo Castelo Branco.
A sister and brother face the realities of familial responsibility as they begin to care for their ailing father.
John Quincy Archibald is a father and husband whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and then finds out he cannot receive a transplant because HMO insurance will not cover it. Therefore, he decides to take a hospital full of patients hostage until the hospital puts his son's name on the donor's list.
A novice con man teams up with an acknowledged master to avenge the murder of a mutual friend by pulling off the ultimate big con and swindling a fortune from a big-time mobster.
Virgil, a college writing student, hopes to have his latest story published, but he must first get over one major hurdle before his work gets out to the world, his mercurial writing professor Richard Laymen.
William Thatcher, a knight's peasant apprentice, gets a chance at glory when the knight dies suddenly mid-tournament. Posing as a knight himself, William won't stop until he's crowned tournament champion—assuming matters of the heart don't get in the way.
Josie Geller, a baby-faced junior copywriter at the Chicago Sun-Times, must pose as a student at her former high school to research contemporary teenage culture. With the help of her brother, Rob, Josie infiltrates the inner circle of the most popular clique on campus. But she hits a major snag in her investigation -- not to mention her own failed love life -- when she falls for her dreamy English teacher, Sam Coulson.
On Christmas Eve, divorced dad Scott Calvin and his son discover Santa Claus has fallen off their roof. When Scott takes the reins of the magical sleigh, he finds he is now the new Santa, and must convince a world of disbelievers, including himself.