Holy Unknown

Stranger than Fiction (2006)   is a comedy-drama directed by Marc Forster and written by Zach Helm. It follows the peculiar life of Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), an IRS agent whose monotonous existence is turned upside down when he begins to hear a narrator describing his life. The voice belongs to a reclusive author, Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson), who is struggling to finish her latest novel and plans to kill her main character—Harold. Harold must race against time to find Karen and change his fate. Along the way, he falls for a free-spirited baker, Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal). He seeks help from literature professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman). The film's writer, Zach Helm, was inspired by his own experience of hearing his thoughts narrated. The production was filmed primarily in Chicago. The film's characters are named after famous scientists and artists, such as Francis Crick and Blaise Pascal, a deliberate choice by Helm to engage the movie's form as much as its co...

What About Bob? (1991)   is a superb comedy directed by Frank Oz and written by Tom Schulman. The film follows Bob Wiley, a neurotic and clingy patient played by Bill Murray, who tracks down his psychiatrist, Dr. Leo Marvin, played flawlessly by Richard Dreyfuss, while he's on vacation with his family. As Bob worms his way into the family's affection, Dr. Marvin’s professional poise begins to unravel. The cast also includes Julie Hagerty as Dr. Marvin’s wife, Charlie Korsmo as their son, and Kathryn Erbe as their teenage daughter. The balance between Murray’s eccentric charm and Dreyfuss’s escalating rage drives the film’s absurd tension. Behind the scenes, the chemistry between the actors mirrored the on‑screen conflict—Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss famously clashed during filming. According to crew accounts, Murray would taunt Dreyfuss, throw things at him, and provoke him between takes. Dreyfuss described Murray as "drunken" and "irrational" at times,...

Virginia Hall Goillot wasn’t supposed to become a spy. Born in Baltimore in 1906 to a well-off family, she was raised with polish and possibility—fluent in French and German, educated in Europe, and expected to live a life of comfort and marriage. That was the plan. Then, while hunting birds in Turkey, she tripped and accidentally discharged her rifle. The injury led to a leg amputation below the knee. She was just 27. Her new prosthetic—a heavy wooden limb she named “Cuthbert”—could have ended any ambition to work abroad. Instead, it marked the beginning of a career that would make her one of the most elusive and effective spies of World War II. She applied to the U.S. Foreign Service, but her disability disqualified her. So she looked elsewhere. By 1940, Hall was in France as a freelance journalist. The Nazi invasion pushed others to flee, but she stayed. She started passing along information to the British and caught the attention of the Special Operations Executive, or...

Election (1999)  is a marvelous and refreshing dark comedy directed by Alexander Payne and written by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor. The film is set during a contentious student body presidential election at a suburban Omaha high school. Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick), a well-liked and dedicated history teacher, finds his professional and personal life unraveling when he decides to sabotage the campaign of the pathologically ambitious and overachieving student, Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon). Believing her to be unfit for office and personally disliking her intensity, he persuades Paul Metzler (Chris Klein), a popular but simple-minded football player, to run against her.  The film was shot on location in and around Omaha, Nebraska, director Alexander Payne's hometown. The school scenes were filmed at Papillion-La Vista High School, and many of the students seen in the film were actual students from the school. The screenplay is based on the 1998 novel of the same name b...