Josh Hamilton

Grounded in Daniel Bates' life, 'Paradox' is a cinematic creation adapting events from his extraordinary journey. Characters are based on and inspired by Daniel Bates, his various aliases, and alter egos.

Best friends Colton and Kyle float the river and spray-paint in the local ravine. Like the boys, Whitney explores the ravine, seeking solace by writing and drawing in her diary. But when her friend abandons her, Whitney disappears.

Antonio and his family can barely survive on his salary. But when he suffers an untimely death, his widow Maria must battle on her own to keep her remaining family together.

Directed by Academy Award winner Sam Mendes (``American Beauty``) from an original screenplay by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, this funny and heartfelt film follows the journey of an expectant couple (John Krasinski [``The Office`] and Maya Rudolph [``Saturday Night Live`]), as they travel the U.S. in search of the perfect place to put down roots and raise their family. Along the way, they have misadventures and find fresh connections with an assortment of relatives and old friends who just might help them discover ``home`` on their own terms for the first time. The movie features the music of Alexi Murdoch.

A man is saved from the ocean by an Italian boat but has a complete loss of memory. Why are assassins after him? And why is he a martial arts master and fluent in many languages?

A bunch of guys hang around their college for months after graduation, continuing a life much like the one before graduation. After college graduation, Grover's girlfriend Jane tells him that she's moving to Prague to study writing. Grover declines to accompany her, deciding instead to move in with several friends who, like him, can't quite work up the drive to escape their university's pull. Nobody wants to make any big decisions that would radically alter his life, yet none want to end up like Chet, the professional student who tends bar and is in his tenth year of university studies. —James Meek <james@oz.net> Grover, Max, Otis, and Skippy, all 22-year-old friends, have just graduated from college. Otis is headed for graduate school in Milwaukee, and the three others should be starting their real post-school lives, but even if they had any plans, they're all having difficulty leaving the comfort of their friendship in this artificial environment of school, so they might just end up like their older acquaintance Chet, who believes that his career is at a student in this college; for the last decade he has been refusing to graduate and bartending at the townie hangout to pay for his life. Their next year to the September of the following calendar year is told. The previous year in aspiring writer Grover's life is also shown in flashback in relation to fellow English major Jane; the two had been been planning to live together as a couple after graduation. —Huggo

The film opens with a series of photographs of the Stella Maris College's Old Christians Rugby Team. Carlitos Páez explains that the pictures were taken by his father and points out several members of the team, including himself as a young man, Alex Morales, Felipe Restano, Nando Parrado and the team's Captain Antonio Balbi. Carlitos then reflects on the accident in a brief monologue, speaking of heroism, the gravity of the situation and of solitude and faith. The story moves to October 13, 1972, as Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 flies over the Andes. The raucous rugby players and a few of their relatives and friends are eagerly looking forward to the upcoming match in Chile. Nando's sister, Susana, praises the beauty of the mountains and happily observes that the plane will be landing in 20 minutes. However, after emerging from clouds, the plane encounters turbulence and collides with an unknown mountain peak. During the collision, the wing and tail are separated from the fuselage of the plane, and the remnants of the fuselage slide down a mountain slope before coming to a complete stop. Antonio, the team captain, takes charge of the situation, coordinating efforts to help his injured teammates. Roberto Canessa and Gustavo Zerbino, both medical students, are the first to address the injured. Six passengers are killed when they are ejected from the plane including the steward, and another six die shortly afterward including both pilots, Alex, Nando's mom Eugenia, and an older couple. Nando, who sustained a head injury, falls into a coma and Susana suffers harsh internal injuries. As the sun sets, the survivors begin to make preparations for the night. Canessa discovers that the seat covers can be unzipped and used as blankets. The survivors go inside the fuselage and curl up beside one another to stay warm. Antonio, Roy Harley and Rafael Cano plug the gaping hole at the end of the fuselage with luggage to keep the wind out. Two passengers die during the night from their injuries including Mrs. Alfonsín, causing Carlitos to feel ashamed after earlier yelling at her as she moaned about the pain she had been experiencing. With nothing to hunt or gather on the mountain, Antonio declares they will use rationing when the survivors find a tin of chocolates and a case of wine. After seeing a plane dip its wing, the survivors celebrate. Expecting to be rescued the next day, everyone except Javier, his wife Liliana, and Antonio eat the remaining chocolates. The survivors listen to a radio for word of their rescue but are devastated to hear the search is called off after day nine. This causes a quarrel between Antonio and several others for eating the chocolate. Meanwhile, Nando regains consciousness through the care of Carlitos and Hugo Diaz. After learning of his mother's death, Nando watches over Susana vigilantly. Knowing that she will die of her injuries within a few days, he vows to set off on foot and find a way out of the mountains. When Carlitos reminds him that he will need food, Nando suggests consuming flesh from the corpses of the deceased Pilots to survive his journey to find help. Susana dies from her injuries. After great debate, the remaining passengers decide to eat the flesh of their dead companions in order to survive. Zerbino, Rafael and Juan Martino set off to search for the tail of the plane in hopes of finding the batteries for the plane's radio to transmit their location. Among pieces of the wreckage, the teammates find additional corpses, but return to the group with news that the tail of the plane is likely a little farther away. Later in the week, an avalanche hits the plane and floods the interior with snow. Most manage to climb out of the snow, but some are unable to escape; eight of the remaining survivors are smothered by the snow or freeze to death, including Antonio, Liliana and Juan; Liliana was the final of the five women aboard to die. A second team, made up of Nando, Canessa and Antonio "Tintin" Vizintin, finds the tail of the plane. Unable to bring the batteries to the fuselage, they return to the fuselage to get Roy, who is rumored to have experience setting up electrical equipment. They bring him to the tail of the plane, where the batteries are, to see if he can fix the radio. When Roy is unsuccessful, the team returns to the fuselage once more. Federico Aranda and Alberto Antuna die from their injuries soon after and Rafael soon dies after from an illness, leading Nando to convince a reluctant Canessa to search for a way out of the mountains, taking "Tintin" with them. Two days into the journey, they send "Tintin" back to the fuselage so they can appropriate his rations and continue on. After a 12-day trek, the two escape the mountains and alert the authorities of their companions' location. As helicopters land on the glacier, the other 14 survivors celebrate. The film then shifts to the present as Carlitos explains the survivors later returned to the site of the crash and buried the bodies of the dead under a pile of stones, marked with a cross, about half a mile away. The memorial is then displayed with the film's dedication to both the 29 deceased and 16 survivors.