"What Dreams May Come" is a 1998 movie starring Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Annabella Sciorra. The film is based on the 1978 novel of the same name by Richard Matheson, and was directed by Vincent Ward. The movie is about the metaphysical reality ... the continuation of life beyond physical death ... It's definitely a must see for all ...
The movie won an Oscar for its expensive and impressive visual vistas depicting an imaginative afterlife. Robin Williams stars as Chris Nielsen, a doctor who has suffered with his artist wife Annie (Annabella Sciorra) through the devastating loss of their children, Marie and Ian, who were killed in a car accident. Although Annie's all-consuming depression nearly destroyed their marriage, the couple rebuilt their relationship and are now living out a comfortable middle age. Stopping one night to help a motorist in a wreck, Chris is struck by a car and killed. At first confused about where he is, Chris meets Albert (Cuba Gooding Jr.), a spiritual guide who helps him to realize he's passed away and that he must move on to the next world.
After trying with only limited success to communicate with the devastated Annie, Chris moves on and discovers an afterlife that can become whatever one envisions, where even his pet dog awaits him. What Chris envisions as paradise are the paintings of his wife, and he happily takes up residence there, awaiting the far-off day when Annie will eventually join him. He also meets his children, although they have chosen different appearances than the ones they had in life. Then tragedy strikes when Annie, inconsolable, commits suicide and goes to Hell. Although it is rarely done, Chris insists on traveling there, risking his eternal soul to save the woman he loves. Accompanied part of the way by Albert and a wizened guide called The Tracker (Max von Sydow), Chris finally reaches Annie in Hell, and must convince her of the truth in order to release her from her dark prison.
Into the Wild is a 2007 American film based on the real life adventures of Christopher McCandless. It was directed by Sean Penn, who also wrote the screenplay, and stars Emile Hirsch, William Hurt, Marcia Gay Harden, Jena Malone, Catherine Keener, Brian Dierker, Vince Vaughn, Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Stewart, and Hal Holbrook.
Into the Wild recounts the true story of Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), a student-athlete at Emory University, as told by his sympathetic sister, Carine McCandless (Jena Malone). In rejection of a materialist, conventional life, and of his parents Walt McCandless (William Hurt) and Billie McCandless (Marcia Gay Harden), who McCandless perceives as having betrayed him, McCandless destroys all of his credit cards and identification documents, donates $24,000 (nearly his entire savings) to Oxfam, and sets out on a cross-country drive in his well-used but reliable Datsun toward his ultimate goal: Alaska and, alone, to test himself and experience the wilds of nature. He does not tell his family what he is doing or where he is going and does not communicate with them thereafter, leaving them to become increasingly anxious and eventually desperate.
Along the way his automobile is caught in a flash flood and he abandons it to hitchhike after burning what remains of his dwindling cash supply at the side of Lake Mead, Arizona. He then creates a new name: Alexander Supertramp. Along his travels, he encounters a hippie couple Jan Burres (Catherine Keener) and Rainey (Brian H. Dierker). As McCandless continues his travels, he decides to work on a farm owned by Wayne Westerberg (Vince Vaughn). However he is forced to leave after Westerberg is arrested for satellite piracy. McCandless then goes up at the Colorado River and when he is told that he may not go down by kayak without a license, he acquires a Perception Sundance 12 open-water kayak and, followed by the river police, paddles downriver eventually all the way into Mexico. There his kayak is lost in a sandstorm and he crosses back into the United States. Unable to easily hitchhike, he starts traveling via freight train to Los Angeles. Not long after arriving, however, he starts feeling "corrupted" by modern civilization and decides to leave. Later, McCandless is forced to switch his travelling method back to hitchhiking due to rough security.
McCandless then arrives at a hippie commune, Slab City and encounters Jan and Rainey again. At the commune, he meets Tracy Tatro (Kristen Stewart), who becomes attracted to McCandless. McCandless decides to continue his goal for Alaska, much to everyone's sadness. McCandless then encounters a retired but lonely leather worker, Ron Franz (Hal Holbrook) in Salton City, California. After spending several months with Franz, McCandless decides to leave for Alaska and Franz gives him gear to use. Franz offers to adopt McCandless as his grandchild, but McCandless tells him that they should discuss this after McCandless returns from Alaska and Franz becomes extremely saddened by his departure.
Nearly two years after leaving his family, McCandless crosses a stream in a remote area of Alaska and sets up camp in an abandoned Fairbanks Transit bus, the "Magic Bus", used as a shelter for moose hunters. Initially McCandless is exhilarated by the isolation, the beauty of nature around and the thrill of living off the land as the spring thaw arrives. He hunts and gathers, and reads books, and keeps a diary of his thoughts. However life becomes harder; his supplies start to run out and although he kills a moose the meat is spoiled by flies and maggots. He realizes that nature is also harsh and uncaring. Ultimately on his journey of self-discovery, he concludes that true happiness can also be found in sharing, and in the joy of realization seeks to return from the wild to his friends and family.
However, to his despair McCandless finds that the stream that he crossed has become a violent torrent and he cannot return; he is trapped by nature. He is forced to return to the Magic Bus but now as a prisoner; having previously insisted on being self-sufficient he is no longer in control of his fate and can only hope for help from the outside. As his supplies run out, he is forced to gather and eat roots and plants. He has a book to help him to distinguish edible from inedible, but he confuses similar plants and is poisoned. He slowly and painfully starves. In his final hours, he continues to document his process of self-realization and accepts his fate, as he imagines his friends and family for a final time.
The epilogue occurs two weeks after his death when his body is found by moose hunters. The movie ends with a picture of him, found undeveloped in his camera from before he died. It tells that his sister carried his ashes from Alaska to the eastern seaboard by plane with the ashes in her backpack.
It premiered during the second edition of the Rome Film Feast. The film premiered outside of Fairbanks, Alaska on September 3, 2007, and the film was given a limited release on September 21, before a wide release on October 19.
"...but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things."
