2005
New age travelers kidnap the prized dog of a Bristol Antiques dealer, with dire consequences.
A chain reaction of confrontations and romantic encounters occurs when college friends reunite for one’s wedding.
A federal agent, Kate Parker arrives in a small rural town to extradite Claire Scott, a young woman suspected of murdering a government scientist. Kate is prevented from delivering her prisoner as the mysterious John Lawson, a rouge agent, now selling classified information on the black market, wants what Claire has – a deadly biological formula. Claire, unaware that she has it, proclaims her innocence, and together with Kate, must escape from Lawson and his two seasoned assassins Mr. and Mrs. Jones. Harry Eden, a CIA operative and Kate’s former lover, is dropped into the equation to help Kate but ultimately might lead to her demise as a deadly game of cat-and-mouse is played to its extreme.
“Laura Smiles” is an alarmingly effective portrait of a woman’s mental breakdown. We are introduced to “Laura” at her happiest time, in a warm, loving relationship with her fiancé (a very appealing Kip Pardue) in the city, literally the love of her life. In flashbacks, we then see the sweet development of this relationship out of order as these moments become brightly lit and colored memories that desperately intrude on her later in life, as she becomes consumed with guilt and remorse over his fate. These feelings start to overwhelm her current life as a wife and mother. As something inconsequential in what she calls her “suburban drudgery” triggers the past — in the supermarket, cooking, cleaning, at a school play– she acts out increasingly aberrantly to counteract the feelings they generate, especially when she can no longer distinguish past from present from dreams, recalling Blanche Du Bois.
The last movie from the team of Ismail Merchant, James Ivory, and Kazuo Ishiguro. Set in 1930s Shanghai, “The White Countess” is both Sofia (Natasha Richardson), a fallen member of the Russian aristocracy, and a nightclub created by a blind American diplomat named Jackson (Ralph Fiennes), who asks Sofia to be the centerpiece of the world he wants to create.
A long-lost engagement ring still divides childhood sweethearts who are now in their golden years. Now, her daughter (Heaton) and his nephew meet and find that their attraction is hindered by the old feud.
Beat Takeshi lives the busy and sometimes surreal life of a showbiz celebrity. One day he meets his blond lookalike named Kitano, a shy convenience store cashier, who, still an unknown actor, is waiting for his big break. After their paths cross, Kitano seems to begin hallucinating about becoming Beat.
Jûzô Murasaki is a boy miscast in his classroom, being frequently abused, tortured, beaten and humiliated by the bully Tôru Akai and his gang of juvenile punks. After years of repression, rejection and fear without facing Akai, he develops a psychopathic dual personality with a violent alter-ego. While living in the apartment 13 of a tenement building, he becomes unable to control his violent dark personality, who plots an evil revenge against his upper floor neighbor Akai and his family.
A recovering alcoholic and recently converted Mormon, Arthur “Killer” Kane, of the rock band The New York Dolls, is given a chance at reuniting with his band after 30 years.
Every year, thousands of Antarctica’s emperor penguins make an astonishing journey to breed their young. They walk, marching day and night in single file 70 miles into the darkest, driest and coldest continent on Earth. Morgan Freeman narrates this amazing, true-life tale touched with humour and alive with thrills. Breathtaking photography captures the transcendent beauty and staggering drama of devoted parent penguins who, in the fierce polar winter, take turns guarding their egg and trekking to the ocean in search of food. Predators hunt them, storms lash them. But the safety of their adorable chicks makes it all worthwhile. So follow the leader … to adventure!!
The life and struggles of a notorious rock musician seeping into a pit of loneliness whose everyday life involves friends and family seeking financial aid and favors, inspired by rock music legend Kurt Cobain and his final hours.
Smart, sexy Allison can’t help but fall in love with Philip, a dashing software billionaire, and they quickly marry. But soon this new bride begins to think her hubby was involved in the mysterious death of his first wife. This suspicious newlywed needs to get to the truth – but as things turn dangerous, she may not make it to their first anniversary!
A team of environmentalists, including a reporter, her camera man, and an environmentalist’s famous girlfriend charter a boat and with the captain, sail to a military island. They suspect the island is hosting to illegal activities. Upon arrival, however, they find no one. They finally reach a deserted house, where they find Dr. Susan Richardson, who tells them that everyone on the island is dead, including her father. Richardson’s team were working on a compound that could make edible plants grow to super size, however the military intervened with plans of their own. They wanted to test the compound’s effects on animals, and proceeded to feed it to several komodo dragons and cobras.
During her wedding ceremony, Rachel notices Luce in the audience and feels instantly drawn to her. The two women become close friends, and when Rachel learns that Luce is a lesbian, she realizes that despite her happy marriage to Heck, she is falling for Luce. As she questions her sexual orientation, Rachel must decide between her stable relationship with Heck and her exhilarating new romance with Luce.
Greener Mountains is a family friendly, coming-of-age story about finding your place in the world.
An intimate portrait of a Chinese-European couple in New Zealand, and their journey to get a blessing for marriage from traditional Chinese parents.
The story that led to the film, My Wedding and Other Secrets.
Drew Baylor is fired after causing his shoe company to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. To make matters worse, he’s also dumped by his girlfriend. On the verge of ending it all, Drew gets a new lease on life when he returns to his family’s small Kentucky hometown after his father dies. Along the way, he meets a flight attendant with whom he falls in love.
In the perfectly normal town of Louisville, KY, there is a perfectly normal man living the perfect life. David Dailey is a man who has it all: A great career, a community that adores him, and an enduring marriage. But beneath the surface, David’s idyllic world is crumbling. He’s haunted by a series of mysterious notes that warn of an imminent fall from grace…
This 2006 documentary film chronicles the life of Daniel Johnston, a manic-depressive genius singer/songwriter/artist, from childhood up to the present, with an emphasis on his mental illness, and how it manifested itself in demonic self-obsession.
In 1972, a seemingly typical shoestring budget pornographic film was made in a Florida hotel, “Deep Throat,” starring Linda Lovelace. This film would surpass the wildest expectation of everyone involved to become one of the most successful independent films of all time. It caught the public imagination which met the spirit of the times, even as the self appointed guardians of public morality struggled to suppress it, and created, for a brief moment, a possible future where sexuality in film had a bold artistic potential. This film covers the story of the making of this controversial film, its stunning success, its hysterical opposition along with its dark side of mob influence and allegations of the on set mistreatment of the film’s star.
A romance that plays out in the splashy, sensational world of British tabloids.
Nina, an end-of-teenage orphan with mental problems, starts a new job as a garden cleaner when she meets Toni. They fell in love with each other, but soon Toni starts betraying Nina. In the meantime, Francoise is picked up at a psychic department of a Berlin hospital by her husband, Pierre. After seeing Nina, Francoise believes that she has found her kidnapped daughter Marie, but neither Toni nor Pierre believe her. Nina is unsure about what to think…
Cassidy, the lead singer of a band, lives with her boyfriend and band member, Neal. Cassidy records the torment of her silent pain and suffering in a private journal. Thinking Neal does not love her, Cassidy is devastated and commits suicide. Neal, shocked and horrified, witnesses the suicide. Three months following Cassidy’s death, band members, Dora, Donny, Victor, and Neal visit Dr. Meso, a psychic, for answers. They question whether or not to continue recording their album with out Cassidy. After posing the question, Cassidy’s spirit overtakes Dr. Meso’s body. Cassidy addresses the band, and specifically Neal, before revealing four tarot death cards.
A year of penguin behavior in the icy waters and volcanic islands of the Antarctic Ocean. Includes Chinstrap, Macaroni, Adele, Gentoo, King and Emperor penguins.
Actress Reese Holden has been offered a small fortune by a book editor if she can secure for publication the love letters that her father, a reclusive novelist, wrote to her mother, who has since passed away. Returning to Michigan, Reese finds that an ex-grad student and a would-be musician have moved in with her father, who cares more about his new friends than he does about his own health and well-being.
Dangerous Men has many characters like Mina whose life is shattered when two bikers with rape on their minds attack and kill Daniel, her fiancé. Driven by grief, she embarks on a killing rampage, wreaking vengeance upon all the men that she seductively lures into her trap. In her twisted world, cops and killers are all the same – David, Daniel’s brother, is a cop who relentlessly pursues the killers, while facing a nest of drug dealers, followed by the FBI and the police SWAT team, also in hot pursuit. Mina, a victim of violence, carrying a twisted obsession for justice, is caught between opposing forces in a world of dangerous men
Insurance investigator Abraham Holt travels to a tiny town in rural Minnesota to look into a particularly unusual insurance claim stemming from a horrific car accident. As Holt examines the scene of the wreck, it all seems a bit too perfect. And when he interviews Isold Mcbride and her shifty husband, Fred — the impoverished beneficiaries of the massive, recently initiated life-insurance policy — he begins to suspect that something is amiss.
Argentine film about the experiences of conscripts in the Falklands War.
This “Best Fiction Film Winner”* follows Valentine, a female assassin who is trapped in a room with one of her marks during the last few minutes of his life. The moment changes her own life as she vows to give up the business and seek redemption by finding the son of the man she has killed. But once in the small desert town of “Godfree”, which may or may not be stranger than the world she has just left, her old life returns to haunt her. Convinced she has joined forces with an elusive ex-assassin named “Cupid”, her former comrades hunt her down and soon discover that some things are not what they appear…. *Hollywood Documentary And Fiction Film Festival (2006)
For his fourth full feature, Toyoshi Toyoda has abandoned the theme of the angry young man, examined in depth in Pornostar, Blue Spring and 9 Souls. Kuchu Teien is, on the face of it, more a drama, a character study, than a typical Toyoda genre flick. Yet within this beautifully structured and photographed film, there lies a dark soul. Ostensibly the story of a happy family, it becomes increasingly clear as the movie progresses that the Kyobashis are anything but. Despite a family agreement that they are all open with each other, the entire household knows the opposite is true.
Hiroshi, a 30 year-old businessman, has traveled back in time 20 years. He encounters Kazumi, a young woman who was gravely ill. Hiroshi regarded this as an opportunity to help the young woman from his past, the memory of whom he had always cherished.
The film centers on a Spanish tapas bar and the love lives of the loosely interconnected people in the neighborhood surrounding the bar. The pairs of lovers include a middle aged woman and a young man; an elderly, drug dealing woman and her terminally ill husband in poor health; the tapas bar owner and his estranged wife; and two Chinese immigrants.
When the troubled son of an NGO worker refuses to take a test and announces that he is not leaving his room, his concerned mother asks one of her clients, a Cuban exile, for help in setting the boy straight. Gonzalo has decided to drop out of school, and his mother Ana isn’t sure how to convince the boy that he’s making a crucial mistake. Ana’s client Carlos is a Cuban exile who makes his living selling cigars and artwork on the black market. When Carlos learns of Ana’s dilemma, he calls on recently released convict Mikel to teach the boy how to play chess. Perhaps is young Gonzalo can master the game, he can learn to start living again. As the lessons get underway, each of these characters learns that in order to truly move on with their lives they much first break free of the bonds that prevent them from being who they really are.
After being denied an American visa, a Bolivian professor becomes involved in a web of criminal activities, holds-up the American consulate and falls for a beautiful prostitute from the Bolivian lowlands.
