Film Reviews
Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of Smile |
This film tells (using modern day interviews and archival footage and sound tapes) the story of how in 1967, while his band The Beach Boys triumphantly toured abroad, Brian Wilson was trying to push the boundaries of conventional pop music with a new follow-up to the Beach Boys' cutting-edge mega-hit, Pet Sounds. The new album was to be called "SMiLE". SMiLE pushed the envelope both musically and lyrically, and was supposed to out-do the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper record. But Brian wasn't able to sell the project to his band-mates when they returned. The project was shelved and Wilson's well-documented decline into depression, drug abuse, recluseness, and obesity had begun. Thirty-odd years later, Wilson announced that in 2004, SMiLE would be performed live in its entirety in London. This film tells the story of a damaged but healing artist bringing his greatest work to light. |
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Storm Warning |
Ginger Rogers is troubled when she finds her sister's husband is a member of the KKK. |
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Jesus is a Palestinian |
Natasha (Kim van Kooten) goes to Limburg to collect her brother Ramses (Hans Teeuwen), who has joined a sect, so he can consent to cutting their father's life support. |
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After the Rain |
A group of travelers is stranded in a small country inn when the river floods during heavy rains. As the bad weather continues, tensions rise amongst the travelers trapped at the inn. Ihei Misawa is a ronin, a samurai without a master, whose skills with a sword make him a valuable employee but whose brutal honesty and lack of social graces prevent him from staying with one master for too long. One night, Ihei impulsively offers to buy food and drink for the guests at a hotel; he doesn't have the money to pay, and to raise cash he concocts a scheme to take on anyone brave enough to fight him for a prize. Ihei's fighting skills impress Lord Shigeaki, who offers him a position as fencing master in his court. Ihei gratefully accepts, but when Shigeaki challenges him to a fight, Ihei beats the Lord decisively. Ihea is certain that he's managed to throw another opportunity away when a band of mercenaries attacks him, and his skills as a swordsman are put to the ultimate test. |
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Kiss The Bride |
Sibling drama overshadows the impending nuptials of Danni Sposato (Amanda Detmer) and her longtime boyfriend, Geoff Brancato (Johnathon Schaech). Television actress Niki (Brooke Langton) brings her manager-boyfriend, Marty (Johnny Whitworth), to meet the family for the first time, while spiky youngest sister Toni (Monet Mazur) shows off her bandmate and lover, Amy (Alyssa Milano), and driven Wall Street banker Chrissy (Vanessa Parise) flashes the status symbols of her financial success. |
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Blackout |
Recovering from a nail gun shot to the head and 13 months of coma, doctor Pekka Valinta starts to unravel the mystery of his past, still suffering from total amnesia. |
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The Boss's Daughter |
40-year-old foreman Vital is chosen by Alix (25) as a guinea pig in the anonymous study she is carrying out in her father's factory. The boss's daughter soon finds herself falling under the spell of this reserved, enigmatic worker as he begins to open up to her, revealing his dreams of another life. |
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Harvard Man |
College has always been a time for experimentation, sexual, cultural and otherwise. "Harvard Man" plays out against a background of love, sex, basketball, crime and experimentation. Action and philosophy in young people's quest to discover their true identity. |
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Kissinger |
Over the past two years, Chimerica Media have been given exclusive and unparalleled access to conduct a series of interviews with Henry Kissinger and to film him on a series of foreign trips to China, Israel and Russia. This feature documentary will combine excerpts from the extensive interviews with extraordinary contemporary archive. The result will be a unique insight into the mind and personality of the man who, more than any other single individual, shaped the foreign policy of the United States - not only during his time in office, but afterwards, when he continued to act as consigliere to successive presidents as well as to governments around the world. |
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Gagarin |
A young caterpillar yearns to fly like the butterflies and birds, but cannot launch himself high enough to do so ... until a couple start playing badminton nearby. |
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How to Make a Monster |
When master monster make-up man Pete Dumond is fired by the new bosses of American International studios, he uses his creations to exact revenge. |
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The Warrior |
In feudal India, a warrior (Khan) who renounces his role as the longtime enforcer to a local lord becomes the prey in a murderous hunt through the Himalayan mountains. |
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Made in Bangkok |
Morgana is a Mexican transgender opera singer with a dream: a sex reassignment surgery. We follow her odyssey all the way to Bangkok as she fights for the identity she has been struggling all her life to construct. |
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Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers |
Documentary portraying the actions of U.S. corporate contractors in the U.S.-Iraq war. Interviews with employees and former employees of such companies as Halliburton, CACI, and KBR suggest that government cronyism is behind apparent "sweetheart" deals that give such contractors enormous freedom to profit from supplying support and material to American troops while providing little oversight. Survivors of employees who were killed discuss the claim that the companies cared more for profit than for the welfare of their own workers, and soldiers indicate that the quality of services provided is sub-standard and severely in contradiction to the comparatively huge profits being generated. Also depicted are the unsuccessful attempts by the filmmakers to get company spokesmen to respond to the charges made by the interviewees. |
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An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster |
Follow the clues to fun and excitement as the beloved little mouse takes on a big monster in this charming, full-length adventure. When a ferocious, mouse-nabbing creature puts fear into the hearts of New York City's rodents, Fievel and his friends team up with a reporter to chase after the scoop of the century and -- just maybe -- get a close-up look at the bad guy himself! |
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