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Film Reviews

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye

Heinz Bütler interviews Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) late in life. Cartier-Bresson pulls out photographs, comments briefly, and holds them up to Bütler's camera. A few others share observations, including Isabelle Huppert, Arthur Miller, and Josef Koudelka. Cartier-Bresson talks about his travels, including Mexico in the 1930s, imprisonment during World War II, being with Gandhi moments before his assassination, and returning to sketching late in life. He shows us examples. He talks about becoming and being a photographer, about composition, and about some of his secrets to capture the moment.

Worldly Girl

Giulia’s is a poised world, made of rigour and sacred texts, which fiercely excludes those who do not belong to it. Libero's world is the world of all the others, of those who make mistakes, who fend for themselves looking for another chance and who love unconditionally. When Giulia meets Libero, she realizes she can have another destiny, one she will have to choose and build.

The Trail of Blood

Can a sinful man change and find peace? It's unlikely in gang-plagued Japan. Jokichi of Mikogami, a drifter (and hired sword), goes straight after protecting a woman in distress: they marry, have a son, and Jokichi pursues his father's craft. After three years, the gangs he embarrassed when he saved his wife find the family and leave Jokichi in grief, vowing revenge. To parry his terrible swift sword, rival gangs join forces, hiring a prostitute to pose as a woman needing help and breaking the code of honor to double cross the drifter. He finds unlikely allies: a thief who aids him for fun and a one-eyed swordsman who may be Jokichi's equal in skill and honor.

Blue Sky

Hank Marshall is a tough, square-jawed, straitlaced Army engineer and nuclear science expert, assigned to help conduct weapons-testing in 1950's America. Hank has become a thorn in the side of the Army, though, for a couple of very different reasons. He is an outspoken opponent of atmospheric testing, though his superiors hold contrary views and want to squelch his concerns...and his reports. The other problem is his wife, Carly. She is voluptuous and volatile, wreaking havoc in his personal life and stirring up intrigue at each new Army base.

Street Fight

This documentary follows the 2002 mayoral campaign in Newark, New Jersey in which the Cory Booker attempted to unseat longtime mayor Sharpe James

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

As an asteroid nears Earth, a man finds himself alone after his wife leaves in a panic. He decides to take a road trip to reunite with his high school sweetheart. Accompanying him is a neighbor who inadvertently puts a wrench in his plan.

The Rocker

Rob "Fish" Fishman is the drummer in '80s hair metal band Vesuvius. He's unceremoniously booted as the group signs a big record deal, is out of the music world for 20 years - and then receives a second chance with his nephew's band.

Joshua Tree, 1951: A Portrait of James Dean

Part period melodrama, part film noir, part 50s road movie "JOSHUA TREE, 1951" is a portrait of screen legend and outsider icon James Dean as you have never seen him before. The film is written & directed by Matthew Mishory and starring James Preston (ABC’s The Gates), Dan Glenn, Dalilah Rain, and Edward Singletary, Jr.

Budd Boetticher: An American Original

A documentary about filmmaker Budd Boetticher.

Drishyam

Georgekutty lives a happy life with his wife and daughters. Things take a turn when his daughter gets indecently filmed using a hidden camera, by the son of a police inspector.

Two Women

A sensation when released in 1999 in Iran, Two Women charts the lives of two promising architecture students over the course of the first turbulent years of the Islamic Republic. Tahimine Milani creates this scathing portrait of those traditions - aided by official indifference - which conspire to trap women and stop them from realizing their full potential; the inclusion of frank depictions of domestic violence was hailed by many as a breakthrough in dealing with a long taboo subject.

Street Thief

Kaspar Carr is a professional burglar who lives and works in Chicago. Carr loves his job and is good at it, and two documentary filmmakers are granted access to his private world when he agrees to let them make a film about him.

Sabotage

In "Sabotage", Arnold Schwarzenegger leads an elite DEA task force that takes on the world's deadliest drug cartels. When the team successfully executes a high-stakes raid on a cartel safe house, they think their work is done - until, one-by-one, the team members mysteriously start to be eliminated. As the body count rises, everyone is a suspect.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed

A rich man's daughter is held captive in an abandoned apartment by two former convicts who abducted her and hold her ransom in exchange for her father's money.

My Foolish Heart

After a long absence, Mary Jane visits her schoolfriend Eloise, and Eloise's daughter Ramona. Eloise drinks too much and is unhappily married to Lew Wengler. Eloise falls asleep and remembers her time with her true love, Walt Dreiser, at the beginning of the Second World War. She recalls the events that lead up to her split with Mary Jane, and how Lew married Eloise rather than Mary Jane.

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