Set 16 years after the revolution, this Romanian drama centers around a local Bucharist television station that invites several residents to reflect on their memories of 16 years prior. As several eccentric individuals share their stories, they must answer questions from viewers who doubt the event ever took place.
Twenty-four hours in the lives of three young, wayward friends are chronicled in this impressive, low-budget charmer from Uruguay. Directors Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll follow the trio's drift through existence, which allows them time to ponder their state of chronic boredom, wax philosophic on life, and encounter a variety of bizarre characters.
Our Take:
It’s the Uruguayan Stranger Than Paradise. What more is there to say?
A coffeehouse busboy wants to be as hip as the poetry-spouting beatniks he waits on. When he accidentally kills his cat with a knife and covers it with plaster. The resultant 'sculpture' is declared an artistic masterpiece. Contorted dead humans bring more recognition, until the busboy is finally nabbed for his crimes.
Convoluted continuation of the adventures of the time-traveling, now-human Monkey King, who attempts to fulfill his divine destiny.
Chris is a useless boyfriend. Determined to find out why, he consults his ex-girlfriends, medical practitioners, producers, and mother to find out how women really see him. Has this journey made him potential boyfriend material or is he staring a life of loneliness square in the face?
One of the all - time comedy classics, Rene Clair's A Nous la Liberte tells the story of Louis, an escaped convict who becomes a wealthy industrialist. Unfortunately, his past returns (in the form of old jail pal Emile) to upset his carefully laid plans. Featuring lighthearted wit, tremendous visual innovation, and masterful manipulation of sound, A Nous la Liberte ...
This inventive and allegorical comedy centers on two childhood sweethearts who seem destined for one another until the women of their isolated village, angered by male indifference toward the water shortage, go on a sex strike that threatens the young couple's first night of love.
Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy star as a married prosecutor and defense attorney assigned to the same case in this compelling courtroom battle of the sexes. Judy Holliday co-stars.
Our Take: A classic, crackling comedy featuring Tracy & Hepburn at their peak.
In his quest to become the world's greatest air-drummer, a small-town dreamer must overcome obstacles and ridicule to save the day.
A dead-on parody of the Hong Kong "gambler" genre, with Chow in comic mode as paranormally gifted, feckless rural rude whose x-ray vision attracts the attention of rival casino families who want to exploit his skills.
In this carnivalesque portrait of provincial Italy during the Fascist period, Federico Fellini's most personal film satirizes his youth and turns daily life into a circus of social rituals, adolescent desires, male fantasies, and political subterfuge, all set to Nina Rota's classic, nostalgia - tinged score. The Academy Award - winning Amarcord remains one of cinema's enduring treasures.
Based on the life and work of underground comic book writer Harvey Pekar- a prickly poet of the mundane who knows that all the strategizing in the world can't save a guy from picking the wrong supermarket checkout line.
Told in three segments ranging from satirical to tragic, the film is a wildly original look at American manners, prejudices, and family dynamics.
Jill was everything from senior class president, drama club president, to editor of the newspaper. Sheik was a woodshop monitor. Two very different students, they still fall in love. John Sayles's film is a vivid portrait of first love during the 1960s.
Directors Mark and Jay Duplass return with a hilarious, tongue-in-cheek, genre-twisting comedy that explores the minutiae of relationship dynamics among a group of desperate actor friends and roasts a gamut of indie films in the process.
After attending the Los Angeles Underground Film Festival premiere of the lauded indie film We Are Naked, Chad, Katherine, Matt, and Michelle are ...
Danny's sage-like friend, Craig, as the two nerdy pals lounge poolside in the Florida retirement community they call home. The night in question? Prom, of course, and high school senior/band member/student council vice president Danny Stein wants what any reasonable young man wants on prom night-to get a little lovin' from a cute girl. He's got the hotel, limo, and ...
Carrying a mysterious wicker basket around with him, Duane Bradley arrives in Manhattan and checks into a sleazy Times Square hotel. What's in the basket, you ask? Why, Duane's hideously misshapen Siamese-twin brother, Belial, of course! Duane has hit the Big Apple with his beastly bro to wreak havoc on the surgeons who separated them. With memorably gruesome scenes and ...
When a man whose body accidentally becomes magnetized unintentionally erases every tape in his friend's video store, the pair set out to remake the lost films, including Back to the Future, The Lion King and Robocop.
Jesse, a writer from the US, and Celine, a Frenchwoman working for an environment protection organization, acquainted nine years ago on the train from Budapest to Vienna, meet again when Jesse arrives in Paris for a reading of his new book. As they have only a few hours until his plane leaves, they stroll through Paris, talking about their experiences, ...
Our Take: One of the most romantic and realistic romances ever made.
Craig, a puppeteer, takes a filing job in a low-ceilinged office in Manhattan. Although married to the slightly askew Lotte, he hits on a colleague, the sexually frank Maxine. She's bored but snaps awake when he finds a portal leading inside John Malkovich: for 15 minutes you see, hear, and feel whatever JM is doing, then you fall out by ...
Our Take: A little bit crazy, very funny, and one of the most inventive movies you will ever see.
Three siblings couldn't be more different, or more neurotic. But when they find themselves converging at the family manse, they become surprisingly indispensable to one another.
In a startling mature and nuanced performance, Parker Posey plays Nora Wilder, a thirty-something Manhattanite who is cynical about love and relationships, in this astute collaboration with first-time writer/director Zoe Cassavetes.
Our Take: See this film by the daughter of indie pioneer John Cassavetes for Posey’s fine performance as an unlucky-in-love career gal, as well as for smart supporting work by The Sopranos’ Drea De Matteo, fedora-clad Frenchman Melvil Poupaud, and the incomparable Gena Rowlands. Plus, Justin Theroux’s turn as a narcissistic actor nearly steals the show.
Don Johnston (Bill Murray) receives an anonymous letter, allegedly from an unnamed former girlfriend, informing him that he has an 19-year-old son who may be looking for him. At the same time, his current girlfriend Sherry (Julie Delpy) moves out. Don has lived the life of an archetypal womanizer, a "Don Juan", and any one of several former girlfriends may ...
Having just served 5 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, Billy Brown (Gallo)'s first desperate post-incarceration action is to desperately search for somewhere to relieve himself. Then, to impress his dunceish, thoroughly neglectful parents, Gallo kidnaps a dance class student called Layla (Ricci) and forces her to pretend to be his wife. Layla allows herself to ...
Our Take: Director Vincent Gallo is a true original and he has made one of the most original, surprisingly beautiful modern love stories we've ever seen. And watching Ben Gazzara and Angelica Huston as an old married couple is reason alone to see this movie!
Big city mobsters and the Broadway stage collide hilariously in this side-splitting all-star comedy that had audiences and critics rolling in the aisles! John Cusack (Serendipity, High Fidelity) stars as David Shayne, an idealistic young writer who'll do anything to get his first Broadway play off the ground -- even if it means teaming up with the mob! Surrounded by ...
Warm and sweet, this Lebanese film lives up to its titular substance without ever being too sugary. Actress Nadine Labaki cowrote and directed Caramel, an ensemble comedy set in and around a Beirut beauty salon. Labaki also stars as Layale, a beautician torn by her secret affair with a married man who beckons her with his car ...
The start of Charlie Bartlett, the title character is expelled from yet another elite boarding school. This incident is just one in a long chain of expulsions resulting from Charlie's eccentric behavior. Despite his charming looks and wealthy upbringing, Charlie is just as insecure and unconfident as many teens. In fact, it's his intense desire to be ...
An adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's (Fight Club) novel, Choke is the sardonic story about mother and son relationship, fear of aging, sexual addiction, and the dark side of historical theme parks.
Chuck and Buch are childhood best friends whose lives have taken very different paths. While Chuck moved away and now has a real life, Buck stayed behind and developed a dangerous fixation on Chuck's life. The result is a wickedly hilarious story of two guys about to learn that growing up is the strangest trip of all.
Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle director Stephen Chow returns to the helm for this sci-fi comedy about a single father who thinks he has bought his son the perfect toy, and soon discovers that the truth about this "toy" is out of this world. Chinese newcomer Kitty Zhang Yuqi co-stars in ...
Melvin Van Peebles-filmmaker, playwright, composer, crooner, ladies' man, and living legend-returns to the screen with this picaresque yarn about a boy from Chicago who wants to see the world and get rich but discovers that all he needs is the love of a good woman. Based on Van Peebles' 1982 Broadway show Waltz of the Stork, Confessions chronicles the adventures ...
Kevin Willmott's funny and alarming mockumentary, C.S.A.: THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, springs from an ingenious premise: the South defeated the Union army and won the Civil War.
Advice columnist Dan Burns (Steve Carell) has his hands full with three daughters that he’s not willing to let grow up. The girls still grieve for their mother who died four years ago, and Dan hasn’t made any attempts to date.
A romantic comedy about an ad executive who dies in a car collision and finds himself in Judgement City, defending his life before a celestial court. When he falls in love with a fellow candidate, his interest in staying in heaven changes.
Psychotic Air Force General unleashes ingenious foolproof and irrevocable scheme sending bombers to attack Russia. U.S. President works with Soviet premier in a desperate effort to save the world.
Set in 1984 in Sandusky, Ohio, this popular comedy follows the coming-out of a naive 17-year-old teenager at exactly the moment when gender-bending pop stars like Boy George of Culture Club and the Annie Lennox of Eurythmics were flaunting androgynous images. As the youth goes through his first rites of gay passage, after being callously used by the slightly older ...
Set amidst the military maneuvers and Quatorze Juillet carnivals of turn - of - the - century France, Jean Renoir's delirious romantic comedy stars Ingrid Bergman in her most sensual role as a beautiful, but impoverished Polish princess who drives men of all stations to fits of desperate love.
Available only as part of the Stage and Spectacle: Three Films by ...
Featuring a cast composed entirely of little people (the first time that had been done since the 1938 western The Terror of Tiny Town), Even Dwarfs Started Small is a brutal, uncompromising allegory about the consequences of imprisonment and rebellion.
The life of celebrated wildman Charles Bukowski has been brought to the big screen on a number of occasions prior to this adaptation of his book, FACTOTUM. Most notably, Mickey Rourke played Bukowski's alter-ego Henry "Hank" Chinaski in 1987's BARFLY, while 2004’s BUKOWSKI: BORN INTO THIS was a fascinating documentary on the alcohol-fueled writer. This Norwegian production from director Bent ...
When Emilia (Chironi), an Argentinean grandmother, is invited to be the 'matron of honor' at the wedding of a distant niece, she invites her whole family to accompany her.
"We were somewhere around Barstow when the drugs began to take hold." It is 1971, and journalist Raoul Duke barrels towards Las Vegas to cover a motorcycle race, accompanied by a trunkful of contraband and his slightly unhinged Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo. But what is ostensibly a cut - and - dried journalistic endeavor quickly descends into a feverish psychedelic ...
In the hilarious tradition of This Is Spinal Tap, urban- comedy hit Fear of A Black Hat is a slyly subversive satire that smashes stereotypes as it skewers Gangsta Rap. Chronicling the controversial career of bad boys N.W.H. (Niggaz Wit Hats), this uproarious mockumentary lampoons all of hardcore rap's hot-button issues, violence, censorship, white rappers, ruthless record industry types, and ...
A cop relies on a young car thief to take down four gangsters, who plan to rob a rich merchant for a large amount of money.
Set in Imperial China, Stephen Chiau plays Fat, a guard in the Forbidden City. But unlike his colleagues he doesn't know anything about Kung Fu or other martial-arts, because he uses his time to make futuristic inventions. So when the emperor is kidnapped and the world most beautiful geisha comes to town Fat has to use his brain to get ...
A medical school dropout loses his fiancée in a tragic lawnmower incident, and decides to bring her back. Unfortunately, he was only able to save her head, so he goes to the red light district in the city and lures prostitutes into a hotel room so he can get parts for his girlfriend.
Nineteenth - century Paris comes vibrantly alive in Jean Renoir's exhilarating tale of the opening of the world - renowned Moulin Rouge. Jean Gabin plays the wily impresario Danglard, who makes the cancan all the rage while juggling the love of two beautiful women - an Egyptian belly - dancer and a naive working girl turned cancan star. This celebration ...
A drama that examines the shifting relationships between four women who have been friends all of their adult lives. Now as they settle into their early middle age, their friendship is increasingly challenged by the ever-growing disparity in their individual degrees of financial comfort. It is a poignant snapshot of the way we live today, where the safe divisions that ...
Our Take: A fresh, keenly observed, and authentic feeling ensemble portrait…rather like the Big Chill 15 years later.
After a giant dinosaur skull is stolen, the head of the Chinese secret police decides to assign the case to the force's most incompetent reject: a rural butcher who stands around all day drinking martinis (shaken, not stirred). With a trunkload of insanely useless gadgets and a contact who constantly tries to kill him, the young agent must locate the ...
A return to the rugged aesthetics of 1970s independent cinema, Frownland plumbs the life and neuroses of Keith (Dore Mann), a young New Yorker, and his failures to communicate. Devoid of plot, and relying largely on Mann's array of tics, stutters, and mumbles, the grainy, do-it-yourself film is sure to divide audiences with a portrait of life that ...
Shot in 16mm, Funny Ha Ha examines life after college in an understated and moving way. Focusing more on character than on plot, the film revolves loosely around Marnie (Dollenmayer), an attractive and intelligent young woman searching clumsily for some sense of purpose in what seems at times like an aimless life.
Our Take:
One of the key films of the so-called mumblecore movement, Bujalski’s tender-funny-awkward post-collegiate comedy of manners features a memorable performance from gawkish newcomer Kate Dollenmayer, as a hapless young woman looking for…something.
Anti Hero Andrew Largeman returns to his New Jersey hometown to visit from his Hollywood existence where he is an employed, but not famous actor. He decides to stop taking the psychopharmacological drugs his psychiatrist father has long insisted he take. As his mood changes, and his feelings of sadness and regret deepen he is also open for the first ...
Our Take: Tender, funny and definitely indie. Great supporting performance by Peter Sarsgaard.
Based on the well-known comic, GHOST WORLD tells the story of neo-cool Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) who, faced with graduation take a hard look at the world they wryly observe and decide what they really want. When Enid takes an interest in the offbeat Seymour (Steve Buscemi) and Rebecca focuses her attention on their mutual romantic fixation ...
Our Take: Not only do you get to check out Scarlett Johansson before she became a blonde femme fatale, you also experience one of the wittiest coming-of-age stories of our time. Also starring the great Steve Buscemi, this comical film about suburban boredom and being an outsider is a must-see.
The God of Cookery, a brilliant chef who sits in judgement of those who would challenge his title, loses his title when a jealous chef reveals him to be a con-man and humiliates him publicly. As this new chef takes on the God of Cookery's role, the former God tries to pull himself back on top again, to challenge his ...
It's not the nasty divorce or the demotion at his job that sends a man over the edge, but his missing cat. The events of Goliath unfold without mercy or relief for a man who clings to his search for 'the sweetest most wonderful cat in the whole world.
A group of young men and women are admitted to one of France's "grandes écoles" where the administrative and political leaders of tomorrow are trained. They are the country's best students and will be the nation's elite if all goes as planned. But life is always more imaginative than they are. Grandes Ecoles, yes, grand romance, too, sometimes difficult. The ...
When a young woman rejects her current overweight suitor in a restaurant, he unexpectedly places a curse on her. The film then moves on to her sisters. One is a happily married woman with a psychiatrist husband and three kids. Unfortunately the husband develops an unnatural fascination for his 11 year old son's male classmates, fantasizes about mass killing in ...
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay marks the triumphant return of these two hilarious, slacker anti-heroes. The movie stars John Cho as Harold and Kal Penn as Kumar, two stoners who can't seem to get a break.
A classic cult film that features one of the screen's most unlikely pairs. It will defy everything you've ever seen or known about screen lovers. Bud Cort is Harold, a young man bored with wealth but interested in death. And Ruth Gordon is Maude, a wonderful old rascal who can see nothing but good intention in the world. Hal Ashby ...
A man at the end of his emotional rope finally explodes, but not in a way anyone would have expected in this offbeat independent drama. Bob Maconel (Christian Slater) is a middle-aged nebbish working in an office building where few people know who he is and fewer still care. Bob has developed a seething hatred and resentment of those around ...
Our Take: Years ago, Slater’s role as a nerdy, would-be office shooter turned hero would have gone to angry white man Michael Douglas, but since this is a dark satire on the order of Office Space, Slater’s off-kilter persona is the perfect choice.
A small village relies on a glass factory for it's employment and when the owner dies taking the formula for Ruby glass (given to him by a wandering apocalyptic visionary) to his grave, the factory falls into decline and bankruptcy. The cast was put into a hypnotic trance each day to try and re-create a feeling of mass hysteria.
Hedwig, born a boy named Hansel in East Berlin, fell in love with an American G.I. and underwent a sex-change operation in order to marry him and flee to the West. Unfortunately, nothing worked out quite as it was supposed to - years later, Hedwig is leading her rock band on a tour of the U.S., telling her life story ...
Our Take: A hilarious, moving, visually and sonically stunning movie musical.
Henry Poole abandons his fiancée and family business to spend what he believes are his remaining days alone. The discovery of a "miracle" by a nosy neighbor ruptures his solitude and restores his faith in life.
Robert DeNiro stars as a would-be pornographer turned urban guerilla in this hilarious odyssey through a surreal 60's landscape of campy counterculture that keeps you laughing all the way!
At the edge of the continent and on the margins of society is a region nicknamed 'The Lost Coast.' It is there, amongst California's breathtaking redwood forests, that the last remnants of the hippie generation live under the radar and off the grid.
Homeless on the streets of Kuala Lumpur, Hsiao Kang is robbed, beaten and left for dead; he is found and nursed by Rawang, an immigrant worker, who lives in the shell of a modernist building abandoned during construction.
Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman), head of the Open Spaces Coalition, has been experiencing an alarming series of coincidences the meaning of which escapes him. With the help of two Existential Detectives, Bernard and Vivian Jaffe (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin), Albert examines his life, his relationships, and his conflict with Brad Stand (Jude Law), an executive climbing the corporate ladder ...
Our Take: Absurdist and bizarre, this clever comedy-satire features a wonderful breakout performance by Mark Wahlberg.
Two London hit men are ordered to take a forced vacation in Bruges, Belgium. This is the suspenseful, twisted tale of how their time in exile goes awry.
A wealthy but dysfunctional family teeters on the brink of collapse in this emotional drama leavened with a strong dose of dark comedy. Federica (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) is the daughter of a wealthy Italian business magnate (Roberto Herlitzka) who relocated himself and his family to France in the 1970s, after a wave of kidnappings among the rich and prominent led him ...
Our Take: In this age of heiresses becoming celebrities here is a movie that paints an honest and unvarnished portrait of growing up rich.
With his hair in a pompadour and sporting his trademark suede shoes, Johnny Suede dreams of becoming a pop star like his idol Ricky Nelson.
Our Take:
Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz), a sophisticated Chicagoan who owns a gallery devoted to "outsider art," goes south in an effort to woo an eccentric painter (Frank Hoyt Taylor) to her gallery. She brings along her husband, George (Alessandro Nivola), a native of the area, and the couple stays with his family. Peg (Celia Weston), George's mother, gives Madeleine a rather chilly ...
Our Take: No matter how far we go, it seems we never leave home. This adorable and character-rich film follows a Chicago art dealer and her younger newly-wed to North Carolina where each are confronted with the complexity and beauty of family relations, the struggle for identity, and what truly matters most.
JUNO stars Ellen Page as the title character, a whip-smart teen confronting an unplanned pregnancy by her classmate Bleeker (Cera).
Hong Kong No. 1 comedian Stephen Chiau ("God of Cookery") stars in this comedy, together with Anita Mui .Stephen Chiau acts as a famous barrister who uses his best efforts to defend his client and wins most of the cases. He is set up, put into jail, and the target to be murdered. How can he save his own life? Directed ...
Douglas stars as Charlie, a troubled musician who has just been released from a mental hospital. He returns home to live with his 16-year-old daughter, Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood), who is not exactly thrilled to have him back.
Our Take:
Looking a bit like the Unabomber, Michael Douglas plays the wildly off-kilter Charlie with a lot of heart, trying to convince his pragmatic teenage daughter Evan Rachel Wood that there’s a heap of Spanish doubloons buried beneath their local Costco. This is a treasure hunt with some unexpected emotional twists.
Wan Tin Sau (Chow) is an aspiring actor who visits the local film set every day in the hope that he will one day be noticed by the executives. Sadly, when that moment finally arrives in the form of a few roles as an extra he makes such calamitous mistakes that he is banished by all known directors.
Fed up with her fruitless search for "Mr. Right" and tired of blind dates from hell, attractive journalist Jessica Stein whimsically responds to a classified ad - from Helen! Making and breaking new rules of dating as they go, the two women muddle through an earnest but hilarious courtship that blurs the lines between friendship and romantic love in this ...
Our Take: Jessica is a "nice Jewish girl" who never expected to be gay... or did she? This is a wonderful, touching family dramedy.
They say that opposites attract. Well, for slacker Ben (Seth Rogen) and career girl Alison (Katherine Heigl), that's certainly the case—at least for one intoxicated evening.
Our Take: Lewd but true to life, tasteless yet sincerely tenderhearted: Apatow has rewritten the rules for modern-day romantic comedies, and this clever take on slacker-stoner lifestyle is his flagship entry. We can definitely relate.
Stephen Chow's follow-up to Shaolin Soccer ups the over-the-top action quotient by about three zillion percent. The story is set in 1930s Hong Kong, with Chow as a shaggy-haired, would-be bad guy named Sing, who gets caught up in the middle of a war between the top-hat-wearing Axe gang and the hard scrabble inhabitants of Pig Sty Alley.
This French drama is comprised of a brief feature and a short film. The tale is set in Paris' Latin Quarter on the Left Bank. Anne is a young intellectual and filmmaker in search of answers to difficult questions such as "What do you do with your desires?" and "what constitutes a political act these days?" She seeks her answers ...
Lars and the Real Girl is a heartfelt comedy starring Academy-Award nominated Ryan Gosling as Lars Lindstrom a loveable introvert whose emotional baggage has kept him from fully embracing life. After years of what is almost solitude, he invites Bianca, a friend he met on the internet to visit him.
Welcome to the world of Leolo Lozone, a 12-year-old dreamer with a hilarious life-preserving ability to recreate the world according to his imagination.
After slaying the Arthurian legend in their now classic Holy Grail, the Pythons set their sights on the Greatest Story Ever Told. Blind faith, virgin birth, crucifixion - nothing is sacred in this epic send - up of ancient times, which draws on the cornball biblical blockbusters of the 1950s to lampoon celebrity culture in any era.
When a pudgy, bespectacled seven-year-old, Olive (Abigail Breslin), voices her desire to take home the coveted Little Miss Sunshine crown at an upcoming beauty pageant, her wildly dysfunctional family sets out on an interstate road trip to ensure her a clear shot at realizing her dreams in former music video directorial team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris' quirky feature debut. ...
Our Take: You will laugh your hardest in this sharp family comedy. Steve Carell gives a surprising turn, far from The 40 Year Old Virgin, and the whole cast creates a hilarious portrait of a dysfunctional but loving family.
Jonathan Haze stars as clumsy assistant florist Seymour, who saves his job in Mr. Mushnik's skid-row flower shop when he brings in a unique man-eating plant.
Taking its title from the state motto of New Hampshire, Live Free or Die is a deadpan comedy about a clueless, aspiring criminal named John "Rugged" Rudgate (Aaron Stanford), who spends his days forging rebate coupons and selling speakers out the back of his van. One day, Rugged runs into an old acquaintance, the dim-witted Jeff Lagrand (Paul Schneider), who ...
A corrupt police officer steals drugs from a group of smugglers and is sent to prison, where he is severely beaten and receives serious head injuries. When he awakens, he believes he is "Mike," the detective protagonist from an American crime novel, and escapes prison for the purpose of fighting a communist group pursuing him.
From acclaimed auteur Joe Swanberg (Hannah Takes the Stairs), LOL is a raw, witty, and painfully intimate look at modern sexuality and the technology that either helps us click or turns us off.
Lolita (Marilou Berry) is the 20-year-old daughter of Étienne Cassard (Jean-Pierre Bacri), a wealthy and well-known editor and writer, and most of the people she meets seem to be more interested in her dad than in her; her zaftig figure doesn't help her self-esteem much, either. Lolita is a gifted singer and has been studying with a voice coach, Sylvia ...
Our Take: Director Agnes Jaoui and star Jean-Pierre Bacri (real-life husband and wife) are the most popular and sucessful comic duo in France. Look At Me proves why: it's smart, funny, moving and unflinchingly honest in its depiction of love of all kinds. It was a smash at the Cannes Film Festival and it's one of the most satisfying movies we've seen in a long time.
Following the unexplained suicide of his wife Liza, website designer Wilson Joel (Philip Seymour Hoffman) turns to gasoline fumes and remote control gaming while avoiding an inevitable conflict with his mother-in-law (Kathy Bates).
From acclaimed director Nicole Holofcener (Walking and Talking, Lovely and Amazing) is an intimate family portrait of four hapless but resilient women and the bitter sweet lessons they learn in keeping up with the hectic demands of their individual neuroses.
Pipe - smoking Monsieur Hulot, Jacques Tati's endearing clown, takes a holiday at a seaside resort where his presence provokes one catastrophe after another. Tati's wildly funny satire of vacationers determined to enjoy themselves includes a series of precisely choreographed sight gags involving dogs, boats, and firecrackers. The first entry in the Hulot series is a masterpiece of gentle slapstick.
In this comedic slice-of-life, a young man who has been away for a long time comes back home to visit his mother, an egocentric literary critic consumed by the world of books. His sister is pretty much wrapped up in herself, his father is a journalist and somewhat of a dreamer, in short, no one in his family is prepared ...
Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep and Mariel Hemingway star in Woody Allen's extraordinary and funny film that explores the embattled life and loves of a successful New York comedy writer.
Our Take: The opening montage alone - a love letter to NYC - makes this worth seeing.
Margot Zeller (Nicole Kidman), a savagely bright, razor-tongued short-story writer who creates chaos wherever she lights, sets off on a surprise journey to the wedding of her estranged and free-spirited, easy-going sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Margot arrives -- her all-too-rapidly maturing son Claude (Zane Pais) in tow -- with the gale force of a hurricane. From the minute she ...
Me and You and Everyone We Know is a poetic and penetrating observation of how people struggle to connect with one another in an isolating and contemporary world. Christine Jesperson is a lonely artist and “Eldercab” driver who uses her fantastical artistic visions to draw her aspirations and objects of desire closer to her. Richard Swersey (John Hawkes), a newly ...
Our Take: Director Miranda July started out as a visual artist and it shows- unlike a lot of artists who turn to movies she didn't make a "weird" movie. She applied her artistic sensibility to a very funny and romantic story that features the most hilarious depiction of online dating you may ever see. This miraculously poetic and award-winning debut film explores the outwardly generic yet internally brave dreamers of companionship and human connection who must reconcile their fantasies of love and happiness.
Screenwriter/director Naoko Ogigami’s fourth feature is a comedy as refreshing as shaved ice on a warm afternoon. A propeller ride away, where the sky is deep blue and the sandy beaches curve into the ocean, stands a unique seaside inn. Taeko, a serious young woman and the first client of spring, rolls in her gigantic suitcase, unaware that her needs ...
Our Take: Ogigami’s delicate comedy is as peacable and refreshing as the pastel-colored seaside resort where a harried urbanite comes for a much-needed respite, only to find herself irritated at the odd group rituals of her curious cohabitants. Best seen with Buddha-mind, or first thing in the morning.
One of the great American independent films of the 1990s, writer-director Whit Stillman’s surprise hit Metropolitan is a sparkling comedic chronicle of a middle-class young man’s romantic misadventures among New York City’s debutante society. Stillman’s deft, literate dialogue and hilariously highbrow observations earned this debut film an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Alongside the wit and sophistication, though, ...
A Michael Jackson impersonator lives alone in Paris and performs on the streets to make ends meet. At a performance in a retirement home, Michael falls for a beautiful Marilyn Monroe look-alike who suggests he move to a commune of impersonators in the Scottish Highlands.
This classic Monty Python comedy, directed by Pythons Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, is a hilarious send-up of the grim circumstances of the Middle Ages as told through the story of King Arthur and framed by a modern-day murder investigation. When the mythical king of the Britons leads his knights on a quest for the Holy Grail, they face a ...
In the tradition of Big Night and Chocolat comes this "delicious romantic comedy!" that won over 10 international film awards and captured the hearts of moviegoers around the world. Martha is a single woman who lives for one passion: cooking. The head chef at a chic restaurant, Martha has no time for anything - or anyone - else. But, Martha's ...
To help fight the communists, comic-strip superhero Mister Freedom (John Abbey) is sent to France by an American group called Freedom Incorporated. Receiving his orders from Doctor Freedom (Donald Pleasence), he battles the Russian Moujik Man and a fire-breathing dragon named Red China Man in this political satire critical of U.S. policies. When one of the heroes nears death, another ...
Richard Pimentel (Ron Livingston) begins his life as a fighter, and his life's work becomes a process of fighting for the rights of others.
Both actress Judy Davis and director Gillian Armstrong made a big splash on the international scene with this charming Australian film that examines late 19th century Australian society from the perspective of a headstrong woman who refuses to follow convention. The film charts the developing self-awareness of Sybylla Melvyn (Judy Davis) as she grows from an insecure tomboy to a ...
Our Take: Delightful and surprising - Judy Davis is wonderful as a radiant "ugly duckling."
My Life as a Dog tells the story of Ingemar, a working - class twelve - year - old sent to live with his uncle in a country village when his mother falls ill. Once there, Ingemar finds refuge from his misfortunes and unexpected adventure with the help of the town's warmhearted eccentrics. A bittersweet evocation of the struggles and ...
The definitive screwball comedy, My Man Godfrey follows the madcap antics of a wealthy and eccentric family when they hire a down - and - out "forgotten man" as their butler. My Man Godfrey features brilliant performances by Carole Lombard and William Powell, and was the first film to receive Academy Award nominations in all four acting categories.
An almost-thirty junior professor can't follow through with his career, his dissertation, or his foundering ten-year love relationship, and he covets everything around him, from a colleague's full professorship to his best friend's girlfriend.
Kat (Annabeth Gish), Daisy (Julia Roberts), and Jojo (Lili Taylor) are three working-class women just out of high school who have jobs at the same pizza parlor in the resort community of Mystic, Connecticut. Kat wants to study astronomy at Yale; when she starts baby-sitting for Tim (William R. Moses), a wealthy Yale graduate summering in Mystic, she finds herself ...
The directorial debut of filmmaker Jared Hess, who also co-wrote the screenplay, Napoleon Dynamite is a quirky, offbeat comedy set in the small Idaho town of Preston. Jon Heder stars in the titular role, a carrot-topped oddball with a decidedly eccentric family that includes his llama-loving, dune-buggy enthusiast grandmother. The story centers on the local high school's race for class ...
Our Take: A breakout peformance by Jon Heder, plus Pedro for President. Need we say more?
Following 24 characters through 5 days in the country music capital, Robert Altman's 1975 epic presents a complexly textured portrayal (and critique) of American obsessions with celebrity and power. Among the various stars, aspirants, hangers-on, observers, and media folk are politically ambitious country icon Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson) and his fragile star protegée Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakley); Tom (Keith Carradine), ...
Our Take: One of Robert Altman's finest films -- and that's saying something...
Newscaster Howard Beale has a message for those who package reports of cute puppies, movie premieres and fender benders as hard news: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore."
A gifted teenager, dreaming of life beyond her small Nova Scotia town, becomes inspired when a 15-year-old girl from New York moves in next door.
In the tradition of BEAUTIFUL THING and WILD REEDS, NICO AND DANI explores the emotional confusion of two teenage boys whose longtime friendship is tested by their diverging sexual identities. Set against the blazing sun and azure sea of a small seaside town near Barcelona, Nico and Dani are left on their own at Dani's parent's beach house. Long days ...