Tuesday, January 26, 2010

New Quick Flicks for the Week of 1/26/10

Amreeka

Amreeka
By Dabis, Cherien
2010-01 - Virgil Films and Entertai
0829567066621 Check Our Catalog

Amreeka chronicles the adventures of Muna, a single mother who leaves the West Bank with Fadi, her teenage son, with dreams of an exciting future in the promised land of small town Illinois. In America, as her son navigates high school hallways the way he used to move through military checkpoints, the indomitable Muna scrambles together a new life cooking up falafel burgers as well as hamburgers at the local White Castle. Told with heartfelt humor by writer-director Cherien Dabis in her feature film debut, Amreeka is a universal journey into the lives of a family of immigrants and first-generation teenagers caught between their heritage and the new world in which they now live and the bittersweet search for a place to call home. …More

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
By Hyams, Peter
2009-12 - Starz/Sphe
0013139000490 Check Our Catalog

Michael Douglas stars as corrupt district attorney Mark Hunter in this remake of Fritz Lang's noir classic about a reporter, C.J. Nicholas (Jesse Metcalfe), who sets himself up as the prime suspect in a murder he didn't commit in order to expose Hunter's misdeeds. Nicholas's plans go awry, however, when Hunter discovers the trap and destroys the evidence that would exonerate the cub reporter. …More

Bright Star

Bright Star
By
2010-01 - Sony Pictures Home Ent
1435996364 Check Our Catalog

Critically acclaimed Australian filmmaker Jane Campion helms this drama detailing the passionate three-year romance between 19th-century Romantic poet John Keats -- who died tragically at age 25 -- and his great love and muse, Fanny Brawne. Much of the story was inspired by Keats's poetry and the actual love letters the pair exchanged. …More

Brothers at War

Brothers at War
By Rademacher, Jake
2010-01 - Uni Dist Corp (Music)
0025192055393 Check Our Catalog

The documentary film follows Jake Rademacher in his directorial debut as he sets out to understand the experience, sacrifice, and motivation of his two brothers serving in Iraq. Unprecedented access to US and Iraqi combat units take Jake behind the camouflage curtain with secret reconnaissance troops on the Syrian border, into sniper hide sites in the Sunni Triangle, through raging machine gun battles with the Iraqi Army. BROTHERS AT WAR is a rare look at the bonds and service of our soldiers on the frontlines and the profound effects their service has on the loved ones they leave behind. …More

Herb & Dorothy

Herb & Dorothy
By Sasaki, Megumi
2009-12 - New Video Group
0767685210147 Check Our Catalog

HERB & DOROTHY tells the extraordinary story of Herbert Vogel, a postal clerk, and Dorothy Vogel, a librarian, who managed to build one of the most important contemporary art collections in history with very modest means. In the early 1960s, when very little attention was paid to Minimalist and Conceptual Art, Herb and Dorothy Vogel quietly began purchasing the works of unknown artists. Devoting all of Herb's salary to purchase art they liked, and living on Dorothy's paycheck alone, they continued collecting artworks guided by two rules: the piece had to be affordable, and it had to be small enough to fit in their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment. Within these limitations, they proved themselves curatorial visionaries; most of those they supported and befriended went on to become world-renowned artists. …More

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
By
2010-01 - Twentieth Century-Fox
0024543635161 Check Our Catalog

A connoisseur of fast times and faster women, Tucker Max (Czuchry) unleashes his wit and wants on every unsuspecting female around from horny hotties to aroused cougars to one amorous dwarf for one night of non-stop debauchery. But the night gets out of control when the boys meet a stripper who can match their misogynist mouths, and Tucker becomes the butt of a vengeful practical joke. …More

Local Color

Local Color
By Gallo, George
2009-09 - Monterey Home Video
0012233280920 Check Our Catalog

A renowned artist looks back with loving memories on the summer of his defining year, 1974, when he befriended an elderly, alcoholic yet genius painter who has turned his back not only on art, but on life. As a student he wants to learn all the secrets the master has locked away inside his head and heart. But time has not been kind to the old master and his life and work have lost their meaning. Over the course of the summer the students enthusiasm and innocence rekindles the masters artistic passion ~a tenuous relationship forms between student and master. Together, they give one another a priceless gift. The student learns to see the world through the eyes of an artist, while the master remembers how to see past the ugliness in life and once again embrace the beauty. …More

Michael Jackson's This Is It

Michael Jackson's This Is It
By Ortega, Kenny
2010-01 - Sony Pictures Home Ent
0043396338821 Check Our Catalog

Rehearsal footage, backstage action and interviews comprise this moving Michael Jackson experience. He is shown here preparing for a series of 50 sold-out London shows, which were scheduled to kick off in late summer 2009. Singing his numerous hits at the Staples Center in Los Angeles during the days leading up to his untimely death, Jackson is also seen refining cues, delving into dance details and working with director Kenny Ortega. …More

Post Grad

Post Grad
By
2010-01 - Twentieth Century-Fox
0024543626534 Check Our Catalog

Eternal optimist Ryden Malby (Alexis Bledel) has the most brutal of wake-up calls when she graduates from college and can't find a job, forcing her back home to live with her oddball family. Frustrated and confused about how her life is supposed to turn out, she soon realizes that her longtime platonic best friend is the only one who makes everything in her crazy life make sense. …More

Pretty Ugly People

Pretty Ugly People
By Taylor, Tate
2010-01 - Osiris Entertainment, LLC
0813153010112 Check Our Catalog

College pals reunite under the false pretense of saying goodbye to dying Lucy. …More

Saw VI

Saw VI
By Greutert, Kevin
2010-01 - Lions Gate Home Entertainment
0031398117117 Check Our Catalog

Special Agent Strahm is dead, and Detective Hoffman has emerged as the unchallenged successor to Jigsaw's legacy. However, when the FBI draws closer to Hoffman, he is forced to set a game into motion, and Jigsaw's grand scheme is finally understood. …More

Surrogates

Surrogates
By Mostow, Jonathan
2010-01 - Buena Vista Home Entertainment
0786936792836 Check Our Catalog

Based on Robert Venditti's graphic novel of the same name, director Jonathan Mostow's sci-fi thriller is set in a futuristic world in which humans hibernate at home while living their lives vicariously through robot surrogates. When a series of mysterious surrogate murders occurs, FBI agent Greer (Bruce Willis) ventures out into the world for the first time in years to investigate. …More

Whip It

Whip It
By Barrymore, Drew
2010-01 - Twentieth Century-Fox
0024543641964 Check Our Catalog

Hang onto your helmet and get ready to break away from the pack! Ellen Page scores huge laughs as Bliss Cavendar, a small-town teenager with a big dream: to find her own path in the world. Tired of following in her familys footsteps of compliance and conformity, Bliss discovers a way to put her life on the fast track...literally. She lands a spot on a rough-and-tumble roller derby team and becomes Babe Ruthless the hottest thing on eight wheels! …More

Act of God
Is being hit by lightning a random occurrence or a predestined event? Jennifer Baichwal explores the metaphysical effects of being struck by lightning with riveting personal stories from around the world. Captured is the harsh beauty of the skies and the lives of those who have been forever touched by their fury. In a neurological experiment, musician Fred Frith improvises with his guitar to demonstrate the ubiquity of electricity in our bodies and the universe.

Armageddon: exploring the doomsday myth
Doomsday 2012: the End of Days: An examination of the forecasts that discuss the end of the world, including the ancient Mayan calendar, the medieval predictions of Merlin, the Book of Revelation in the Bible, and the Chinese oracle of the I Ching. Considers whether December 21, 2012 will be the end of time. Mayan doomsday prophecy: The Maya were legendary astronomers and timekeepers. They tracked stars and planets and assigned great meaning to astronomical phenomena, making a 2012 doomsday prediction.

Beauty in trouble
A married woman meets a wealthy, educated man, who causes her to question her path in life.

By the People: The Election of Barack Obama
Documents Barack Obama's history-making road to the White House as the nation's first African-American president. Follows the former Senator from his decision to throw his hat in the ring to his historic election, and inauguration. Includes interviews, candid moments with his wife Michelle, and his daughters, Malia and Sasha, plus his senior campaign staff, his supporters, aids, and the media.

Copyright criminals
As hip-hop rose from the streets of New York to become a multibillion-dollar industry, artists such as Public Enemy and De La Soul began reusing portions of previously recorded music for their songs. But when record company lawyers got involved everything changed. Years before people started downloading and remixing music, hip-hop sampling sparked a debate about copyright, creativity, and technological change that still rages today.

A finished life: the goodbye & no regrets tour
Gregg Gour, a 48-year-old gay man with AIDS, takes the road trip of his life after he is given only six months to live. Discontinuing his medication, Gour embarks on an emotional and surprisingly upbeat trip across America to visit friends and family for the last time before ending his life on his own terms.

Objectified
A feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. In his second film, director Gary Hustwit (Helvetica) documents the creative processes of some of the world's most influential product designers, and looks at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets.

Ripped Off: Madoff & the Scamming of America
Compares and contrasts what Bernie Madoff did with other Ponzi schemes throughout history. An additional documentary, Crash: The Next Great Depression? looks at the current financial crisis in the U.S. and compares and contrasts it with what led up to the Great Depression, its immediate aftermath, and the efforts that helped the country break free from it. Includes interviews

You the living
Hypnotic and darkly humorous, Roy Andersson's You, the living is a uniquely Scandinavian take on the absurdities of life. Expertly shot and whimsically written, You, the living traces a series of bizarre, deadpan and comic vignettes which wryly address the meaning (or lack thereof) of life. Visually striking, strangely hilarious, utterly surreal and fantastical in its execution, You, the living is sure to be an instant cult classic.