13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm

Even for Pixar, this might be a first: an animated film that contains not only a fully realized world as photorealistic as it is full of wonder, but also the Gargantuan themes and visuals of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, the stripped-down sad-clown pathos found in classic Buster Keaton comedies, and one of the most moving and simply unique love stories in a long time. Director Andrew Stanton kicked up the visual acuity of an already-stellar Pixar Animation Studios in 2003 with a reflective, refractive, color-shimmery realization of the oceanic world of FINDING NEMO, which genuinely felt as though it spanned the entire earth. With WALL-E, Stanton replaces an apprehensively fishy estranged journeyer with a love-struck and curious robotic one, allowing the quest for eternal love to expand from a desolate, dust-covered, palpably polluted future Earth and into an even more mysterious abyss: the far reaches of outer space.With virtually no dialogue, WALL-E's neatly contained vaudevillian first act eerily and tragically introduces the robot of the title as the last living thing on Earth (aside from a little cockroach friend) amidst dilapidated skyscrapers and equally tall compacted trash heaps. WALL-E has developed a tender and inquisitive personality doing what he was built to do day in and day out for the past 700 years--allocate and dispose of human waste--simply because no one turned him off when the human race left the hostile polluted planet. When the directive-oriented Eve robot comes crashing into his life from above, WALL-E immediately becomes infatuated with her, and is willing to follow her to back into dangerous outer space, where two robots gliding through the ether, dancing via fire-extinguisher propulsion, are among the many memorable and grandly romantic moments of an expansively beautiful, deceptively simple story. (1 hr. 37 min.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
Eighteen different directors and a slew of indie actors come together for PARIS, JE T'AIME, a cinematic homage to the City of Lights. Each director presents his or her own short story set in a different Parisian quarter, each one featuring a different cast of characters. The pieces vary in length, with some of them striving to tell a fully developed tale--no matter how simple the plot--while others are more abstract, content to rely on sparse dialogue and vivid imagery. With directors such as Gus Van Sant, Alexander Payne, Wes Craven, and the Coen brothers participating, the tales are as varied and oddball as one might expect. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a lonely actress with a fondness for her hash dealer. Elijah Wood encounters a seductive vampire on a moonlit street. Steve Buscemi is a flustered tourist. Natalie Portman falls for a deaf Frenchmen. Each tale is markedly unique, and specific to the quirky style of its director, and the film is a veritable Who's Who for indie buffs. The end product is a bit uneven, with some of the narratives sparkling and others starting strong, then falling flat. But in the moments when it succeeds, the movie can feel mysterious and magical, evoking the romance and longing the city is famous for. (2 hrs.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
Based on the epic graphic novel by Frank Miller, "300" is a retelling of the ancient Battle of Thermopylae in which King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes and his massive Persian army. Facing insurmountable odds, their valor and sacrifice inspire all of Greece to unite against their Persian enemy, drawing a line in the sand for democracy. (1 hr. 56 min.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
In a flooded future Earth, people cling to man-made floating islands for survival. When a tyrannical madman driving a supertanker over the world in search of "dry land" invades one of these islands a mysterious wanderer named the "Mariner" rescues a woman and her adopted daughter from the slaughter and they embark on a quest that could save mankind. Academy Award Nomination: Best Sound. (2 hrs.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
15-year-old April is running from one bad situation into another, hoping to find an answer that doesn't involve taking off her clothes. As April navigates Los Angeles, she falls in with a group of confused kids struggling to chase their dreams. The black widow at the center of this web is a sexy, pot-dealing realtor named Sally St. Clair. Anyone who gets too close falls victim to her kinky entanglements. For some it goes bad, for others worse, but that's just a day in the life of the Garden Party - where everyone has a story. (1 hr. 28 min.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
A teenage girl and her outcast boyfriend resort to murder as= revenge against their high school's popular crowd. (1 hr. 42 min.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
Based on the Greek tragedy Oedipus at Colonus, here transformed into a striking and poignant series of gospel revelations. Titles include: "Live Where You Can," "A Voice Foretold," "Lift Me Up," "Eternal Sleep," "Sunlight of No Light," and more.

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
Although it is 160 minutes long and shot with breathtaking scope and sumptuousness, Bertolucci's film is a story about claustrophobia. Pu Yi, the Manchurian emperor of China who ascended the throne in 1908 at the age of three, is a prisoner in the palace he rules over. Outside, real power changes hands with each coup d'etat. Pu Yi grows to manhood, is tutored by a Westerner (Peter O'Toole), and marries a gorgeous princess (Joan Chen). However, the adult Pu Yi (John Lone) is destined for a communist reeducation camp when the war is over. From start to finish, Pu Yi is a passive antihero who can never come to grips with the idea that the absolute power conferred on him as a child was only a mirage. The mistakes Pu Yi made trying to realize that power, especially collaborating with the Japanese during the war, provide Bertolucci with the chance to explore his familiar theme of collaboration and its moral consequences (as he did in THE CONFORMIST and 1900). In the end, Pu Yi seems to have reached a kind of peace, and the terrible waste of a special man's life disappears into a drab, grey-clad Beijing. (2 hrs. 40 min.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
No description available (1 hr. 31 min.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
No description available (1 hr. 24 min.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
No description available (1 hr. 48 min.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
Innocent Anna (Lillian Gish, in a terrific performance) is sent by her poverty-stricken mother to visit rich relations in Boston, where she is seduced into a sham marriage by a smooth-talking scoundrel (Lowell Sherman). When she becomes pregnant, he abandons her; later, the baby dies. Now a social outcast, she changes her name and eventually finds shelter at the estate of the sternly religious Squire Bartlett (Burr McIntosh). She falls in love with his handsome son (Richard Barthelmess), but cannot divulge to him her terrible secret for fear of his father's righteous fury. D.W. Griffith (BIRTH OF A NATION) directed this film with his usual blend of powerfully cinematic storytelling and scathing social commentary. Rustic New England and New York locations provide a gorgeous backdrop to the proceedings, and the climax, where poor Anna becomes lost in a winter storm, and is swept down the river on ice floes, is one of silent cinema's peak moments. (2 hrs. 55 min.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
No description available

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
Best known for his dark splatterfests (AUDITION, ICHI THE KILLER), director Takeshi Miike takes a detour from his usual style with HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS. After losing his job at a department store, patriarch Masao (Kenji Sawada) has opened a country inn at which the whole family can work. The trouble is, whenever someone checks in, they seem to die before checking out! The inn spells a different adventure for each member of the family, and Miike somehow finds the ability to work in some surreal clay animation along with several elaborate karaoke-style musical numbers. KATAKURIS is a one-of-a-kind film which will certainly deliver the goods to adventurous cinephiles! (1 hr. 53 min.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
Young men are torn between physical desire and religious discipline in a Catholic seminary where students and priests alike struggle to resist the temptations of the flesh. (1 hr. 39 min.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
A poignant profile of Leopold Kozlowski, a Polish Holocaust survivor and instructor of the klezmer folk music tradition, a tradition that has all but vanished since World War II. Despite all that he has endured, Kozlowski remains optimistic about his life and his music. (1 hr. 21 min.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
Returning to a life of racial bigotry after two years of killing in Vietnam, Seminole Indian Tim, actor Chris Robinson, needs alot of help. The only love and affection he is now capable of expressing is to venomous snakes. Tim‘s fellow human beings respect his serpentine expertise; his affection for snakes is another story. Tim finds others hate, if not misunderstanding, Stanley and his snake friends. If his friends are killed or mistreated, Tim dishes out cruel punishment to the human transgressors. Snakes are his tool for revenge. Snakes, however, are fickle creatures and the final venomous showdown takes place deep within the swamp between the two friends. (1 hr. 46 min.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
The award-winning Guarneri String Quartet are tracked on tour Europe and the U.S. performing music of Haydn, Schubert, Mozart, Smetana and Beethoven. Through intimate rehearsals and recording sessions, we observe the inner mechanisms that cause the foursome, the oldest original-membership string quartet in the country, to flourish. (1 hr. 25 min.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
The story of the notorious Alferd Packer, the only man ever convicted of cannibalism in the United States, as told by the creators of SOUTH PARK. A musical comedy horror extravaganza, originally made as a student film at the University of Colorado. (1 hr. 32 min.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
A star-studded fete for the Royal Opera House on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. Asher Finch directs the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, with Vasko Vassilev as concertmaster.

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
Three of the four daughters of a disparate Italian-American family have left home and seldom return out of spite for their domineering father, and when they return to Rhode Island for the wedding of their most conventional sister, their alienation from family and each other worsens, until they realize that the sister who never left home nor broken with tradition has found the answer to self-fulfillment and holds the key to happiness. (1 hr. 55 min.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
In GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON, director Alex Gibney (TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE) creates a portrait of one of journalism's most controversial and talented superstars. Famous in the 1960s for his wild, self-coined "gonzo" style of reporting, Thompson's most famous adventures include riding with the Hell's Angels, chasing the American dream in Las Vegas, and covering the volatile George McGovern political campaign. The fact that Thompson did most of his reporting while throwing back large quantities of Wild Turkey and illegal drugs led to some of the most bizarre and imaginative journalism the writing world had ever seen. Gibney pieces Thompson's life together using archival footage and recordings and interviews with those closest to him, including his former wives and son, and the artist Ralph Steadman. There are also appearances and commentary from the likes of Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner, as well as conservative heavyweight Pat Buchanan. Johnny Depp, who played Thompson in the film version of FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, provides the voice of Thompson, reading excerpts of his writings. The result is an engaging, lively biography that paints a life that was as tragic as it was passion-filled. Thompson's suicide in 2005 officially cemented his place in history as one of literature's wildest, most enigmatic hell-raisers. (2 hrs.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
No description available

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
In the grand tradition of movies about movies such as 8 1/2, this satire arrives from Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio (GOOD MORNING, NIGHT). Sergio Castellitto (MOSTLY MARTHA) stars as an unsuccessful filmmaker who resorts to filming a fan's daughter's wedding in Sicily while he tries to avoid a scandal on the Italian mainland. (1 hr. 40 min.)

13 Nov 2008 at 3:56pm
No description available

   Site Map