Archive for the ‘Drama’ Category

Angels Crest

Friday, December 30th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 140

Language:

Director: Gaby Dellal

Plot: In the working-class Rocky Mountain town of Angels Crest, young father Ethan (Thomas Dekker) is doing his best to raise his three-year-old son Nate. He has no choice – Nate’s mother (Lynn Collins) is an alcoholic. But one snowy day Ethan’s momentary lapse in judgment results in tragedy, catapulting the town’s tight-knit community into strange new directions as they try to decide where the blame lies.

 

War Horse

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 122

Language: English

Director: Steven Spielberg

Plot: From director Steven Spielberg comes “War Horse,” an epic adventure for audiences of all ages. Set against a sweeping canvas of rural England and Europe during the First World War, “War Horse” begins with the remarkable friendship between a horse named Joey and a young man called Albert, who tames and trains him. When they are forcefully parted, the film follows the extraordinary journey of the horse as he moves through the war, changing and inspiring the lives of all those he meets-British cavalry, German soldiers, and a French farmer and his granddaughter-before the story reaches its emotional climax in the heart of No Man’s Land.

The First World War is experienced through the journey of this horse-an odyssey of joy and sorrow, passionate friendship and high adventure. “War Horse” is one of the great stories of friendship and war- a successful book, it was turned into a hugely successful international theatrical hit that is arriving on Broadway next year. It now comes to screen in an epic adaptation by one of the great directors in film history.

 

Pariah

Sunday, December 25th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 125

Language: English

Director: Dee Rees

Plot: Alike (pronounced “ah-lee-kay”, is a 17-year-old African-American woman who lives with her parents (Kim Wayans and Charles Parnell) and younger sister (Sahra Mallesse) in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood. Alike is quietly but firmly embracing her identity as a lesbian. With the support of her best friend Laura (Pernell Walker), she is especially eager to find a girlfriend. Wondering how much she can confide in her family, Alike strives to get through adolescence with grace, humor, and tenacity – sometimes succeeding, sometimes not, but always moving forward.

 

In the Land of Blood and Honey

Friday, December 23rd, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 152

Language: English

Director: Angelina Jolie

Plot: Set against the backdrop of the Bosnian War that tore the Balkan region apart in the 1990s, In the Land of Blood and Honey tells the story of Danijel (Goran Kostic) and Ajla (Zana Marjanovic), two people from different sides of a brutal ethnic conflict. Danijel, a soldier fighting for the Serbs, and Ajla, a Bosnian held captive in the camp he oversees, knew each other before the war, and could have found love with each other. But as the armed conflict takes hold of their lives, their relationship grows darker, their motives and connection to one another ambiguous, their allegiances uncertain. In the Land of Blood and Honey portrays the incredible emotional, moral and physical toll that the war exerts both on individuals and people as a whole, and the terrible consequences that stem from the lack of political will to intervene in a society stricken with conflict.

 

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 101

Language: English

Director: David Fincher

Plot: Film adaptation of best selling book by Stieg Larsson.

 

The Descendants

Friday, December 16th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 137

Language: English

Director: Alexander Payne

Plot: From Alexander Payne, the creator of the Oscar-winning Sideways, set in Hawaii, The Descendants is a sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic journey for Matt King (George Clooney) an indifferent husband and father of two girls, who is forced to re-examine his past and embrace his future when his wife suffers a boating accident off of Waikiki. The event leads to a rapprochement with his young daughters while Matt wrestles with a decision to sell the family’s land handed down from Hawaiian royalty and missionaries.

 

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Friday, December 9th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 126

Language: English (International)

Director: Tomas Alfredson

Plot: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is the long-awaited feature film version of John le Carré’s classic bestselling novel. The thriller is directed by Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In). The screenplay adaptation is by the writing team of Bridget O’Connor & Peter Straughan.

The time is 1973. The Cold War of the mid-20th Century continues to damage international relations. Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), a.k.a. MI6 and code-named the Circus, is striving to keep pace with other countries’ espionage efforts and to keep the U.K. secure. The head of the Circus, known as Control (John Hurt), personally sends dedicated operative Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) into Hungary. But Jim’s mission goes bloodily awry, and Control is forced out of the Circus – as is his top lieutenant, George Smiley (Gary Oldman), a career spy with razor-sharp senses.

Estranged from his absent wife Ann, Smiley is soon called in to see undersecretary Oliver Lacon (Simon McBurney); he is to be rehired in secret at the government’s behest, as there is a gnawing fear that the Circus has long been compromised by a double agent, or mole, working for the Soviets and jeopardizing England. Supported by younger agent Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), Smiley parses Circus activities past and present. In trying to track and identify the mole, Smiley is haunted by his decades-earlier interaction with the shadowy Russian spy master Karla.

The mole’s trail remains cold until maverick field agent Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy) unexpectedly contacts Lacon. While undercover in Turkey, Ricki has fallen for a betrayed married woman, Irina (Svetlana Khodchenkova), who claims to possess crucial intelligence. Separately, Smiley learns that Control narrowed down the list of mole suspects to five men. They are the ambitious Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), whom he had code-named Tinker; suavely confident Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), dubbed Tailor; stalwart Roy Bland (Ciarán Hinds), called Soldier; officious Toby Esterhase (David Dencik), dubbed Poor Man; and – Smiley himself.

Even before the startling truth is revealed, the emotional and physical tolls on the players enmeshed in the deadly international spy game will escalate.

 

Sleeping Beauty

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 90

Language: English (International)

Director: Julia Leigh

Plot: SLEEPING BEAUTY is a fascinating depiction of a young woman’s reckless decent into a shocking world of erotic desires.

Lucy (Emily Browning) is a young university student possessed by a kind of radical passivity. She lets a flip of a coin decide the outcome of a random sexual encounter and she displays an uncomplaining patience when facing the repetitions of her various menial jobs that fund her studies. One day she answers an ad in the student newspaper and interviews for a job to be a lingerie waitress. But she is secretly being initiated into a world of strange new work; one where she will have to give into absolute submission to her clients by being sedated; becoming a Sleeping Beauty.
Eventually this unnerving experience begins to bleed into her daily life and she finally develops the will to break the spell by discovering what happens to her while she sleeps. With a fearless performance by Browning, Leigh creates a bold cinematic vision; one where Lucy, both in her clandestine sexual adventures and in her mundane daily existence, lives with the same unflinching and brutal honesty.

Death-haunted, quietly reckless, Lucy is a young university student who takes a job as a Sleeping Beauty. In the Sleeping Beauty Chamber old men seek an erotic experience that requires Lucy’s absolute submission.
This unsettling task starts to bleed into Lucy’s daily life and she develops an increasing need to know what happens to her when she is asleep.

Haunting and provocative, Julia Leigh’s powerful vision is one of the most startling debut features of recent years. Featuring a fearless performance from Emily Browning, Sleeping Beauty is set to be one of the year’s most anticipated and celebrated releases.

 

Answers to Nothing

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 136

Language: English

Director: Matthew Leutwyler

Plot: ANSWERS TO NOTHING is based on an original story by Matthew Leutwyler, who also wrote the screenplay with Gillian Vigman. The film was produced by Amanda Marshall of LA-based production company, Ambush Entertainment (SUPER) and Sim Sarna. Ambush’s financing arm, Cold Iron Pictures, financed the film.

 

Coriolanus

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 135

Language: English (International)

Director: Ralph Fiennes

Plot: Caius Martius Coriolanus’ (Ralph Fiennes), a revered and feared Roman General is at odds with the city of Rome and his fellow citizens. Pushed by his controlling and ambitious mother Volumnia (Vanessa Redgrave) to seek the exalted and powerful position of Consul, he is loath to ingratiate himself with the masses whose votes he needs in order to secure the office. When the public refuses to support him, Coriolanus’s anger prompts a riot that culminates in his expulsion from Rome. The banished hero then allies himself with his sworn enemy Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler) to take his revenge on the city.

 

Shame

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 114

Language: English

Director: Steve McQueen

Plot: The private life of a man addicted to sex is disrupted when his sister, Cissy, played by Mulligan, shows up for an unannounced – and indefinite – visit.

 

This Must Be the Place

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 143

Language: English

Director: Paolo Sorrentino

Plot: “THIS MUST BE THE PLACE” premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and stars Sean Penn as an ageing rock star who decides to find his father’s tormentor, an ex-Nazi war criminal who’s living somewhere in the US.

 

A Dangerous Method

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 110

Language: English

Director: David Cronenberg

Plot: Seduced by the challenge of an impossible case, the driven Dr. Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) takes the unbalanced yet beautiful Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) as his patient in A DANGEROUS METHOD. Jung’s weapon is the method of his master, the renowned Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). Both men fall under Sabina’s spell.

 

Tyrannosaur

Friday, November 18th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 121

Language: English (International)

Director: Paddy Considine

Plot: Joseph (Peter Mullan) is an unemployed widower with a drinking problem and a violent temper. When he meets Hannah (Olivia Colman), a devout Christian who works at a charity shop, the two form an unlikely bond where secrets are revealed and salvation is found in dark places. With striking performances and a deeply moving story, actor-turned-writer/director Paddy Considine’s film is a stunning debut about the emergence of grace and redemption from the least likely of places. Winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s World Cinema Jury Prize for Breakout Performances and the World Cinema Directing Awards.

 

The Greening of Whitney Brown

Friday, November 11th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 153

Language:

Director: Peter Odiorne

Plot: Whitney, a spoiled pre-teen from Philadelphia, is forced to move to the country when her parents feel the squeeze of the economic hard times. A fish out of water, far from her comfort zone, she befriends an amazing horse, and undertakes a misguided journey back to her old life, only to discover that her family is her home.

 

J. Edgar

Friday, November 11th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 152

Language: English

Director: Clint Eastwood

Plot: “J. Edgar” explores the public and private life of one of the most powerful, controversial and enigmatic figures of the 20th century. As the face of law enforcement in America for almost fifty years, J. Edgar Hoover (DiCaprio) was feared and admired, reviled and revered. But behind closed doors, he held secrets that would have destroyed his image, his career and his life.

 

Melancholia

Friday, November 11th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 133

Language: English

Director: Lars von Trier

Plot: In this beautiful movie about the end of the world, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) are celebrating their marriage at a sumptuous party in the home of her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and brother-in-law John (Kiefer Sutherland). Despite Claire’s best efforts, the wedding is a fiasco, with family tensions mounting and relationships fraying. Meanwhile, a planet called Melancholia is heading directly towards Earth-MELANCHOLIA is a psychological disaster film from director Lars von Trier.

 

London Boulevard

Friday, November 11th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 134

Language: English

Director: William Monahan

Plot: After three years behind bars, Mitchel (Colin Farrell) emerges from Pentonville Prison with good intentions. But when his old friend Billy (Ben Chaplin), a low-level gangster who’s looking for backup on a job, meets him upon release, Mitchel joins him in exchange for a place to live. While entangled in the past, Mitchel becomes involved with Charlotte (Keira Knightley), a movie star holed up in a Holland Park mansion against the paparazzi. Touched by her beauty and vulnerability, he quickly falls into the role of protector, fending off aggressive reporters and stalkers, as well as Billy’s ploy to rob the house of its expensive art and vintage cars.

As the attraction between them grows and their relationship deepens, Mitchel and Charlotte make plans to start anew in Los Angeles. But Mitchel has already caught the eye of powerful and ruthless mob boss Gant (Ray Winstone), who sees him as a potentially valuable asset to his business. When Mitchel rebuffs a lucrative job offer, Gant sets out to ensnare him in a violent web of extortion and murder. As Gant’s tactics become increasingly vicious and deadly, it becomes clear he would rather see the younger man dead than free. Knowing no one close to him is safe from Gant’s wrath, including Charlotte and his troubled sister Briony (Anna Friel), Mitchel decides to take a drastic move to settle things between them once and for all.

 

The Last Rites of Joe May

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 98

Language: English

Director: Joe Maggio

Plot: Despite all evidence to the contrary, aging short-money hustler Joe May (Dennis Farina) always believed he had a glorious future ahead of him. Now in his sixties, Joe is released from the hospital after a long battle with pneumonia and forced to confront the harsh reality of his legacy: everyone he knew had assumed he was dead, and life had gone on around him without missing a beat. Returning to his old neighborhood in Chicago’s “Patch” district, he finds his car gone, all his worldly possessions pawned by his landlord, and the apartment he’s lived in his entire adult life rented out to a single mother named Jenny and her eight year-old daughter Angelina . After a rough night’s sleep outdoors, Joe reluctantly moves in with the new tenants of his home – at least until he is able to get back on his feet.

Even as Joe doggedly pursues his comeback, he finds the odds stacked drastically against him. He gets no respect from his old supplier, his best friend and partner in crime has moved into an assisted living facility, and even Joe’s prized pigeon coops have fallen into disrepair. Throughout this ordeal, Joe’s one lifeline is his burgeoning friendship with his co-tenants. So when things turn ugly between Jenny and her boyfriend – a crooked detective with a penchant for domestic violence – Joe is determined to take a stand for his unlikely new family, and perhaps take one last shot at redefining his legacy.

 

Janie Jones

Friday, October 28th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 121

Language: English

Director: David M. Rosenthal

Plot: A faded rock star is forced to take responsibility for the daughter he never knew he had in Janie Jones, a funny and touching road trip through the world of rock ‘n’ roll from writer-director David M. Rosenthal (Falling Up), inspired by his own experiences.

Rocker Ethan Brand (Alessandro Nivola) and his band, the Ethan Brand Experience, are on the comeback trail when a former flame (Oscar nominee Elisabeth Shue) drops a bomb in his lap-their 13-year-old daughter, Janie Jones (Abigail Breslin). Ethan refuses to believe Janie is his kid, but when her mom suddenly leaves for rehab, the child has no place to go but with the band.

With no inclination toward fatherhood, Ethan continues his hard-living ways, leaving Janie to fend for herself in the dive bars and sleazy motels along the way. As his drug- and booze-fueled antics take their toll on and off stage, the band deserts him one by one, until he and Janie are left alone.

Desperate to finish the tour and revive his career, Ethan stays on the road as a solo act with Janie in tow. As Ethan’s self-destructive spiral threatens to derail his comeback, Janie uses her own surprising musical talents to help guide him down the rocky road to redemption.