Archive for the ‘Drama’ Category

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Littlerock

Friday, August 12th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 110

Language:

Director: Mike Ott

Plot: A sleepy-eyed exurb of Los Angeles is seen through the eyes of two young Japanese tourists, stranded there with a broken rental car. Rintaro wants to leave as soon as possible, but Atsuko finds both the small town and the aimless lifestyle of the young people who live there fascinating- and, just maybe, a better example of the America she’s been hoping to see than the big cities they’ve been traveling between. As she hangs around with the locals and begins to understand their lives (despite not speaking any English), she finds it increasingly hard to leave.

 

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Gun Hill Road

Friday, August 5th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 139

Language:

Director: Rashaad Ernesto Green

Plot: After three years in prison, Enrique (Esai Morales) returns home to the Bronx to find the world he knew has changed. His wife, Angela (Judy Reyes), struggles to hide an emotional affair, and his teenage son, Michael (Harmony Santana), explores a sexual transformation well beyond Enrique’s grasp and understanding.

Unable to accept his child, Enrique clings to his masculine ideals while Angela attempts to hold the family together by protecting Michael. Still under the watchful eye of his parole officer (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.), Enrique must become the father he needs to be or, once again, risk losing his family and freedom.

Can a father’s fierce love for his family overcome his street-hardened ideas about manhood and end the vicious cycle controlling his life? Writer/director Rashaad Ernesto Green’s first feature film is an intricate portrait of a family divided told with sensitivity, gentle humor, and a deep understanding of the environment that shapes its people.

 

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The Whistleblower

Friday, August 5th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 120

Language:

Director: Larysa Kondracki

Plot: Inspired by actual events, Kathy Bolkovac (Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz) is a Nebraskan police officer who takes a job working as a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia. Her expectations of helping to rebuild a devastated country are dashed when she uncovers a dangerous reality of corruption, cover-up and intrigue amid a world of private contractors and multinational diplomatic doubletalk.

 

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THE PERFECT AGE OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

Friday, August 5th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 134

Language:

Director: Scott D. Rosenbaum

Plot: According to rock n’ roll lore, age 27 is a fateful milestone. From Robert Johnson, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison to Kurt Cobain, all stars we lost at this very age.

World famous rock star Spyder (Kevin Zegers -Transamerica, Frozen) has achieved fame and fortune with a smash hit debut album. This blinding success however, is built on the Faustian pact that capitalized on the genius of his long lost childhood best friend and band mate, Eric Genson (Jason Ritter – NBC’s The Event, Good Dick). Now Spyder retreats to his small hometown after his sophomore effort flops. Reconnecting with Eric after a seven year estrangement, the two recall their youthful ambitions and reexamine the choices they’ve made. Accompanied by the band’s ambitious, fiery manager (Taryn Manning – ABC’s Hawaii 5-0, Hustle & Flow, 8 Mile), the legendary music impresario August West (Peter Fonda – Easy Rider, 3:10 to Yuma) and a raucous crew of musicians, they set off on a cathartic journey along historic Route 66 that brings them closer to each other, their history and their destiny. Fueled by a stellar rock n’ roll soundtrack that includes songs by Nirvana, Bob Dylan, Iggy & The Stooges, Alice in Chains, Muddy Waters, The Violent Femmes, Howlin’ Wolf, Jane’s Addiction, and many more, The Perfect Age of Rock N’ Roll fully captures the energy, rebellion, and thrills of the rock n’ roll lifestyle.

 

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The Tree

Monday, August 1st, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 119

Language: English

Director: Valeria Bertuccelli

Plot: The exquisite Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist, I’m Not There) stars in French filmmaker Julie Bertuccelli’s achingly beautiful follow-up to her sleeper hit Since Otar Left. The Closing Night Film at Cannes in 2010, The Tree is a mystical drama of loss and rebirth in the Australian countryside. Not since classic 1970s works Picnic at Hanging Rock and Walkabout has the harshly gorgeous outback landscape been such a lyrical yet foreboding metaphor for grief and coming of age.

Blindsided with anguish after her husband’s sudden death, Dawn (Gainsbourg)-along with her four young children-struggles to make sense of life without him. Eight-year-old Simone (unforgettable newcomer Morgana Davies) becomes convinced that her father is whispering to her through the leaves of the gargantuan fig tree that towers over their house. The family is initially comforted by its presence, but then the tree’s enormous roots slowly begin to encroach on the abode and threaten their fragile existence….

 

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MOTHER’S RED DRESS

Monday, August 1st, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 197

Language: English

Director: Edgar Michael Bravo

Plot: Laura Ullman, a single mother, kills her abusive ex-boyfriend and turns the gun on her son when he threatens to call the police. Paul leaves home to start a better life and falls for Ashley, a young woman looking for direction in her life, unaware of his past troubles.

 

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All She Can

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 123

Language:

Director: Amy Wendel

Plot: Luz Garcia, a high school senior in a small Texas town, wants something different than the options awaiting her after graduation. She’s earned a ticket out with admission to the University of Texas at Austin, but she can’t afford to go. Her one shot is a scholarship for winning the State Powerlifting Championship. It’s all or nothing for Luz…until nothing stares her in the face. Official Sundance Film Festival selection.

 

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Blue eyes

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 85

Language:

Director: José Joffily

Plot: arshall, chief immigration officer of New York’s JFK Airport begrudgingly faces his compulsory retirement. On his last day of work, drunk and blinded by prejudice, he harasses a group of Latin American visitors and exposes them to a series of humiliating events that result in the death of a young Brazilian. Years later, after serving a lengthy prison term and filled with guilt, Marshall goes to Brazil in search of the victims daughter and is guided by a young street-smart woman named Bia.

 

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Where The Road Meets The Sun

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 114

Language:

Director: Mun Chee Yong

Plot: Where the Road Meets the Sun follows four men whose lives intersect for a brief time in the city of Los Angeles. Takashi, a Japanese hit man, wakes up from a four year coma and moves to Los Angeles to escape mysterious traumatic memories. He strikes an unusual friendship with Blake, the hotel manager who still mourns the loss of his wife to an affair he ended up regretting. Julio, an illegal immigrant, works at an Indian restaurant to provide for his wife and kid back in Mexico. He befriends Guy, a young British backpacker who lives off his estranged father’s ATM card and sleeps with any girl who crosses his path. What follows are the wild times and often gut-wrenching adventures of four men trying to survive both emotionally and physically.

 

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THE DEVIL’S DOUBLE

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 149

Language: English

Director: Lee Tamahori

Plot: Based on a gripping, unbelievable true story of money, power and opulent decadence, Lionsgate’s THE DEVIL’S DOUBLE takes a white-knuckle ride deep into the lawless playground of excess and violence known as Bagdad, 1987. Summoned from the frontline to Saddam Hussein’s palace, Iraqi army lieutenant Latif Yahia (Dominic Cooper) is thrust into the highest echelons of the “royal family” when he’s ordered to become the ‘fiday’ – or body double – to Saddam’s son, the notorious “Black Prince” Uday Hussein (also Dominic Cooper), a reckless, sadistic party-boy with a rabid hunger for sex and brutality. With his and his family’s lives at stake, Latif must surrender his former self forever as he learns to walk, talk and act like Uday. But nothing could have prepared him for the horror of the Black Prince’s psychotic, drug-addled life of fast cars, easy women and impulsive violence. With one wrong move costing him his life, Latif forges an intimate bond with Sarrab (Ludivine Sangier), Uday’s seductive mistress who’s haunted by her own secrets. But as war looms with Kuwait and Uday’s depraved gangster regime threatens to destroy them all, Latif realizes that escape from the devil’s den will only come at the highest possible cost.

 

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The Future

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 151

Language:

Director: Miranda July

Plot: Sophie (Miranda July) and Jason (Hamish Linklater) live in a small LA apartment, have jobs they hate, and in one month they’ll adopt a sick cat who will need around-the-clock care. Terrified of their looming loss of freedom, they quit their jobs, disconnect their Internet, and set out to pursue their modest dreams. But as the month slips away, the two find themselves living in two starkly different realities. Sophie and Jason must reunite with time, space and their own souls in order to reconnect. Using elements of magical realism-a talking cat who narrates his own sad tale, a living t-shirt, and a strangely familiar Moon-the film bravely creates its own universe. With pathos and humor, it invites us to recognize the bitter sweetness of this very moment.

 

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LA RAFLE (THE ROUNDUP)

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 60

Language: French

Director: Roselyne Bosch

Plot: The infamous Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup is the focus of this gripping French drama starring Melanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds, Beginners) and Jean Reno (The Da Vinci Code, The Professional). Two days after Bastille Day in 1942, French police carried out an extensive raid of Jews in Greater Paris. More than 13,000 people were arrested, among them 4,000 children, consigned to several miserable days in Paris’s Vélodrome d’Hiver stadium before being shipped to internment camps within France, and finally to Auschwitz. Long a taboo subject in France-Jacques Chirac issued a public apology only in 1995-the raid and its political backdrop are brought to stirring life in writer-director Rose Bosch’s detailed scenario. With a meticulously constructed script based on extensive research and first-hand accounts, La Rafle (The Roundup) became a big box-office hit in France, and its audiences included thousands of young people who came to learn about a dark chapter in their country’s history.

 

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The Myth of the American Sleepover

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 92

Language: English

Director: David Robert Mitchell

Plot: From first-time writer/director David Robert Mitchell’s comes THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER, a beautifully rendered portrait of summertime adolescence and the search for human connections. This story follows four young people on the last night of summer – their final night of freedom before the new school year starts. The teenagers cross paths as they explore the suburban wonderland they inhabit in search of love and adventure – chasing first kisses, elusive crushes, popularity and parties. While looking for the iconic teenage experience, they discover the quiet moments that will later become a part of their youth they look back on with nostalgia. Inspired by Mitchell’s experience growing up in Michigan, the kids in this poignant and tender coming-of-age drama may be lost, a little confused and full of angst, but ultimately the kids are alright in this life-affirming, truthful and fresh take on the teen genre.

 

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SARAH’S KEY

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 139

Language:

Director: Gilles Paquet-Brenner

Plot: Based on Tatiana de Rosnay’s New York Times best seller, SARAH’S KEY is the story of an American journalist living in Paris, Julia Jarmond (Kristen Scott Thomas), whose research for an article about the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup in
1942 in France ends up turning her own world upside down.

In July 1942, Sarah, a ten-year old girl, is taken with her parents by the French police as they go door-to-door in the middle of the night arresting Jewish families. Desperate to protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard – their secret hiding place – and promises to come
back for him as soon as they are released. Nearly seventy years later, Julia stumbles on the terrible secret that the home Sarah’s family was forced to leave is about to become her own. As Julia’s life becomes entwined with Sarah’s heart-breaking story she must tackle the complex issue of how to live with the past and keep moving forward.

 

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Another Earth

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 137

Language: English

Director: Mike Cahill

Plot: In Another Earth, Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling), a bright young woman accepted into MIT’s astrophysics program, aspires to explore the cosmos. A brilliant composer, John Burroughs (William Mapother), has just reach the pinnacle of his profession and is about to have his second child.

On the eve of the discovery of a duplicate earth, tragedy strikes and the lives of these strangers become irrevocably intertwinted.

 

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Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Friday, July 15th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 124

Language: English

Director: Wayne Wang

Plot: Inspired by the bestselling novel SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN by Lisa See, the film is a timeless portrait of female friendship.

In 19th-century China, seven year old girls Snow Flower and Lily are matched as laotong – or “old sames” – bound together for eternity. Isolated by their families, they furtively communicate by taking turns writing in a secret language, nu shu, between the folds of a white silk fan.

In a parallel story in present day Shanghai, the laotong’s descendants, Nina and Sophia, struggle to maintain the intimacy of their own childhood friendship in the face of demanding careers, complicated love lives, and a relentlessly evolving Shanghai. Drawing on the lessons of the past, the two modern women must understand the story of their ancestral connection, hidden from them in the folds of the antique white silk fan, or risk losing one another forever.

What unfolds are two stories, generations apart, but everlasting in their universal notion of love, hope and friendship.

 

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The Sleeping Beauty

Friday, July 8th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 117

Language:

Director: Catherine Breillat

Plot: French provocateur Catherine Breillat (Fat Girl, Bluebeard) continues her deconstruction of classic fairytales with her latest, The Sleeping Beauty. Cursed at birth by an evil fairy, Anastasia is destined to prick her finger and die at the age of sixteen. When three feckless fairy sisters discover this they hatch a plan to alter the curse: rather than die, Anastasia will sleep for 100 years. While in slumber, Anastasia comes of age through a series of vivid dreams, filled with charming princes, dwarves, gypsies and magical creatures. When she reawakens a fully-formed adolescent, she finds that in real life, happy endings are more elusive than in our fantasies. Beautifully designed by Francois-Renaud Labarthe and photographed by the great Denis Lenoir (Carlos), this constantly surprising, thought-provoking investigation of the female psyche reaffirms Breillat as one of the most inventive and risk-taking of contemporary French auteurs.

 

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Anita

Friday, July 8th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 147

Language:

Director: Marcos Carnevale

Plot: Anita is the story of a young woman with Down syndrome (Alejandra Manzo) who lives a happy, routine life in Buenos Aires, being meticulously cared for by her mother Dora (Academy Award nominee Norma Aleandro). One tragic morning in 1994, everything changes when Anita is left alone, confused and helpless after the nearby Argentine Israelite Mutual Association is bombed (the deadliest bombing in Argentina’s history). As Anita wanders through the city, she learns not only to care for herself, but touches the lives of those around her, from an alcoholic to a family of Asian immigrants.

 

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Turkey Bowl

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 95

Language:

Director: Kyle P. Smith

Plot: Every summer, Jon (Jon Schmidt) gathers 10 friends together in his adopted city to play the Turkey Bowl – bringing a piece of small-town tradition to the urban sprawl – all for the beloved prize for the winning team…a turkey. Friendships flare and fade, jealousy is met with both laughter and pain, and old and unrequited love threatens to remain old and unrequited, and all of these undercurrents are revealed in the unique, improvised rhythm of backyard football.

 

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A Love Affair of Sorts

Friday, June 24th, 2011

Genre: Drama

Release Year: 2011

Runtime: 135

Language: English

Director: David Guy Levy

Plot: Blurring the edges between reality and fiction, and in an era where we all live in public to a certain extent, A LOVE AFFAIR OF SORTS is a modern twist on a love affair in the digital age.
The first feature film to be shot entirely on a flip camera, its narrative follows two lonely strangers in modern day Los Angeles, during the holiday season. The film begins with David (Director David Guy Levy), a painter, and Enci (Lili Bordán), a Hungarian nanny, who meet in a bookstore when he catches her shoplifting on his ever-present flip camera. As they start a tentative relationship, he captures it all on his digital camera, though nothing about the situation is as straightforward as it seems.

Things are complicated further with the addition of Enci’s boyfriend, Boris (Iván Kamarás), and David’s brutally honest friend, Jonathan (Jonathan Beckerman as himself, and unaware until the end of the shoot that the film he was in was fictional).

Chronicling the couple’s desire to be constantly filmed, and their need to really connect in the lonely landscape of Los Angeles at Christmastime, A LOVE AFFAIR OF SORTS takes a wry look at the way technology brings us together while also keeping us at a distance, and how it may have changed what it is to love and be loved.

 

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