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Directed by Michel Hazanavicius
rated NR, 1 hr 39 min
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OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies constitutes the eighth installment in a long-running series of movies about OSS 117 (the government code name for Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath) - a French superspy and European equivalent of James Bond. The creation of author Jean Bruce, OSS eventually starred in over 265 novels and 7 cinematizations through 1970. The first seven film outings were sober and straight-faced; the eighth go-round (the first after a 38 year lapse) does a 180 to shamelessly poke fun of the rules established by the genre. A glib yet intelligent spoof, it joins the ranks of Our Man Flint (1965), Aghaye Hallou (1970), Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street (1984), and other international pictures that glibly satirize the subgenre made infamous to Americans by Bond; like Mad Mission 3, it even packs in an OSS 17 (Jean Dujardin) with a startling resemblance to Sean Connery. The film's comic conceit involves making OSS arrogant, conceited, culturally insensitive, chauvinistic and thoroughly moronic (he pretends that various cultural institutions and religious practices, for instance, are nonexistent if he is unfamiliar with them); yet the character somehow manages to slide through outrageously dangerous situations unscathed, time and again. The teaser prologue finds OSS in Berlin, where he outwits the Nazis by stealing vital documents from them, hijacks an Axis plane in mid-nosedive and saves himself and the craft at the last yawning moment. Ten years later, OSS journeys from Rome to Cairo, where he investigates the death of a fellow agent, posing as the proprietor of a chicken farm. OSS's "side" activities during this jaunt involve hammering out a peace arrangement for the Middle East, keeping tabs on the Suez Canal and monitoring the Russians. Jean-François Hallin scripted, maintaining an utterly deadpan tone throughout; Michel Hazanavicius directs.
~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
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Directed by Werner Herzog
rated G, 1 hr 39 min
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Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man, Rescue Dawn) confirms his standing as poet laureate of men in extreme situations with Encounters at the End of the World. In this visually stunning exploration, Herzog travels to the Antarctic community of McMurdo Station, headquarters of the National Science Foundation and home to eleven hundred people during the austral summer (Oct-Feb). Over the course of his journey, Herzog examines human nature and Mother nature, juxtaposing breathtaking locations with the profound, surreal, and sometimes absurd experiences of the marine biologists, physicists, plumbers, and truck drivers who choose to form a society as far away from society as one can get. --© ThinkFilm
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Directed by Alain Resnais
rated NR, 1 hr 34 min
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In Alain Resnais's masterwork, L'ANNÉEE DERNIÈRE À MARIENBAD, each fantasy-laden, heavily dramatized, aesthetically perfect scene is dictated by the memories of a man (Giorgio Albertazzi), who is one of many elegant, aristocratic guests vacationing at the enchanting resort, Marienbad. Because the story consists of foggy memories that may or may not be accurate, the film unrolls like a repetitious dream. In the opening sequences, the man describes the immensity and silence of the lavishly decorated baroque hotel as the camera roams its empty hallways. Soon after, the hotel guests appear, assembled for a theater production inside the hotel. Like the actors in the play, the characters in the film make it obvious that they are also playing established roles and reciting lines. Sometimes they simply pose as the camera passes over them, while at other times, they stand like statues, trying to remember what happened last year. They amuse themselves with parlor games, ballroom waltzes, target practice in the shooting gallery, and strolls through the garden. Meanwhile, the man establishes the abstract plot about a love affair he began last year with a woman (Delphine Seyrig), reconstructed from his partial memories. She remembers nothing of the affair, not even the man's name. In fact, most of the guests cannot even recall the year in which these things might have happened--was it 1928 or 29? Each of Resnais's sets is more remarkable than the one before, as are the costumes by Chanel. Emphatic organ music drums up a fury of suspense as the actors's performances become increasingly overdramatized and unnatural, mocking the meaningless aristocratic resort activity they're depicting, while also epitomizing it. The climax comes in a famous sequence--which repeats itself about 10 times in a row--in which the camera races down the corridor into the embrace of the woman, who is clad in a birdlike white feather gown. Like a Marguerite Duras poem trapped inside an M.C. Escher drawing, Resnais's L'ANNÉEE DERNIÈRE À MARIENBAD is a film that stands alone, unique in its dialogue, architecture, style, and its deeply effective, sweeping mood.
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Directed by Sarah Gavron
rated PG-13, 1 hr 41 min
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Nazneen’s life is turned upside down at the tender age of seventeen. Forced into an arranged marriage to an older man, she exchanges her Bangladeshi village home for a block of flats in London’s East End. In this new world, pining for her home and her sister, she struggles to make sense of her existence – and to do her duty to her husband. A man of inflated ideas (and stomach), he sorely tests her compliance.
Told from birth that she must not fight her fate, Nazneen submits, devoting her life to raising her family and slapping down her demons of discontent. Until the day that Karim, a hot-headed local man, bursts into her life.
Against a background of escalating racial tension, they embark on an affair that finally forces Nazneen to take control of her life. Set in multicultural Britain, Brick Lane is a truly contemporary story of love, cultural difference, and ultimately, the strength of the human spirit. --© Sony Pictures Classics
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Directed by Guillaume Canet
rated NR, 2 hr 5 min
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French with English subtitles
Based on Harlan Coben’s international best selling thriller about pediatrician Alexandre Beck who still grieves the murder of his beloved wife Margot Beck eight years earlier. When two bodies are found near the scene of the crime, the police reopen the case and Alex becomes a suspect again. The mystery deepens when Alex receives an anonymous e-mail with a link to a video clip that seems to suggest Margot is somehow still alive and a message to "Tell No One."
"If you like your thrillers delivered in Hitchcockian style, this is the film for you." - Melbourne Times
"An intricate, intelligent, and very watchable thriller" - Andrew Pulver, The Guardian
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Directed by Jonathan Levine
rated R, 1 hr 35 min
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In the sweltering summer of 1994, Giuliani is scouring New York City within an inch of its life, hip-hop is permeating white youth culture, and a pot-dealing loser kid, Luke Shapiro, is trying to figure out how to solve his parents’ insolvency, beat depression, and get laid before pushing off to college. Luckily he’s got a nifty deal with a psychiatrist, Dr. Squires, who trades him therapy sessions for weed. It happens that the oddball doctor’s marriage is crumbling, so the two—one in late adolescence, the other in late middle-age—embark on messy passages into new life stages. As Luke falls for a classmate who just happens to be Squires’s daughter, the summer heats up, and he follows doctor’s orders, learning to coexist with pain and make it part of him, rather than let it become his downfall. The Wackness plays like the luscious rush of first love, discovering great new music, meeting amazing personalities who impart the meaning of life, and realizing what you’re made of. Perfectly capturing the textures of 1990s Manhattan and the zeitgeist of worldly, yet emotionally unformed, private-school students forced to parent their parents, director Jonathan Levine conveys a whimsy, too—buoyed by the dazzlingly funny Ben Kingsley and unexpected stylistic flourishes—that gives the film’s insights and idiosyncrasies big, glorious, flapping wings. --© Sundance Film Festival
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Directed by Julian Jarrold
rated PG-13, -
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The enviable pedigree for this adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's classic is sure to sway even the most ardent fan of the book. Veteran stars Emma Thompson and Michael Gambon act alongside fresh-faced talents Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, and Hayley Atwell. BAFTA-winning scribe Andrew Davies (the BBC's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE) co-adapts the novel, while BECOMING JANE's Julian Jarrold directs. |
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