Thursday, March 31, 2011

Rango (2011)


Director: Gore Verbinski

Rango is an ordinary chameleon who accidentally winds up in the town of Dirt, a lawless outpost in the Wild West in desperate need of a new sheriff.



Howl (2010)


Director: Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman

It's San Francisco in 1957, and an American masterpiece is put on trial. Howl, the film, recounts this dark moment using three interwoven threads: the tumultuous life events that led a young Allen Ginsberg to find his true voice as an artist, society's reaction (the obscenity trial), and animation that echoes the poem's surreal style. All three coalesce in hybrid that dramatizes the birth of a counterculture.



North By Northwest (1959)


Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Middle-aged Madison Avenue advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill is mistaken for a government agent by a gang of spies. He gets involved in a series of misadventures and is pursued across the States by both the spies and the government whilst being helped by a beautiful blonde.




Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Get Him to the Greek (2010)


Director: Nicholas Stoller

English rock star Aldous Snow relapses into drugs and booze after a break up and a disastrous record. In L.A., Aaron Green works for a record company stuck in recession. Aaron's boss gives him a career making task - to bring Aldous from London to L.A. for a concert in 72 hours. That day, Aaron's girlfriend Daphne tells him she wants to finish her medical residency in Seattle. Aaron's sure this ends their relationship. In London, things aren't much better: Aldous delays their departure several times, plies Aaron with vices, and alternates between bad behavior and trenchant observations. Can Aaron moderate Aldous's substance abuse and get him to the Greek? What about Daphne?



Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)


Director: Nicholas Stoller

Peter is a composer and a likable sad sack who's devastated when his girlfriend of five years, Sarah Marshall, the star of a cheesy CSI-style crime show, dumps him. He weeps, he rails, he mopes. Finally, his step-brother Brian suggests Hawaii, so Peter heads for a resort on Oahu where, as he's checking in, he sees Sarah and her new beau, Aldous, a polymorphously perverse English rocker. The weeping and moping start again, until Peter is rescued by Rachel, a thoughtful hotel clerk who invites him to a luau and to hang out. Although he constantly runs into Sarah and Aldous, Peter starts to come alive again. Will Sarah realize what she's lost, and what about Rachel?


Friday, March 25, 2011

To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)


Director: William Friedkin

Two cops in Los Angeles try to track down the vicious criminal Eric Masters. Then, one of them is killed by Masters and the other one swears revenge no matter what the cost. After that, the hunt becomes an ob- session and the law he once swore to uphold becomes meaningless to him.



Thursday, March 24, 2011

Persepolis (2007)


Director: Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Statrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own. With Marji dangerously refusing to remain silent at this injustice, her parents send her abroad to Vienna to study for a better life. However, this change proves an equally difficult trial with the young woman finding herself in a different culture loaded with abrasive characters and profound disappointments that deeply trouble her. Even when she returns home, Marji finds that both she and homeland have changed too much and the young woman and her loving family must decide where she truly belongs.




Whatever Works (2009)


Director: Woody Allen

Attempting to impress his ideologies on religion, relationships, and the randomness (and worthlessness) of existence, lifelong New York resident Boris Yellnikoff rants to anyone who will listen, including the audience. But when he begrudgingly allows naive Mississippi runaway Melodie St. Ann Celestine to live in his apartment, his reclusive rages give way to an unlikely friendship and Boris begins to mold the impressionable young girl's worldly views to match his own. When it comes to love, "whatever works" is his motto, but his already perplexed life complicates itself further when Melodie's parents eventually track her down.



Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Some Like It Hot (1959)


Director: Billy Wilder

Two struggling musicians witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and try to find a way out of the city before they are found and killed by the mob. The only job that will pay their way is an all girl band so the two dress up as women. In addition to hiding, each has his own problems; One falls for another band member but can't tell her his gender, and the other has a rich suitor who will not take "No," for an answer.




Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972)


Director: Werner Herzog

A few decades after the destruction of the Inca empire, a Spanish expedition leaves the mountains of Peru and goes down the Amazon river in search of gold and wealth. Soon, they come across great difficulties and Don Aguirres, a ruthless man who cares only about riches, becomes their leader. But will his quest lead them to "the golden city", or to certain destruction?





Monday, March 21, 2011

La Strada (1954)


Director: Federico Fellini

Gelsomina is sold by her very poor mother to Zampanò, an itinerant strongman. She follows him on the road ("la strada") and helps him during his shows. Zampanò ill-treats her. She meets "The Fool", a funambulist. She feels like going with him, but he puts confusion in her mind by pointing out that perhaps Zampanò is in fact in love with her ...


Boy (2010)


Director: Taika Waititi

It's 1984, and Michael Jackson is king-even in Waihau Bay, New Zealand. Here we meet Boy, an 11-year-old who lives on a farm with his gran, a goat, and his younger brother, Rocky (who thinks he has magic powers). Shortly after Gran leaves for a week, Boy's father, Alamein, appears out of the blue. Having imagined a heroic version of his father during his absence, Boy comes face to face with the real version-an incompetent hoodlum who has returned to find a bag of money he buried years before. This is where the goat enters.