NOBEL SON

Nobel Son

The Story:
Barkley Michaelson (Bryan Greenberg) is in a deep life rut. He's struggling to finish his PHD thesis when his father, the learned Eli Michaelson (Alan Rickman) wins the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Barkley and his mother, Sarah (Mary Steenburgen) , a renowned forensic psychiatrist, now have the ill-fortune of living with a man-eating monster whose philandering ways have gotten less and less discreet.

As if Barkley's world is not bad enough, on the eve of his father receiving the Nobel, Barkley is kidnapped and the end requested ransom is the $2,000,000 in Nobel prize money. Barkley’s father refuses to pay the money, Barkley conspires with his kidnapper to steal the money from his father and the family relationships go from bad to worse.

So starts a venomous tale of familial dysfunction, lust, betrayal and ultimately revenge.

Starring:
Alan Rickman, Shawn Hatosy, Mary Steenburgen, Bryan Greenberg, Eliza Dushku, Danny DeVito, Ted Danson,

Directed By:
Randall Miller

Release:
2007

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THE BURROWERS

THE BURROWERS

The Story:
It is 1879 in the Dakota Territories. A handful of brave pioneers maintain isolated settlements in the badlands beyond civilization. When Irish ranch hand Fergus Coffey (Karl Geary) comes calling on his beloved Maryanne (Jocelin Donahue) on an isolated homestead, he finds the men of the family butchered and the women and children missing.

Suspicion falls immediately on hostile Indians. Experienced Indian fighters Will Parcher (William Mapother) and John Clay (Clancy Brown) form a posse Captain Henery Victor (Doug Hutchison), a naïve teenager hoping to prove himself, an ex-slave looking for his place, set themselves against all the perils of the Old West, battling nature and hostile tribes to rescue the kidnapped settlers.

But as men vanish in the night and horrific evidence accumulates with the dead and dying, the group discovers that their prey is far more terrifying than anything human, and their prospects are far more terrible than death.

But they soon discover that the real enemy stalks them from below.

Starring:
Karl Geary, William Mapother, Sean Patrick Thomas, Galen Hutchison, Clancy Brown, Alex Edmo, Doug Hutchison, Jocelin Donahue, Laura Leighton

Directed By:
J.T. Petty

Release:
2008

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THE GUITAR

THE GUITAR

The Story:
Melody Wilder (Saffron Burrows), has the misfortune to be fired from her job, dumped by her boyfriend and told by her doctor (Janeane Garofalo) that she has inoperable throat cancer -- all on the same day.

With a month or so left to live, Melody decides to go out quietly but in style. She rents an enormous Gotham loft and fills it with high-end furniture and knick-knacks, brazenly ordering from catalogs with an arsenal of credit cards by her side. Despite its mostly measured tone, the film gleefully conveys a sense of the endless, extravagant possibilities available when time is short and money ceases to be an object.

Though Melody improbably has no friends or family, She engages both the pizza delivery girl Cookie (Paz de la Huerta) and furniture delivery man Rosco (Isaach de Bankole).Melody doesn't connect to people as much as she does to her most extreme purchase -- a red electric guitar she's longed for since her unhappy childhood. These life affirming experiences transform her irrevocably.

Starring:
Saffron Burrows, Isaach De Bankole, Paz de la Huerta, Ashlie Atkinson, Lawrence Ballard, Chris Bauer, Bill Camp, Joel Cannon, Lori Tan Chinn, Janeane Garofalo, Mark A. Keeton.

Directed By:
Amy Redford

Release:
2008

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THE GOOD THE BAD THE WEIRD

THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD (Joheunnom abbeunnom isanghannom) (South Korean)

The Story:

In the 1930s, the world is in chaos. In Northeast Asia, the Korean Peninsula has fallen into the hands of the Japanese Imperialists. Many Koreans have flocked to Manchuria, the vast terrain of horses and wilderness bordering their homeland and China. Some of them, inevitably, have turned into mounted bandits to earn their living in this barren wasteland.

UTae-gu (The Weird) (Kang-ho Song) is a thief. He robs a train of Japanese military officers, but the incident is not as simple as it first seems. In the middle of this fierce gun battle against the Japanese, he obtains a mysterious map that leads to a treasure from the Qing Dynasty, buried somewhere in Manchuria.

Yet, the map is also sought by Chang-yi, the cold blooded hitman (The Bad) (Byung-hun Lee). Tae-gu must fight not only the Japanese but also Chang-yi and his fellow thugs, who happen to attack the train at the same time. At the end of this intense gunfight, a mysterious man jumps into the center of the battle from nowhere and rescues Tae-gu with astonishing gunplay. Having survived the battle, Tae-gu thanks the man for saving his life. Yet, he does not know that this stranger is Do-won, the bounty hunter (The Good) (Woo-sung Jung), who has been chasing Tae-gu to turn him in for a reward.

These three men - Do-won (The Good), Chang-yi (The Bad) and Tae-gu (The Weird) - will soon discover that the map they are battling for is also a magnet that attracts others as diverse as the Korean resistance, Chinese/Russian/Korean mountain bandits and the Japanese army. The blazing gun battle in the train proves to be merely the beginning of the rollercoaster ride to the final showdown to come.

Starring:

Song Kang-Ho, Lee Byung-Hun, Jung Woo-Sun,Jo Kyeong-Hun, Kim Kwang-Il, Lee Cheong-A,Ma Dong-seok, Oh Dal-su

Directed By:

Kim Jee-Woon

Release:

2008

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VAMPIRE GIRL VS FRANKENSTIEN GIRL

Vampire Girl VS Frankenstien Girl (Kyuketsu Shojo tai Shojo Furanken)

The Story:
When high school student Mizushima (Takumi Saitô), receives Valentines Day chocolates from a new student named Monami Arukado (Yukie Kawamura), he has no clue that it’s actually tainted with her vampire blood. Monami wants to live with him forever as a vampire couple, but his current girlfriend Keiko Furano (Eri Otoguro) has other ideas. She catches the two kissing on the roof of the school and attempts to throw Monami off in a jealous rage. Instead, she dies herself.

But that's when we discover that her father Kenji (Kanji Tsuda) also fancies himself an an amateur Dr. Frankenstein.

Now, orgasmic with delight to have his own daughter on the slab, the vice principal uses a new-found secret to reanimate Keiko - combining the strongest body parts of the school's staff and students.

All this leads to the titular battle, which explodes from the depths of the high school gymnasium to the top of Tokyo Tower.

Starring:
Eihi Shiina, Eri Otoguro, Takumi Saito, Kanji Tsuda, Yukie Kawamura

Directed By:
Yoshihiro Nishimura and Naoyuki Tomomatsu

Release:
2009

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HIT AND RUN

HIT and RUN

The Story:
Mary Murdock (Laura Breckenridge), a college student, thinks she's hit and killed a cat with her car driving home drunk from a party. During the night, Mary hears some moaning in her garage and for her surprise, she finds a wounded man hold on the bumper of her jeep.

She soon finds out that the source of this sound is a man Timothy Emser (Kevin Corrigan) impaled on the front bumper of her Jeep, after freaking out she decides she wants to help him. But when she tells him this he makes a grab for her and she freaks out even more, this time with a golf club. Believing she has (accidentally) finished the job her Jeep started, she decides the best course of action is to take the body out into the middle of the woods and bury it.

Starring:
Laura Breckenridge, Kevin Corrigan, Chris Shand

Directed By:
Enda McCallion

Release:
2009

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WHAT JUST HAPPENED

WHAT JUST HAPPENED

The Story:
Ben (Robert De Niro) is already in over his head trying to balance the tug-of-war of having two ex-wives and two different families with his latest business venture the boldly "visionary" movie Fiercely starring Sean Penn (playing himself) when everything that can go wrong goes completely screwy.

Fiercely looks like an audience-offending flop which draws the ire of iron-gloved studio chief Lou (Catherine Keener), who forces him into tangling with the film's rebellious and drug-addled director. Meanwhile, he's confused and bewitched by his ex Kelly (Robin Wright Penn) who can't make up her mind about him; shocked by his daughter Zoe (Kristen Stewart), who seems to have grown up overnight; infuriated by his screenwriter friend Scott (Stanley Tucci) who's trying to make a deal with him while making moves on his former wife; horrified by a hirsute Bruce Willis (playing himself) and flummoxed by Willis' nebbishy agent Dick (John Turturro), who's scared to death of his own clients.

Somehow amidst all the madness, treachery, deceit, runaway egos, rampant commercialism, personal politics and atrocious behavior of America's dream-making machinery, Ben has to find a way not just to make it to Cannes with a finished film, but to cope . . .

Starring:
Robert De Niro, Catherine Keener, Sean Penn, Bruce Willis, John Turturro, Robin Wright Penn, Stanley Tucci, Kristen Stewart

Directed By:
Barry Levinson

Release:
2008

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LOWER LEARNING

LOWER LEARNING

The Story:
Welcome to Geraldine Ferraro Elementary, where the teachers are drunk, lazy or psychotic, every child has been left behind, and burned-out Vice Principal Tom Willoman (Jason Biggs) is barely holding on.

But when totally hot district inspector Rebecca Seabrook (Eva Longoria Parker) arrives to shut down the school, she and Tom hatch a plan to take back the classrooms from insanely corrupt Principal Billings (Rob Corddry) What tragedy in Willoman’s past has turned him into a complete wuss?

It's up to Tom, to rally the lazy teachers, expose the principal's corruption, and turn the school around before an end of the day board decision that is certain to lead to its closure.

Starring:
Jason Biggs, Eva Longoria Parker, Will Sasso, Kyle Gass, Rob Corddry, Ryan Newman

Directed By:
Mark Lafferty

Release:
2008

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WHERE GOD LEFT HIS SHOES

Where God left his shoes

The Story:
When Frank (John Leguizamo), Angela (Leonor Varela), and their two children Justin (David Castro) and Christina (Samantha Rose) are evicted from their New York City apartment, they have no choice but to move into a homeless shelter. After a few difficult months, good news comes their way on Christmas Eve: a nearby housing project has an apartment available immediately-however, Frank needs a job on the books in order to qualify. While the rest of the city prepares for Christmas, Frank and his ten-year-old stepson, Justin, roam the cold streets of New York trying to find a job by day's end.

Starring:
John Leguizamo, Leonor Varela, David Castro, Samantha M. Rose, Jerry Ferrara, Sakina Jaffrey, Adriane Lenox

Directed By:
Salvatore Stabile

Release:
2007

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LAKE MUNGO

LAKE MUNGO

The Story:
Shortly after the mysterious death of sixteen year old Alice Palmer (Talia Zucker) , her family summons Ray Kemeny (Steve Jodrell) a psychic and a parapsychologist into their home and discovers that the secretive teen had been leading a double life. Alice was swimming in a local dam when she drowned tragically.

Later, after her body is recovered and the coroner issues a verdict of accidental death, Alice is laid to rest and her family returns home to grieve in peace. The Palmer's mournful silence is short-lived, however, when a series of strange occurrences in and around their home leaves them convinced that they are experiencing something supernatural. Seeking the advice of a psychic and a parapsychologist, who reveals that Alice had been keeping some profound secrets from her friends and family, the Palmers travel to Lake Mungo and begin unraveling the mystery of the troubled adolescent's double life.

Starring:
Talia Zucker, Rosie Traynor, David Pledger, Martin Sharpe, Steve Jodrell, Tamara Donnellan, Scott Terrill

Directed By:
Joel Anderson

Release:
2008

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