TIME CRIMES

TIMECRIMES (LOS CRONOCRIMENES) Spanish

The Story:
Hector (Karra Elejalde), is spending a few days in the countryside with his girlfriend, Clara (Candela Fernández), when he sees something that catches his attention while playing with his binoculars. Looking at a nearby house near a wooded area, Hector spies a beautiful woman (Bárbara Goenaga) taking her clothes off, and decides to take a stroll and give her a closer look.

However, when he arrives at the house several minutes later, the woman is lying in the grass and appears to either be dead or passed out. As Hector examines her, he's attacked by a mysterious assailant wearing pink bandages on his face and chases Hector.

Hector seeks refuge in a building that turns out to be a research facility owned by a mysterious scientist El Joven (Nacho Vigalondo), who gives him a place to hide inside a futuristic closet. However, Hector realizes it was actually a time-travel machine when he emerges a few minutes.

From here on in, Hector is caught in a time loop as he tries to go back and correct things he did previously, complicating the situation further each time he does..

Starring:
Karra Elejalde, Candela Fernández, Bárbara Goenaga, Juan Inciarte, Nacho Vigalondo

Directed By:
Nacho Vigalondo

Release:
2007

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THE FOOT FIST WAY

the Foot Fist Way

The Story:
Small town Tae Kwon Do instructor Fred Simmons (Danny McBride) relishes the power that comes from being the king of a small kingdom. A former champion, Mr. Simmons fancies himself one in the same as his hero, Chuck "The Truck" Wallace (Ben Best), a B-movie Martial Arts film star. Mr. Simmons openly boasts about his self-proclaimed status as "king of the demo" [Tae Kwon Do demonstration], even though he can't nail one to save his life. His only vulnerability lies in his adoration of his wife Suzie (Mary Jane Bostic) - a weakness that comes bubbling to the surface when Mr. Simmons discovers Suzie has cheated on him with her new boss. When Suzie leaves him, Mr. Simmons finds himself slipping into a crushing downward spiral.

He struggles to keep "the power" by abusing anyone who challenges him. After losing students and making a fool out of himself, he finds allies in Julio Chavez (Spencer Moreno), his nine-year-old apprentice, and Henry Harrison (Carlos Lopez), one of his students with an "obvious confidence problem." When his bizarre best friend Mike McAllister (Jody Hill) comes to visit, the four make a pilgrimage to meet the greatest Martial Artist of all time, "The Truck," at a Tae Kwon Do convention. What starts as a crazy man's expedition to escape turns into a trip of discovery, as Mr. Simmons and his crew party with "The Truck" and Mr. Simmons convinces him to perform a demo at his Tae Kwon Do school during the upcoming belt-qualifying testing.

Inspired with renewed strength, Fred returns from the convention clear-headed and at the top of his game, until he is shocked by an unexpected turn of events when Suzie returns home, and the "The Truck" flies in from Hollywood to appear at his Tae Kwon Do school. In the end, Mr. Simmons faces the greatest test of his power and finds the strength he outwardly projects within his own spirit

Starring:
Danny McBride, Ben Best, Mary Jane Bostic, Spencer Moreno

Directed By:
Jody Hill

Release:
2008

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GARDEN PARTY

The Story:
Teenage beauty April (Willa Holland) has humble ambitions. She’s searching for a way to get by without taking off her clothes—any more than she already has. But the going is tough.

Sally St. Claire (Vinessa Shaw) is a realtor whose business has been built upon her sex appeal and secret past. Success has hardened Sally and rendered her disconnected, but it has given her a great eye for spotting lost souls in need of direction.

One such soul is her assistant, Nathan (Alexander Cendese), who has moved to Los Angeles from Nebraska in search of fame as a dancer. Lacking drive and confidence, Nathan finds himself making late night photocopies for Sally and her clients.

Todd (Richard Gunn) is one of those prospective clients. A porn addicted artist in search of a way out of a sexless relationship and into an adventure, he’s happy to help Sally get revenge for some past indiscretions. In exchange, Sally helps Todd live out his fantasy.

Blazing his own path is Sammy (Erik Smith) a cunning, off the bus musician/street kid with his eyes on stardom. When Nathan meets Sammy, Nathan sees a light at the end of the tunnel and maybe more than just a friend, while Sammy sees a much-needed roof over his head When a local erotic photographer introduces April to Nathan, the dominoes fall on a series of chance encounters.

And after everyone has met just about everyone else, each comes away changed in the strangest of ways.

Starring:
Vinessa Shaw, Willa Holland, Richard Gunn, Patrick Fischler, Fiona Dourif

Directed By:
Jason Freeland

Release:
2008

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GIALLO

GIALLO

The Story:
In modern Turin, an ochre-skinned taxi driver (notorious serial killer) who operates under the name "Yellow," preys on foreign women he picks up as fares and then tortures, maims and kills.His latest kidnap victim is a model, Celine (Elsa Pataky), and put through a series of terrifying, humiliating and painful ordeals.

Celine's flight-attendant sister Linda (Emmanuelle Seigner) enlists the aid of an Italian investigator, Enzo Avolfi (Adrien Brody) in a race against the proverbial clock to find Celine before she ends up mutilated and dead like Giallo's last victim (Valentina Izumi).

Starring:
Adrien Brody, Emmanuelle Seigner, Elsa Pataky, Robert Miano

Directed By:
Dario Argento

Release:
2009

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SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO

SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO

The Story:
Set "several hundred years after the Battle of Dannoura" -- the late 1880s, in the small, dust-blown town of Yuta, Nebada.

Yuta is ruled by both the Heike, led by mad, volatile Kiyomori (Koichi Sato), and the Genji, led by epicene, cool-headed Yoshitsune (Yusuke Iseya). Both clans have been lured by the promise of gold in them thar hills.

Into town rides a nameless gunslinger in black (Hideaki Ito), who takes a liking to a half-Heike, half-Genji kid, Heihachi (Ruka Uchida), whose father Akira (Shun Oguri) was killed by Kiyomori. Heihachi's grandmother, Ruriko (Kaori Momoi), runs the general store and hides a colorful past as a female gunslinger; his mother, Shizuka (Yoshino Kimura), is Yoshitsune's lover and a dancer in the Genji-run saloon. Both women vow vengeance against the Heike.

Two clans try to woo the lone gunman to their sides, but he has ulterior motives. Dirty tricks, betrayal, desire and love collide as the situation erupts into a final, explosive showdown.

Starring:
Hideaki Ito, Koichi Sato, Yusuke Iseya, Masanobu Ando, Takaaki Ishibashi , Quentin Tarantino, Kaori Momoi

Directed By:
Takashi Miike

Release:
2007

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HUMBOLDT COUNTY

HUMBOLT COUNTY

The Story:
After receiving a failing grade from a demanding professor (Peter Bogdanovich) who just happens to be his father, UCLA medical student Peter Hadley (Jeremy Strong) drowns his sorrows in a jazz club, where he catches the eye of a sultry singer named Bogart (Fairuza Balk).

The next day, after a spontaneous night of hot sex, Peter tags along with Bogart as she pays a visit to her family, and is soon stranded with her aunt and uncle as she heads back into the city. Jack (Brad Dourif) and Rosie (Frances Conroy) are former academics-turned-bohemian dropouts who live in a remote and idyllic community near California's redwood forests, where they support themselves by growing marijuana.

Also living with Jack and Rosie are Max (Chris Messina), Bogart's sometime boyfriend, and Charity (Madison Davenport), Max's young daughter. While Peter clearly doesn't fit in with Jack, Rosie, and their friends at first, before long he develops an appreciation and respect for their way of life as he ponders his future, but the risks of their profession become equally clear to him, and Max is looking for a big score so he and Charity can move on.

Starring:
Jeremy Strong, Fairuza Balk, Peter Bogdanovich, Brad Dourif, Frances Conroy, Madison Davenport, Chris Messina.

Directed By:
Darren Grodsky and Danny Jacobs.

Release:
2008

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THE HAUNTING OF MOLLY HARTLEY

THE HAUNTING OF MOLLY HARTLEY

The Story:
Molly (Haley Bennett) is a 17 year old girl who has physically recovered from a stab wound inflicted by her mother (Marin Hinkle), but the psychological scars that remain run deep. To help her begin a new life after her trauma, her father has moved her into a new school.

Molly's father (Jake Weber) has enrolled her in the exclusive Huntington Academy, where she's immediately targeted by resident dreamboat Joseph (Chace Crawford) for smoochin' and by resident mean girl Suzie (AnnaLynn McCord) for hazin'.

Molly makes quick friends in bible-thumping Alexis (Shanna Collins) and semi-burnout Leah (Shannon Marie Woodward). With her eighteenth birthday approaching, Molly is haunted by nightmares of her mother's attack upon her while dealing with the stress of being the new girl in school.

Symptoms of psychosis that seem to be affecting her seem to foreshadow an onset of the mental illness that took control of her mother's life, but of several different explanations for her distress, the most unforeseen and terrifying is revealed as the truth.

Ultimately, Molly discovers that her parents sold her soul at birth in order to ensure that she'd survive the difficult delivery. At the stroke of midnight on her 18th birthday, Molly's
soul becomes the property of the Devil.

Starring:
Haley Bennett, Jake Weber, Chace Crawford, Shanna Collins, Shannon Marie Woodward, Annalynne McCord, Nina Siemaszko

Directed By:
Mickey Liddell

Release:
2008

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FEAR (S) OF THE DARK

FEAR(S) OF THE DARK (PEUR(S) DO NOIR) French

The Story:

A wildly inventive and visually dazzling collection of fearful tales by six of the world's most renowned comic and graphic artists - Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, and Richard McGuire.

There's a story of a teenage boy who meets the wrong girl. Another tale deals with a small community where people disappear and are never seen again. Then there's the narrative of a little Japanese girl who suffers from horrible nightmares followed by a tale where a man doesn't get the rest he hoped for in an old not-so-abandoned house. These stories are connected by the story about a man with a devilish smile and four enormous dogs from hell and by a woman's monologue about her fears.

Starring:

Guillaume Depardieu, Aure Atika, Louisa Pili, Arthur H, Francois Creton, Nicole Garcia, Christian Hecq.

Directors:

Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, Richard McGuire

Release:

2008

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THE GO-GETTER

THE GO-GETTER

The Story:
Mercer White (Lou Taylor Pucci) , a straight-arrow 19 year-old who steals a car and sets out to find his older half-brother he hasn't seen in fourteen years. It turns out to be quite the trip. He's barely out of town when a cell phone left behind in the stolen car begins to ring and Mercer finds himself talking to the car's owner, Kate (Zooey Deschanel).

From this point forward, nothing proceeds as expected for Mercer. In Reno, he interacts with a variety of memorable and not-so-memorable characters along the way; a community of pot smoking, pottery making, self-proclaimed Buddhists, four parolees posing as a band to entertain shut-ins as a part of their community service, a pill popping, sexually active ex-classmate from grammar school (Jena Malone) to name a few.

In the end its the wildness of the ride, the thrill of the pursuit and the discovery of a love he never saw coming that set this journey apart.

Starring:
Lou Taylor Pucci, Zooey Deschanel, Jena Malone, Maura Tierney, Bill Duke, Judy Greer, M. Ward

Directed By:

Martin Hynes

Release:

2008

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THE DEAL

The Deal

The Story:
Meet Charlie Berns (William H. Macy), a guy whose suicidal tendencies give him the chutzpah to con a major studio into a $100 million deal on a script he hasn’t even read. At the very moment when his idealistic screenwriter nephew Lionel Travitz (Jason Ritter) knocks on the door, toting a solemn art house period script about Benjamin Disraeli, Charlie has literally had it with life. But the trade papers have announced that Bobby Mason ( LL Cool J) a recently converted black action star is actively seeking Jewish material, so the serendipity is too absurd to resist.

Charlie masterminds a plan, making it impossible for the studio not to green light this project, which, while Jewish, couldn’t be further from an action flick. No matter. In Hollywood, perception is everything. Along the way, Charlie meets his match in Deidre Hearn (Meg Ryan) , a sharp-witted development executive who sees right through his games but also recognizes that maybe his caution-to-the-wind philosophy has serious merit.

As she tries to queer the deal, Charlie not only manages to stymie her, but do some serious wooing in the process.

Starring:
William H. Macy, Meg Ryan, David Hunt, Jason Ritter, Fiona Glascott

Directed By:
Steven Schachter

Release:
2008

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BOOK OF BLOOD

BOOK OF BLOOD

The Story:
Mary Floescu (Sophie Ward), is an paranormal expert and author who is investigating a house once owned by a Alistair Crowley type medium where a gruesome murder of a teenager took place. Along with her assistant, Reg Fuller, they enlist the help of a clairvoyant, a student in Floescu paranormal class, Simon McNeal (Jonas Armstrong). Mary believes that Simon can unlock the door that inhibits us from seeing the highways of the dead, and try to communicate with them.

As Mary and Reg collect evidence, they find that Simon is a fraud and almost everything has been his doing. But as the story unfolds, they find that not everything is as what it seems and they do truly have opened a door to the after life in the form of the dead's stories being written upon Simon's skin.

Starring:
Jonas Armstrong, Sophie Ward, Paul Blair, Doug Bradley

Directed By:
John Harrison

Release:
2009

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LEFT BANK

Left Bank (Linkeroever) (Belgium)

The Story:
Marie (Eline Kuppens) is a dedicated track athlete. One day, she suddenly collapses due to an infection in her immune system, and is forced to rest.

Finding it impossible to stay cooped up at home with her mother (Sien Eggers), an ageing hippy type who runs a health food store, Marie spontaneously decides to move in with Bobby (Matthias Schoenaerts), an archer and used car salesman she met at the athletics park.They make love and Marie, living a life of not having to worry about what she eats, drinks, smokes or does for the first time, falls for Bobby.

Maria soon moves into his flat in Left Bank district of the Belgian port town of Antwerp
(where exiles and lepers used to live in medieval times). The neighbours are strange. She suffers from morning sickness, or is it something else? After injuring her knee when she goes for a jog (against doctor’s orders), experiencing unsettling dreams, and discovering Bobby’s previous tenant had disappeared, she begins to realise that all is not quite right in her world, or her body. She seeks the truth with the help of Dirk (Tom De Wispelaere), the boyfriend of the vanished young woman.

Then Marie starts to uncover the secrets of the building, she discovers a dark and ancient side to the Left Bank district, and a secret society linked to witchcraft.

Starring:
Matthias Schoenaerts, Eline Kuppens, Sien Eggers, Tom De Wispelaere

Directed By:
Pieter Van Hees

Release:
2008

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GARDENS OF THE NIGHT

Gardens of the Night

The Story:
Leslie (Ryan Simpkins) is an 8-year-old girl, as she walks to school down a sunny suburban street. Stopped by a middle-aged man, Alex (Tom Arnold), who claims he needs help finding his lost dog, Leslie makes the mistake of getting into his car.

All along the search, Alex pulls information from her about her life and family. He offers her a ride to school because she is late. She agrees. On the drive we meet Alex's friend Frank (Kevin Zegers) who also helps to pull key information from Leslie such as the name of her father and where he works. They drop her off at school only to return for her trip home where they convince Leslie that something has happened to her parents and she must go with them now.

When she arrives at Alex's house, it appears he gets a phone call from her father. From what Alex says, it seems an emergency happened and that her father wants her to stay with him a little while until he can come get her. He puts her in a bedroom with Donnie (Jermaine Scooter Smith) and locks the door. The first night after being drugged, Alex takes her out of the bedroom then takes photos of her presumably naked.

Slowly Alex goes about breaking Leslie. He tells her that her parents do not want her anymore. As proof, he provides a phone number to her "father's cell phone" (actually just a pay phone), and when her repeated calls are unanswered, she eventually accepts his story. She and another victim, a young boy named Donny, are forced into prostitution and child-pornography.

Eventually, Alex takes Leslie to stay with Orlando (Harold Perrineau). As soon as she is left alone with Orlando, he tells her about wanting to touch and feel her. When he goes to touch her, she screams out for Alex who bursts in and apparently shoots and kills Orlando. He makes her promise together with Frank that they will tell no one about the murder. She is broken and trusts him completely.

With Leslie broken, Alex has sex with her. Alex meets with Jimmy (Jeremy Sisto). Jimmy opens a book full of photos with kids in it. All apparently for sale for a night. He talks about the possibility to even fly Leslie to different customers which Alex disagrees with and says he only wants local customers. Next we see Leslie in the backseat of Jimmy's car. He tells her that he will only give her to the best customers and that she is going to see a judge (Raynold Gideon), and his wife (Cornelia Guest).

Leslie and Donnie have become very close like brother and sister. Playing together, depending on each other, and even sleeping in the same bed. On a trip to the store for ice cream, the store clerk recognizes Leslie from a milk carton in her shop and calls the police. Back at the house, Alex grabs both kids and puts tape over their mouths. Together with Frank, they run out the back and get away.

Fast forward 10 years. Leslie (Gillian Jacobs) and Donnie (Evan Ross) are cuddled together sleeping on the beach. Both are street prostitutes selling themselves any way possible to survive.Leslie is prostituting herself, and as a way to move away from this, she tries to lure a young teen living in a shelter into a prostitution ring. Donny has fallen in love with her, but Leslie is very confused and views his feelings as nauseating and depraved. She goes to the shelter in an attempt to win the girl's trust and turn her out as a prostitute, but at the last minute she has a change of heart and returns the girl to the shelter.

The counselor (John Malkovich) discovers her true identity and tells her that her parents have been looking for her all these years, which she finally realizes is true.
Leslie reunites with her parents and attempts to return home, however, she is too scarred from her life on the street and cannot remain in such a normal atmosphere. She leaves in the middle of the night and hitchhikes to Florida, hoping to re-unite with Donnie.

Starring:
Gillian Jacobs, Evan Ross, Ryan Simpkins, Jermani Scooter Smith, Kevin Zegers, Jeremy Sisto, Harold Perrineau, John Malkovich,Tom Arnold

Directed By:
Damian Harris

Release:
2008

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