Movies
After a one night stand with a call girl (Imogen Poots), a famous theater director (Owen Wilson) makes her an enticing offer: $30 thousand to quit turning tricks. The call girl is also an aspiring actress and quickly transforms this opportunity into a potential Broadway career.
A small-town stoner named Mike (Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network) learns he's actually a lethally trained sleeper-agent after his CIA handlers decide to terminate his contract (and life.) Suddenly on the run with his girlfriend Phoebe (Kristen Stewart, Twilight) the couple fight to stay alive while employing killer talents that Mike didn't even know he had.
Faith-based films have been around since the beginning of motion pictures, and for a long part of filmmaking history, stood alongside other Hollywood genres as both critical and box office successes. Films like Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments still captivate audiences to this day.
Every now and then, a small independent film manages to break through the cracks in the towering wall of entertainment available to our fickle culture. Like some little engine that could, it attracts critical praise and audience attention through its sheer brilliance, and without some huge marketing campaign.
Depressed film editor Rey Ciso (Adam Brooks) is stuck working on a rather trashy Italian crime thriller, a film far beneath his talents. While Ciso's professional life crumbles, his personal life follows suit. His wife (Paz De La Huerta; Enter the Void) is rapidly losing respect for him.
Decades before the fall of the Iron Curtain, two spies face off in a bombed out section of East Berlin. The first spy, Solo (Henry Cavill, Man of Steel, Immortals) is an American CIA agent. The second, Illya (Armie Hammer; The Lone Ranger, The Social Network) is a Russian KGB agent.
The creative potential on display in Joel Edgerton's The Gift is remarkably refreshing. The actor-turned-director, who also wrote the screenplay, has composed a skillful and assured directorial debut. It's a sly contemporary suspense-thriller, without the mindless sex and violence that plagues the genre. We could use a few more of these.
In 2012, Tig Notaro performed one of the most talked about stand-up comedy sets of all time, opening with the announcement that she had been diagnosed with cancer. This diagnosis came soon after the death of Notaro's mother, a one-two punch that could easily derail any happy life.
"I promised your mother that I would protect you."
It's jarring to hear Wade (Arnold Schwarzenegger) deliver that line long after his daughter has been bitten by a zombie.
When we first meet Manglehorn (Al Pacino) he's rescuing a baby from inside a locked car. The concerned mother waves her arms, pleading for her baby to be freed. Before doing so, he deems it necessary to criticize the cleanliness of the car as the mother stands by helplessly. This is a man whose life brings him no joy.
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