“Deep Water” is a documentary (recreation) about the disastrous 1968 round-the-world yacht race made famous.
“Deep Water” is the stunning true story of the first solo, non-stop, round-the-world boat race, and the psychological toll it took on its competitors. Sponsored by the Sunday Times of London, the much ballyhooed event attracted a field of nine, including amateur sailor Donald Crowhurst, who set out to circumnavigate the globe in late 1968. Battling treacherous seas and his own demons, Crowhurst almost immediately comes apart as he faces the isolation of nine months on the high seas. Part adventure yarn and part metaphysical mystery, “Deep Water”is an unforgettable journey into one man’s heart of darkness.
“The 11th Hour” explores what it will take for humans to make a difference ecologically before it is too late. A variety of leading scientists, thinkers and leaders are interviewed in the film, including Stephen Hawking, former CIA topper James Woolsey and former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. “11th Hour” is a documentary produced and hosted by Leonardo DiCaprio.
STARRING: Leonardo DiCaprio (Narrator, host)
DIRECTORS: Leila Conners Petersen, Nadia Conners
STUDIO: Warner Independent Pictures
RATING: PG (For some mild disturbing images and thematic elements)
The words “health care” and “comedy” aren’t usually found in the same sentence, but in Academy Award winning filmmaker Michael Moore’s new movie SiCKO, they go together hand in (rubber) glove.
Opening with profiles of several ordinary Americans whose lives have been disrupted, shattered, and—in some cases—ended by health care catastrophe, the film makes clear that the crisis doesn’t only affect the 47 million uninsured citizens—millions of others who dutifully pay their premiums often get strangled by bureaucratic red tape as well.
After detailing just how the system got into such a mess (the short answer: profits and Nixon), we are whisked around the world, visiting countries including Canada, Great Britain and France, where all citizens receive free medical benefits. Finally, Moore gathers a group of 9/11 heroes – rescue workers now suffering from debilitating illnesses who have been denied medical attention in the US. He takes them to a most expected place, and in addition to finally receiving care, they also engage in some unexpected diplomacy.
While Moore’s SiCKO follows the trailblazing path of previous hit films, the Oscar-winning BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE and all-time box-office documentary champ FAHRENHEIT 9/11, it is also something very different for Michael Moore. SiCKO is a straight-from-the-heart portrait of the crazy and sometimes cruel U.S. health care system, told from the vantage of everyday people faced with extraordinary and bizarre challenges in their quest for basic health coverage.
In the tradition of Mark Twain or Will Rogers, SiCKO uses humor to tell these compelling stories, leading the audience conclude that an alternative system is the only possible answer.
STARRING: Michael Moore
DIRECTOR: Michael Moore
STUDIO: The Weinstein Co./Lionsgate
RATING: PG-13 (For strong language)
“Zoo Movie” is an extraordinary glimpse into the life of a seemingly normal Seattle family man whose secret sexual appetites led to his shocking death. Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Robinson Devor (”Woman Chaser,” “Police Beat”), the film explores the ensuing media coverage and public outcry that uncovered a secret community of zoophiles, who call themselves “zoos.” This expressionistic rendering of how apparently upstanding citizens banded together and videotaped their journey into the most taboo realms of behavior, reveals the enormous gulf between what we appear to be and who we really are - “Zoo Movie”
Baghdad, September 2003: In a middle class house on a quiet street, a family is fast asleep. Without warning, the front door is crashed and American soldiers storm the house looking for weapons and bomb-making material. Cameraman Michael Tucker documents the event as the men in the house are cuffed and forced to kneel in the garden. A search of the house uncovers no incriminating evidence, however Yunis Khatayer Abbas and three of his brothers are taken and detained. Bent on forcing Yunis to confess to crimes he did not commit, his captors press him with bizarre questions about music tastes, sexual preferences and Harrison Ford. His intelligence value exhausted, he is then transferred to Abu Ghraib Prison. The charge: Planning the Assassination of Tony Blair.
Among thousands suffering from food shortages, riots and insurgent attacks, Yunis endures by helping his fellow prisoners and keeping a secret diary. He also forges an unlikely friendship with one of his guards, who he calls “The Good Soldier”.
Combining Tucker’s embedded footage, Yunis’ home movies, testimony from former guard Benjamin Thompson and original comic book art, Tucker and Epperlein trace the moving story of an ordinary man trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare.
Unique in its presentation and unlikely in its very existence, “The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair” details an absurd comedy of errors where one freedom-loving Iraqi journalist learns the true meaning of liberation - “The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair.”
STARRING: Yunis Khatayer Abbas, Benjamin Thompson
DIRECTORS: Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker
STUDIO: Red Envelope
RATING: PG-13 (For violence and language)
A battle of naked ambition played out on the national and, ultimately, world stage, “Air Guitar Nation” chronicles the birth of the US Air Guitar Championships as legions of aspiring rock stars live out their dreams on a quest to become the world champion in a strange world where musical ability plays second fiddle to virtual virtuosity. As the film un-reels, two aspiring rock legends strum and strut their way towards glory and the coveted national title. C. Diddy (David Jung), a samurai warrior clad in a “Hello Kitty” breast plate and red kimono, emerges as an early favorite. But his arch nemesis from the Lower East Side, Björn Türoque (Dan Crane), is not far behind. While C. Diddy threatens to unleash his self-professed “Asian Fury” on his competitors, Björn vows to take Diddy down. As the film reaches its climax, the future of Air hangs in the balance; will Björn’s technical prowess, stage presence, and be enough to take him to the top, or will C. Diddy conquer all to become America’s first supreme being of Air -Guitar - “Air Guitar Nation.”
STARRING: Dan Crane, Gordon Hintz, David S. Jung, Zac Munro
DIRECTOR: Alexandra Lipsitz
STUDIO: Shadow Distribution
RATING: R (For some language and brief nudity)
Glastonbury” is now the best known, longest running and most pre-eminent music festival in the world. Fuelled by a staggering range of music, the movie will embrace the spirit, characters and overwhelming experiences of the festival as it reflects the extraordinary world changes of the last three decades.
In 1970, a young farmer named Michael Eavis opened his 150-acre farm to 1,500 people who paid one pound each to watch a handful of pop and folk stars perform all weekend long, and the Glastonbury Festival was born. The following year, several rich hippies, including Winston Churchill’s granddaughter, provided funds to enlarge the event, and 12,500 people turned up to see David Bowie and Joan Baez. For most of the past 30 years, the Worthy Farm in Glastonbury has provided a delirious outdoor concert for thousands of people over the summer-solstice weekend at the end of June. Julien Temple (director of the Sex Pistols documentary “The Filth and the Fury”) spent a few years collecting footage from every single Glastonbury Festival, ranging from professional outtakes from the film Nicolas Roeg made about the 1971 event to amateur home videos collected from the attendees themselves, often retrieved from forgotten corners of closets and attics. Interweaving images of impromptu art happenings, skeptical locals, and stirring performances by music legends, not to mention the unbridled energy of each successive generation of youthful music fans, Glastonbury skillfully chronicles the evolution of the longest-running music festival in the world - “Glastonbury.”
STARRING: David Bowie, Coldplay, Radiohead, Oasis, Chemical Brothers, Velvet Underground, Primal Scream, The Cure
DIRECTOR: Julien Temple
STUDIO: THINKFilm
RATING: R (For nudity, drug use, language and some sexual content)
If you spend any time at all in the workplace you’re going to get laid off, down-sized, let go, out-sourced, axed, terminated, canned, cancelled, dismissed… “FIRED.”
When actress Annabelle Gurwitch was fired from a play by Woody Allen she wondered how she would cope with being fired by a cultural icon. Turning to friends in show business she was assured she was not alone. Once the subject had been broached, everyone she knew from her rabbi and gynecologists to her colleagues had advice and their own accounts of getting the boot to offer. This set her off on a journey to answer the question: was being fired going to be the best thing or worst thing that had happened in her working life.
Gurwitch began researching and traveling the country, interviewing people as diverse as Tim Allen, Sarah Silverman, Jeff Garlin, Anne Meara, David Cross and GM workers in Lansing, Michigan whose perspectives ranged from the tragically comedic to proving that old adage when one door closes another door opens, to the just plain tragic. Annabelle attended job fairs, received “outplacement services”, interviewed human resource directors, downsizers, and the downsized who were seeking new jobs.
“Fired” reminds us that all great success come out of failure and being fired can be a part of the growth process, that humor helps, and that if you’re employed in America today your firing may be the best and the worst thing that can happen in your working life - “Fired.”
STARRING: Annabelle Gurwitch, Tim Allen, David Cross, Andy Dick, Tate Donovan, Andy Borowitz, Jeff Garlin, Richard Kind, Anne Meara, Bob Odenkirk, Robert Reich, Jeffrey Ross, Harry Shearer, Ben Stein, Sarah Silverman
DIRECTORS: Chris Bradley and Kyle LaBrache
STUDIO: Shout! Factory
RATING: Not Rated (Strong Language)
John, Daniel, and Panther were lost. They had no home, no family, no hope. Then they came to America, where they were given three months. Three months to learn how to use electricity, how to live in Western culture, how to support themselves. Three months to start paying back the U.S. State Department for their plane tickets. They are the Lost Boys of Sudan, and this is their inspiring story of their triumph in their own words - “God Grew Tired of Us.”
STARRING: John Dau, Daniel Abul Pach, Panther Bior, Nicole Kidman
NARRATOR: Nicole Kidman
DIRECTORS: Christopher Quinn and Tommy Walker
STUDIO: Newmarket
RATING: PG (For thematic elements and some disturbing images)
Surfwise” - “Surfwise” is the tumultuous story of 85-year old surfer, health advocate and sex guru, Dr. Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, his wife Juliette, and their nine children who were all home-schooled and raised in a small camper on the beach, where they surfed and had to adhere to the strict diet and lifestyle of animals in the wild
STARRING: The Paskowitz family
DIRECTOR: Doug Pray
STUDIO: Magnolia Films
RATING: R (Language, sexual material)
THEATER COUNT (Opening Weekend): TBD
RUNNING TIME: 93 minutes
TOTAL DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE: TBD
U.S. DVD RELEASE DATE: TBD
