18th century Kazakhstan, a vast, pitiless region of austere and terrible beauty, bordered by China, Russia and Tibet. Here the proud and warlike Kazakh tribes have survived and fought for centuries – against invaders, against their formidable Jungar enemies and amongst themselves.
Oraz, a mystic and warrior possessed of great powers, foretells the birth of a new star, a hero. This boy – Mansur – is destined to unite the Kazakhs, and lead them to glorious victory against their enemies. Fearful of Oraz’ prediction, the Jungar ruler Galdan orders his General, Sharish, to find the child and slay him. However, Oraz saves Mansur and delivers him to his father, Sultan Wali.
STARRING: Kuno Becker, Jay Hernandez, Jason Scott Lee, Mark Dacascos, Doskhan Zholzhaksynov, Ayana Yesmagambetova
DIRECTORS: Sergei Bodrov & Ivan Passer
STUDIO: The Weinstein Co.
RATING: R (For Violence and sexual situations)
The Wind That Shakes The Barley” is the winner of the 2006 Cannes Film Festival Palme D’Or Award (Best Picture.)
Ireland 1920: workers from field and country unite to form volunteer guerrilla armies to face the ruthless “Black and Tan” squads that are being shipped from Britain to block Ireland’s bid for independence.
Driven by a deep sense of duty and a love for his country, Damien abandons his burgeoning career as a doctor and joins his brother, Teddy, in a dangerous and violent fight for freedom.
As the freedom fighters’ bold tactics bring the British to breaking point, both sides finally agree to a treaty to end the bloodshed. However, despite the apparent victory civil war erupts and families who fought side by side find themselves pitted against one another as sworn enemies, putting their loyalties to the ultimate test.
STARRING: Cillian Murphy, Liam Cunningham, Padraic Delaney, Gerard Kearney, William Ruane
DIRECTOR: Ken Loach
STUDIO: IFC First Take
RATING: R (For violence, strong language and sexual situations)
A basketball coach moves to Oklahoma, expecting to coach the boys’ basketball team, but instead ends up coaching the girls’ team, developing a rapport with the team and developing them into a strong team in a sport that never supported women players before.
STARRING: Jeffrey Donovan, Samantha Mathis, Bruce Dern, Bob Gunton, Heather Matarazzo, Chris Ellis, Anne Judson-Yager
DIRECTOR: Robert Collector
STUDIO: IFC Films
RATING: PG (For some mild thematic elements and language)
Maxed Out” begins as Beth Naef, one of the most successful real estate brokers in the country’s hottest real estate market, Las Vegas, gives us a tour of a $5.5 million spec house. What’s important to her clients, she says, are elevators, massive kitchens and wine cellars. Beth is building a ten-thousand square foot McMansion of her own, a home she admits she won’t be able to afford if interest rates go up. But, as she concludes, “if you look like you make money, I guess eventually you will.”
“Maxed Out”reveals the secrets of the new bank. John Ballew, a Midwestern banker whose neighborhood bank has been merged so many times he’s lost count, tells us why suggestive selling is the primary qualification for working at a modern bank. Bud Hibbs, a well-known consumer advocate and the collection industry’s enemy number one, explains why banks want us to be late. Liz Warren, a Harvard Professor who conducted the largest study of why Americans are going broke—at a rate higher than during the Great Depression—debunks the conventional wisdom that only “bad apples” declare bankruptcy. Liz’s study proves that the bare necessities, not Prada shoes, are killing American families. A lifelong Republican, Liz’s foray into the world of debt changed her politics and inspired a best-selling book: “The Two Income Trap”.
“Maxed Out” reveals that the financial industry’s best customers are the broke and the bankrupt. The most profitable niche of the industry is called “alternative” or “sub-prime”—euphemisms for a business formerly known as loan-sharking. They target those with less than perfect credit-people like Mark Mumma, whose frustration with the sub-prime credit card issuer Providian caused him to start the website www.providianfinancialsucks.com. From 2000-2002, Providian paid over $400 million to settle charges that it defrauded its customers. Soon after, a Providian director and the chairman of its compliance committee was appointed corporate crimce czar by George W. Bush.
“Maxed Out” exposes the modern debt-style in all of its absurdities and contradictions. Nowhere are these more evident than in a journey with award-winning investigative journalist Mike Hudson, who travels to Mississippi, Pittsburgh, and New York City interviewing the victims of predatory lending scams. The most shocking discovery? The predators aren’t boiler rooms or goodfellas. They are the nation’s largest and most respected financial institutions! And they’re not just preying on adults anymore. In 2001, FirstUSA hired two teenage high school students as walking billboards to make their cards seem “cool”. FirstUSA also pioneered “partnerships” with colleges—paying them millions of dollars for access to their students’ personal information, setting these kids up for ruin.
“Maxed Out” examines an industry that thrives on making people fail, then pursues them relentlessly to death’s door. The film features a shocking interview with Bob and Chris—two idealistic entrepreneurs from Minneapolis whose “People First Recoveries” is buying bad debt all over the country in the hopes of huge profits. They’re going to make “People First” a big success by being shockingly duplicitous. To get psyched up, Chris and Bob imagine themselves as “debt pirates”, wrestlers and professional football players. The personal information at their disposal and the ways in which they are allowed to use it—calling people’s neighbors and relatives to humiliate them into paying, for example—are nothing short of terrifying for us, fun for them.
“Maxed Out” delves into the heart of the information business. David Szwak, a prominent Shreveport attorney, reveals that 90 percent of credit reports—those forms that now determine whether we get a job, a home and insurance—have errors on them, yet the credit bureaus aren’t doing anything to correct the situation. Why not? The more negative information, the higher the interest rate and the greater the industry’s profits. If you dare challenge the industry, as did one woman whom the credit bureaus listed as “deceased”, industry goons are dispatched to wear you down. Szwak also reveals a little known but troubling fact: the credit bureaus keep a special “V.I.P.” list of prominent citizens whose reports are specially cleaned up. This protects the industry from legislative or judicial action and keeps those in power from knowing how flawed the credit system really is.
Finally, “Maxed Out” explores the financial industry’s influence over the President and Congress. When you are the largest contributor to a President’s re-election campaign, you can not only write laws but you can eliminate one of the oldest federal rights: bankruptcy. The industry gets whatever it wants. The result? Traditional protections disappear. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The situation becomes even more absurd as George W. Bush implores Congress not to leave Iraqis with debt at the same time National Guardsmen are forced to declare bankruptcy in Baghdad and the average American household’s share of the national debt rockets to nearly $90,000.
At times hilarious, at times deeply disturbing, “Maxed Out” forces us to face the consequences of our national debt addiction: the suicides, the ruined lives and, ultimately, the disappearance of the American middle class.
STARRING: Chris Barrett, Robin Leach, Luke McCabe, Mark Mumma, Liz Warren
DIRECTOR: James D. Scurlock
STUDIO: Magnolia Pictures
RATING: Not Rated (Language, Adult Situations)
The Namesake” is the story of the Ganguli family whose move from Calcutta to New York evokes a lifelong balancing act to meld to a new world without forgetting the old. Though parents Ashoke and Ashima (Irfan Khan, Tabu) long for the family and culture that enveloped them in India, they take great pride in the opportunities their sacrifices have afforded their children. Paradoxically, their son Gogol (Kal Penn) is torn between finding his own unique identity without losing his heritage. Even Gogol’s name represents the family’s journey into the unknown.
STARRING: Kal Penn, Tabu, Irfan Khan, Jacinda Barrett, Zuleikha Robinson, Glenne Headley, Brooke Smith
DIRECTOR: Mira Nair
STUDIO: Fox Searchlight
RATING: PG-13 (For sexuality/nudity, a scene of drug use, some disturbing images and brief language)
Jason thought his inheritance was the gift of money and lots of it… but Jason thought wrong. Based on the best-selling book “The Ultimate Gift” by Jim Stovall, the story sends trust fund baby Jason Stevens on an improbable journey of discovery, having to answer the ultimate question: “What is the relationship between wealth and happiness?”
Jason had a very simple relationship with his impossibly wealthy Grandfather, Howard “Red” Stevens. He hated him. No heart-to-heart talks, no warm fuzzies, just cold hard cash. So of course he figured that when Red died, the whole “reading of the will” thing would be another simple cash transaction. He figured that his Grandfather’s money would allow him to continue living in the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed. But what Red left him was anything but… simple. Red instead devised a plan for Jason to experience a crash course on life. Twelve tasks, which Red calls “gifts,” each challenging Jason in an improbable way, the accumulation of which would change him forever.
STARRING: Abigail Breslin, James Garner, Drew Fuller, Ali Hillis, Lee Meriwether, Brian Dennehy, Mircea Monroe, Donna Cherry, D. David Morin
DIRECTOR: Michael O. Sajbel
STUDIO: Fox Faith
RATING: PG (For thematic elements, some violence and language)
Joe Connor (Hugh Dancy), charismatic and idealistic, is a young man taking a year out. While his friends are backpacking around India or lying on a beach in Thailand, Joe has chosen a “real” experience – teaching in a Rwandan school. He is looking forward to stunning his mates with tales of adventure and life at the sharp end. His enthusiasm for Africa makes him popular with the pupils. To Francois, the school groundsman, Joe is a real friend.
The school is headed by Father Christopher (John Hurt) an English Roman Catholic priest. Christopher has spent nearly all his working life in Africa. The cycles of violence that he has witnessed over the years, throughout the continent, have made the struggle to keep his faith alive increasingly hard. Now he is wearier than ever, fearing for Rwanda as it sinks deeper and deeper into a mire of ethnic hatred and political corruption.
Every evening Joe is on the running track coaching Marie (Claire-Hope Ashitey), a young Tutsi girl. She is an exceptional talent and Joe sees her as a shining example of a brighter future. But in the Rwanda of April 1994 ethnic tension between Tutsis and Hutus erupts into genocide. Joe’s world is turned upside down.
The killing escalates through the city and the school becomes a refuge for Europeans and Tutsis. A contingent of Belgian UN soldiers, led by Capitaine Delon (Dominique Horwitz), has been stationed there to monitor the fragile peace accord but, now, as the extremist Hutu government vows to eliminate all Tutsis, the refugees wonder if the UN will really protect them from the machete-wielding Hutu militias who slowly start to surround the school.
Joe burns with a desire to “do” something, which puts him at odds with Christopher, who has become more and more hardened – Africa, he believes, is beyond hope. Joe promises a distraught Marie that she will be safe – that he will make sure the world outside doesn’t desert them. He ventures out into Kigali to pick up a television crew to bring back and publicise their plight. But things turn ugly at a roadblock. Joe and the crew are held at gunpoint by drunken militia and he discovers, to his horror, that one of the thugs is Francois, his friend, with a blood-stained machete in his hand.
The killing gets closer and closer to the school but with a weak UN mandate Capitaine Delon can do nothing to stop it. The European refugees are evacuated by French troops. The Rwandans are left behind, their hope draining away. Their worst fears are realised when the UN troops are ordered to pull out and abandon the Rwandans: Joe is told he must leave too – or face certain death. Terrified, he clambers aboard a UN truck, aware that he has betrayed his promise to Marie. Joe waits on the UN truck for Christopher but is astonished to discover that he has decided to remain behind with the Rwandans – a people he has grown to love.
After the UN convoy pulls away Christopher makes one final desperate attempt to save the handful of children he can squeeze into the back of the last vehicle remaining. Marie’s father Roland pushes her forward – her face is numb with fear and confusion for she knows she will never see her father again. But the truck is stopped at a Hutu roadblock. Machetes glint in the firelight and whilst Christopher tries to distract the soldiers, Marie slips silently out of the truck and starts to run, faster and faster, deeper and deeper into the African bush…”Beyond The Gates.”
STARRING: John Hurt, Hugh Dancy, Claire-Hope Ashitey, Dominique Horwitz
DIRECTOR: Michael Caton-Jones
STUDIO: IFC Films
RATING: R (For strong violence, disturbing images and language)
Gang-du (Song Kang-ho) works at a food-stand on the banks of the Han River. Dozing on the job, he is awakened by his daughter, Hyun-seo ( Ah-sung Ko), who is angry with him for missing a teacher-parent meeting at school. As Gang-du walks out to the riverbank with a delivery, he notices that a large crowd of people has gathered, taking pictures and talking about something hanging from the Han River Bridge. The otherwise idyllic landscape turns suddenly to bedlam when a terrifying creature climbs up onto the riverbank and begins to crush and eat people. Gang-du and his daughter run for their lives but suddenly the thing grabs Hyun-seo and disappears back into the river. The government announces that the thing apparently is the Host of an unidentified virus. Having feared the worst, Gang-du receives a phone call from his daughter who is frightened, but very much alive. Gang-du makes plans to infiltrate the forbidden zone near the Han River to rescue his daughter from the clutches of the horrifying Host…
STARRING: Song Kang-ho, Byun Hie-bong, Park Hae-il, Bae Doo-na, Ah-sung Ko
DIRECTOR: Bong Joon-ho
STUDIO: Magnolia Pictures
RATING: R (For creature violence and language (although in subtitles))
Based on the epic graphic novel by Frank Miller, “300 Movie” is a ferocious retelling of the ancient Battle of Thermopylae in which King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes and his massive Persian army. Facing insurmountable odds, their valor and sacrifice inspire all of Greece to unite against their Persian enemy, drawing a line in the sand for democracy. The film brings Miller’s (“Sin City”) acclaimed graphic novel to life by combining live action with virtual backgrounds that capture his distinct vision of this ancient historic tale – “300 Movie.”
STARRING: Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, Dominic West, David Wenham, Vincent Regan, Rodrigo Santoro
DIRECTOR: Zack Snyder
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
RATING: R (For graphic battle sequences throughout, some sexuality and nudity)
Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy hit the road in “Wild Hogs,” a rollicking comedy-adventure about a group of middle-aged friends who decide to rev up their routine suburban lives with a freewheeling motorcycle trip. Taking a long dreamed-of breather from their stressful jobs and family responsibilities, they can t wait to feel the freedom of the open road.
When this mis-matched foursome, who have grown far more used to the couch than the saddle, set out for this once-in-a-lifetime experience – they encounter a world that holds far more than they ever bargained for. The trip begins to challenge their wits and their luck, especially during a chance run-in with the Del Fuegos, a real-life biker gang who are less than amused with their novice approach.
As the “Wild Hogs” go looking for adventure, they soon find that they’ve embarked on a journey they will never forget.
STARRING: Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, William H. Macy, Marisa Tomei, Jill Hennessy, Ray Liotta
DIRECTOR: Walter Becker
STUDIO: Touchstone Pictures
RATING: PG-13 (For crude and sexual content, and some violence)
