Mga Tinda

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BED

Director: Emilio Martínez Lázaro
Main Cast: Ernesto Alterio, Paz Vega, Guillermo Toledo
Run Time: 114 min
Release Year: 2002
Country: SP
Sex, love, lies, bed-hopping and mistaken identities abound in this pop musical-comedy set in Madrid. The gorgeous Paula breaks up with her boyfriend Pedro in order to continue her affair with Javier. The immature Javier however, is unwilling to break up with his current girlfriend Sonia, or confess to their affair to Pedro, who happens to be his best friend.

PULP FICTION
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Main Cast: Tim Roth, John Travolta, Samuel Jackson
Run Time: 154 min
Release Year: 1994
Country: US
The film initiates with two small-time thieves, Honey Bunny and Pumpkin, who spontaneously decide to hold up a restaurant. The film then shifts to the story of Jules and Vincent, who hit men for the well known and feared Marsellus Wallace, who is caught up in a deal gone wrong with struggling boxer Butch Coolidge.

BELLE JOUR
Director: Luis Bunuel
Main Cast: Séverine Serizy
Run Time: 101 min
Release Year: 1968
Country: IT
Severine is a beautiful young woman married to a doctor. She loves her husband dearly, but cannot bring herself to be physically intimate with him. She indulges instead in vivid, kinky, erotic fantasies to entertain her sexual desires. Eventually she becomes a prostitute, working in a brothel in the afternoons while remaining chaste in her marriage.

THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP
Director: Michel Gondry
Main Cast: Gael García Bernal
Run Time: 105 minutes
Release Year: 2005
Country: FR/IT
Inventive Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director Michel Gondry takes a surreal trip through the mind of an introverted but wildly creative man whose attempts to balance his colorful dreams with his stark reality are complicated by the arrival of a beautiful woman into his life. Shy Stéphane (Gael García Bernal) has returned to his childhood hometown to accept a new job. When the prospective employment offer fails to live up to expectations, however, Stéphane is at least comforted by the close bond he has formed with his creative-thinking neighbor Stéphanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Their blossoming romance finally awakens the sleeping confidence that the withdrawn Stéphane was previously capable of displaying only in his dreams, but Stéphane and Stéphanie find their relationship challenged when lingering insecurities prompt the smitten visionary to confront an old dilemma that can't be solved by the Science of Sleep.

CITY OF GOD
Director: Kátia Lund
Run Time: 131 minutes
Release Year: 2002
Country: BR
Fernando Meirelles' City of God is a sweeping tale of how crime affects the poor population of Rio de Janeiro. Though the narrative skips around in time, the main focus is on Cabeleira who formed a gang called the Tender Trio. He and his best friend, Bené (Phelipe Haagensen), become crime lords over the course of a decade. When Bené is killed before he can retire, Lil' Zé attempts to take out his arch enemy, Sandro Cenoura (Matheus Nachtergaele). But Sandro and a young gangster named Mane form an alliance and begin a gang war with Lil' Zé. Amateur photographer Buscape (Alexandre Rodrigues) takes pictures of the brutal crime war, making their story famous. City of God was screened at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.

SECRETS AND LIES
Director: Mike Leigh
Run Time: 142 minutes
Release Year: 1996
Country: FR/UK
Award: 1996 Golden Palme Cannes
Cynthia lives in London with her sullen street-sweeper daughter. Her brother has been successful with his photographer's business and now lives nearby in a more upmarket house. But Cynthia hasn't even been invited round there after a year. So, all round, she feels rather lonely and isolated. Meanwhile, in another part of town, Hortense, adopted at birth but now grown up, starts to try and trace her mother.

KIKA
Director: Pedro Almodovar
Run Time: 115 minutes
Release Year: 1993
Country: ES
Award: 1994 Goya Award
Spanish audio, no English subtitle
Kika, a young cosmetologist, is called to the mansion of Nicolas, an American writer to make-up the corpse of his stepson, Ramon. Ramon, who is not dead, is revived by Kika's attentions and she then moves in with him. They might live happily ever after but first they have to cope with Kika's affair with Nicolas, the suspicious death of Ramon's mother and the intrusive gaze of tabloid-TV star and Ramon's ex-psychologist Andrea Scarface.

THE CHILD (L’ENFANT)
Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne
Run Time: 95 minutes
Release Year: 2005
Country: FR
Winner of the "Palme d'Or" award in 2005 Cannes Film Festival
Dispossessed twenty-year old Bruno (Jérémie Renier) lives with his eighteen-year-old girlfriend Sonia (Déborah François) in Seraing, an eastern Belgian steel town. They live off Sonia's unemployment benefits along with the panhandling and petty thefts committed by Bruno and his gang. Their lives change forever when Sonia gives birth to their child, Jimmy. She returns home after Jimmy's birth to find that Bruno has sublet their apartment to total strangers. After an initial and promising change of heart about becoming a father and changing his ways, Jimmy becomes little more to Bruno than a potential source of wealth. Desperate for money and unable to face his parental responsibilities, Bruno sells Jimmy to a black market connection, who promises to find the child an adoptive home. Realizing the error in his actions Bruno sets out to try and undo his callous deed, leading him to a powerful personal transformation.

ELEPHANT Director: Gus Van Sant
Run Time: 81 minutes
Release Year: 2003
Country: USA

Awards: Best Director, Golden Palm - 2003 Cannes
On a crisp, sunny fall day, with colorful leaves on the trees and puffy clouds drifting across blue skies, students arrive at school as usual. Eli takes photographs for his portfolio, John manages problems with his alcoholic father, Acadia attends a gay-lesbian meeting, Nate plays a game of tag football, and Michelle works in the library. Meanwhile, two outsiders, Eric and Alex, harbor hatred for their peers. Each of ELEPHANT's students have unique interests and personalities, and the film respectfully emphasizes their individuality. It also demonstrates how school is an unpredictable blender where students’ differences are constantly agitated. Harris Savides' excellent photography shot in 1:33 aspect ratio, making the movie a cube in the center of the screen "follows and floats, sometimes blurring and juxtaposing the light to achieve an ethereal mood; while Leslie Shatz's ambient sound design and a soundtrack of soft Beethoven piano music completes that feeling. The film is structured in brief overlapping chapters all taking place the morning of the 11:35 A.M. attack.

HISTORY BOYS
Director: Nicholas Hytner
Main Cast: Richard Griffiths, Clive Merrison, Frances de la Tour, Stephen Campbell
Run Time: 109 minutes
Release Year: 2005
Country: UK/US
An unruly collection of clever but crass Thatcher-era English high-school students seek to earn the scores needed to enroll in Oxford and Cambridge in director Nicholas Hytner and screenwriter Alan Bennett's screen adaptation of Bennett's Tony-winning play. The History Boys focuses on a group of eight students, all of them deemed by their overeager headmaster (Clive Merrison) to be the best and the brightest. Though they've been coddled by their humanities-loving instructor, Hector (Richard Griffiths), and their acerbic history teacher, Mrs. Lintott (Frances de la Tour), the boys are deemed in need of additional tutoring; thus, the brash, young Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore) is recruited to challenge them further. The subtle power games the boys used to their advantage with their previous tutors are of no use with Irwin, whose wit borders on the callous. Meanwhile, Irwin's presence -- and a hush-hush scandal -- forces all of the faculty members to reassess their position at the school. Hytner shot The History Boys shortly after the play's Broadway run, to capitalize on the enthusiasm and energy exhibited in the live shows.

NOVO
Director: Jean-Pierre Limosin
Main Cast: Eduardo Noriega
Genre: Sex Comedy
Run Time: 98 minutes
Release: 2005
Country: FR
Those who loved Graham yesterday shouldn't count on today. Those who love him today risk being heartbroken tomorrow... Suffering from recurring memory loss, Graham is restricted to a limited short-term memory. He forgets most things after only a few minutes. He no longer recognizes his wife Isabelle nor his young son Antoine nor his best friend Fred. Since each day is a new day, Graham copes with life by referring to the details of his little notebook, the defining key to his identity. He works as a photocopy clerk under the close watch of his sexy boss Sabine, who uses him to his libido's advantage. Pretty new temp Irene can't help falling for Graham's spontaneous charm. But how can Graham really fall in love with her when he sees each time as the first time? Irene is about to experience all new ways of romance. She'll just have to remember everything for the both of them. Everyone around Graham has their reasons why he should or shouldn't fully recover.

TAXI DRIVER - taken
Director: Martin Scorsese
Main Cast: Robert DeNiro
Run Time: 113 minutes
Release Year: 1976
Country: US
"All the animals come out at night" -- and one of them is a cabby about to snap. In Martin Scorsese's classic 1970s drama, insomniac ex-Marine Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) works the nightshift, driving his cab throughout decaying mid-'70s New York City, wishing for a "real rain" to wash the "scum" off the neon-lit streets. Chronically alone, Travis cannot connect with anyone, not even with such other cabbies as blowhard Wizard (Peter Boyle). He becomes infatuated with vapid blonde presidential campaign worker Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), who agrees to a date and then spurns Travis when he cluelessly takes her to a porno movie. After an encounter with a malevolent fare (played by Scorsese), the increasingly paranoid Travis begins to condition (and arm) himself for his imagined destiny, a mission that mutates from assassinating Betsy's candidate, Charles Palatine (Leonard Harris), to violently "saving" teen hooker Iris (Jodie Foster) from her pimp, Sport (Harvey Keitel). Travis' bloodbath turns him into a media hero; but has it truly calmed his mind?

DUCK SEASON Adulthood is a moving target.
Director: Fernando Eimbcke
Run Time: 87 minutes
Release Year: 2004
Country: MX
Flama and Moko are fourteen years old; they have been best friends since they were kids. They have everything they need to survive yet another boring Sunday: an apartment without parents, videogames, porn magazines, soft drinks and pizza delivery. The electricity company, Rita, the neighbor, Ulises, a pizza deliveryman, eleven seconds, the Real Madrid-Manchester game, some chocolate brownies and a horrible painting of ducks, all combine to break the harmony of what promised to be a placid Sunday, and reveal issues such as the parents' divorce, loneliness, the confusion between adolescent love and friendship, as well as frustration in adult life. "Temporada de Patos" is a movie that shows that, when the lights go off, we can see the stars.

THE KING OF SCOTLAND
Director: Kevin MacDonald
Main Cast: Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy
Run Time: 121 minutes
Country: UK/DE
Release Year: 2006
Based on Giles Foden's novel detailing the brutal reign of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin as seen through the eyes of his personal physician. James McAvoy stars as the doctor who slowly realizes that he is trapped in an inescapable nightmare, and Forest Whitaker assumes the role of the notorious despot.

BROTHERS OF THE HEAD
Director: Keith Fulton
Run Time: 92 minutes
Release Year: 2006
Country: UK
Twins Luke and Harry Treadaway star, respectively, as conjoined twins Barry and Tom Howe, joined at the torso. They were essentially purchased from their family as teens in the 1970s by a sleazy showbiz impresario, Zak Bedderwick (Howard Attfield), who planned to turn them into rock stars. Manager Nick (Sean Harris) kept the volatile Barry in line, sometimes violently, while musician Paul (Bryan Dick) taught the introspective Tom how to play the guitar, and helped the brothers write their songs.

RATCATCHER
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Run Time: 93 minutes
Release Year: 1998
Country: UK
Awards: 2000 BAFTA Awards, 1999 British Independent Film Awards, 1999 Chicago International Film Festival, 1999 London Film Festival
Director: Lynne Ramsay. In her breathtaking and assured debut feature, Lynne Ramsey creates a haunting evocation of a troubles Glasgow childhood. Set during Scotland"s national garbage strike of the mid-1970s, Ratcatcher explores the experiences of a poor adolescent boy as he struggles to reconcile his dreams and his guilt with the abjection that surrounds him. Utilizing beautiful, elusive imagery, candid performances, and unexpected humor, Ratcatcher deftly contrasts urban decay with a rich interior landscape of hope and perseverance, resulting in a work at once raw and deeply poetic.

STILL LIFE
Director: Jia Zhangke
Running Time: 108 min
Release Year: 2006
Country: CH
Award: Winner of the Golden Lion Award for Best Film at the 2006 Venice Film Festival
a Chinese film directed by Jia Zhangke. It tells the story of people forced to leave their town due to the construction of a dam, and their return. It was shot in the old village of Fengjie, a small town on the Yangtze River, destroyed by the building of the Three Gorges Dam.

MAUVAISE PASSE
Director: Michel Blanc
Country: UK/FR
Run Time: 106 minutes
A gritty drama about a middle-aged impoverished French writer in London who becomes a gigolo. The film opens with Pierre (Daniel Auteuil) getting worked over by an irate pimp because he didn't pay for a hooker's drink. Rakish Irishman Tom (Stuart Townsend) offers to drive bloodied Pierre back to his seedy hotel. The following day, he stumbles upon Tom's sandwich bar and begs for a job. Though he describes himself as a dead-broke author working on a novel, Pierre is concealing secrets from his dark past. Later, during a party populated with well-turned out lesbians, Tom reveals that he moonlights as a gigolo and suggests that Pierre might try the same. Soon Pierre is making easy money at the same agency where Tom works. Things get complicated for our Gallic protagonist when he falls for a golden-hearted streetwalker with a psychotic ex-boyfriend and one of his married regulars falls for him. Told with wry wit and gritty honesty, this film explores London's dark sexual netherworld.

ON NE DEVRAIT PAS EXISTER
Director: Hervé P. Gustave
Release Date: 2006
Country: FR
Herve is a star in the porn industry. Exhausted from living on the edge, he decides to take off the costume of Condoman and radically change his life towards mainstream cinema. As he enters a totally new world he faces rejection from all directions. Nevertheless his strong will to understand the rules of the game leads him to LZA.

THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST
Director: Martin Scorsese
Run Time: 164 minutes
Release Year: 1988
Country: US/CA
Willem Dafoe plays Jesus Christ in this extraordinarily controversial adaptation of Nikos Kazantzaki's novel. The film depicts a sometimes reluctant, self-doubting Jesus, gradually coming to accept His divinity and the inexorability of His ultimate fate. The much-maligned sex scene with Mary Magdalene (Barbara Hershey) occurs as an hallucination experienced by Jesus as he suffers on the cross. This particular sequence was what infuriated the film's most rabid critics, but in fact it is just one of many iconoclastic musings to be found in the film and its source novel.

AMERICAN BEAUTY
Director: Sam Mendes
Run Time: 120 minutes
Release Year: 1999
Country: US
Lester and Carolyn Burnham are on the outside, a perfect husband and wife, in a perfect house, in a perfect neighborhood. But inside, Lester is slipping deeper and deeper into a hopeless depression. He finally snaps when he becomes infatuated with one of his daughters friends. Meanwhile, his daughter Jane is developing a happy friendship with a shy boy-next-door named Ricky who lives with a homophobic father.

LES CHORISTES (The Chorus)
Director: Christophe Barratier
Run Time: 96 minutes
Release Year: 2004
Country: FR
Set in 1948, a professor of music, Clement Mathieu, becomes the supervisor at a boarding school for the rehabilitation for minors. What he discovers disconcerts him -- the current situation is repressive. Through the power of song, Clement tries to transform the students.

CRASH

Director: Paul Haggis
Main Cast: Matt Dillon, Ryan Phillippe, Sandra Bullock
Release: 2005
Running Time: 122 MinSeveral stories interweave during two days in Los Angeles involving a collection of inter-related characters, a police detective with a drugged out mother and a thieving younger brother, two car thieves who are constantly theorizing on society and race, the white district attorney and his irritated and pampered wife, a racist white veteran cop (caring for a sick father at home) who disgusts his more idealistic younger partner, a successful Hollywood director and his wife who must deal with the racist cop, a Persian-immigrant father who buys a gun to protect his shop, a Hispanic locksmith and his young daughter who is afraid of bullets, and more.