Bronson
July 13, 2009
In 1974, a misguided 19 year old named Micahel Peterson decided he wanted to make a name for himself and so, with a homemade sawn-off shotgun and a head full of dreams he attempted to rob a post office. Swiftly apprehended and originally sentenced to 7 years in jail, Peterson has subsequently been behind bars for 34 years, 30 of which have been spent in solitary confinement. [Read more]
Milk
June 11, 2009
Using flashbacks from a statement recorded late in life and archival footage for atmosphere, this film traces Harvey Milk’s career from his 40th birthday to his death. He leaves the closet and New York, opens a camera shop that becomes the salon for San Francisco’s growing gay community, and organizes gays’ purchasing power to build political alliances.
He runs for office with lover Scott Smith as his campaign manager. Victory finally comes on the same day Dan White wins in the city’s conservative district. The rest of the film sketches Milk’s relationship with White and the 1978 fight against a state wide initiative to bar gays and their supporters from public school jobs. [Read more]
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
June 7, 2009
On the day that Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans, elderly Daisy Williams nee Fuller is on her deathbed in a New Orleans hospital. At her side is her adult daughter, Caroline. Daisy asks Caroline to read to her aloud the diary of Daisy’s lifelong friend, Benjamin Button. Benjamin’s diary recounts his entire extraordinary life, the primary unusual aspect of which was his aging backwards, being born an old man who was diagnosed with several aged diseases at birth and thus given little chance of survival, but who does survive and gets younger with time. [Read more]
The Wrestler
June 2, 2009
Back in the late ’80s, Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke) was a headlining professional wrestler. Now, twenty years later, he ekes out a living performing for handfuls of diehard wrestling fans in high school gyms and community centers around New Jersey.
Estranged from his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) and unable to sustain any real relationships, Randy lives for the thrill of the show and the adoration of his fans. However, a heart attack forces him into retirement. As his sense of identity starts to slip away, he begins to evaluate the state of his life — trying to reconnect with his daughter, and strikes up a blossoming romance with an aging stripper (Marisa Tomei). Yet all this cannot compare to the allure of the ring and passion for his art, which threatens to pull Randy “The Ram” back into his world of wrestling.
City Rats
May 10, 2009
Welcome to the world of the City Rats where eight lives collide in a Pulp Fiction style blend that reveals London’s true dark and twisted underbelly. [Read more]
Twilight
April 6, 2009
TWILIGHT is an action-packed, modern-day love story between a teenage girl and a vampire. Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) has always been a little bit different, never caring about fitting in with the trendy girls at her Phoenix high school. When her mother re-marries and sends Bella to live with her father in the rainy little town of Forks, Washington, she doesn’t expect much of anything to change. Then she meets the mysterious and dazzlingly beautiful Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a boy unlike any she’s ever met. Edward is a vampire, but he doesn’t have fangs and his family is unique in that they choose not to drink human blood. Intelligent and witty, Edward sees straight into Bella’s soul. [Read more]
Turn it Up
March 4, 2009
All self-taught dancer Kate Parker has ever wanted to do was perform with the American Academy of Ballet. But when she doesn’t make it after auditioning, she learns that it takes more than precision and perfection to succeed in the dance world. With a turn in a cutting-edge hip-hop club and the help of a good-looking former hockey player, she may just find the passion she needs to make her dreams come true. [Read more]
Live!
March 2, 2009
Eva Mendes (The Spirit, Hitch), Jay Hernandez (World Trade Center), and Eric Lively (American Pie) star in a scathing mockumentary about an ambitious TV network executive.
Struggling to find a major hit, TV executive Katy (Mendes) comes up with a revolutionary concept for a reality show: Live!, a program where contestants play Russian Roulette-with a loaded gun. While developing the show, a documentary filmmaker Rex records every step of Katy’s struggle to get it on the air.
As the airdate approaches, Katy’s attempt at “reinventing the wheel” of television invites controversy, political debate and, she hopes, the most audacious television event ever.
Live! makes for quite interesting viewing, especially as we are in an age where a new reality TV show seems to be aired every week (latest one I just saw was Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wrestling). The concept of the show seems a little far fetched although you can imagine someone trying this out, as long as the facts behind the laws are correct.
Filmed through the eyes of a documentary crew, Live! takes you on the production journey of the show, from concept to completion and is fairly entertaining for most of the way. The film stalls slightly midway but once the TV show actually starts, and the contestants line up to pull the trigger I found myself on the edge of my seat.
The first applicants for the show are those who are either terminally ill, or suicidal, it gets interesting when they decide to up the reward and entice those that don’t want to die but are willing to take the risk. The six final contestants all seem fairly believable in their cause especially as one is mainly doing it to become famous which is another interesting piece of social commentary.
Although the way in which the film is shot is not really that original (had a few of these POV films recently, Coverfield, Diary of the Dead, Quarantine etc), the documentary format works and makes Live! a worthwhile watch. My only gripe is the ending which I found fell a little flat. Without giving anything away, I felt that they could have made a more poignant statement on todays society but end up just doing something for the sake of trying to squeeze in a ‘twist’.
DVD Extras
-Interviews with Cast & Crew
-The Director’s Vision documentary
If you want to be in with a chance of winning a copy of Live! on DVD head over to our COMPETITION page now.
~ Review by Lee
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Hunger
February 27, 2009
The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during the troubles by Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976, when the British government withdrew Special Category Status for convicted paramilitary prisoners. In 1978, after a number of attacks on prisoners leaving their cells to “slop out”, the dispute escalated into the dirty protest, where prisoners refused to wash and covered the walls of their cells with excrement. In 1980 seven prisoners participated in the first hunger strike, which ended after 53 days. [Read more]
Cass
February 23, 2009
The incredible true story of how an orphaned Jamaican baby, adopted by an elderly white couple and brought up in an all white area of London, became one of the most feared and respected men in Britain. [Read more]
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