In the Loop

IN THE LOOP is a smart new comedy and Sundance Film Festival hit from the acclaimed team behind the award-winning BBC TV comedy series THICK OF IT. The film is drawing instant comparisons to great political and absurdist comedies like DR. STRANGELOVE, WAG THE DOG, THANK YOU FOR SMOKING and MONTY PYTHON. With razor-sharp, truly laugh-out-loud dialogue the film pokes fun at the absurdity and ineptitude of our highest leaders. With everyone looking out for number one, and the fate of the free world at stake (but apparently incidental), the hilarious ensemble cast of characters bumbles its way through Machiavellian political dealings, across continents, and toward comic resolutions that are unforeseeable.



Genre:Comedy, Foreign
Director:Armando Iannucci
Cast:James Gandolfini, Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, Mimi Kennedy, Gina McKee, Anna Chlumsky, David Rasche

Bull

Bull is a darkly comic neo-noir about deception, identity, money, murder, and really tall buildings. Deep within heatwave-baked skyscraper canyons, a hapless stockbroker gets caught up in a twisty web where no one - no one at all - is telling the truth.






Genre:Drama
Director:Kent Tessman
Cast:Craig Lauzon, Lindsey Deluce, Simon Reynolds, Maury Chaykin

Captain Abu Raed

Captain Abu Raed is a universal story of friendship, inspiration and heroism set in contemporary Jordan. Abu Raed is a lonely janitor at Amman’s International Airport. Never having realized his dreams of seeing the world, he experiences it vicariously through books and brief encounters with travelers. Finding a discarded Captain’s hat in the trash at work one day, he is followed by a neighborhood boy who spots him wearing it as he walks home. The next morning he wakes up to find a group of neighborhood children at his door, believing him to be an airline pilot. And thus the friendship begins. Happy for the company and attention, he takes the children to colorful places around the world through his fictional stories and inspires them to believe in their own ambitions. Murad, an angry outsider to the group, vindictively attacks Abu Raed and the sense of hope he instills in the children. In his quest to prove that Abu Raed is a liar and a fake, Murad begins to discover new possibilities in his life. Meanwhile, Abu Raed’s friendship with Nour, a real female pilot, begins to grow as she deals with her own set of pressures from life in modern Amman. Captain Abu Raed is the story of everyday people intersecting across social boundaries. It is a story of dreams, friendship, forgiveness, and sacrifice.

Genre:Drama, Foreign
Director:Amin Matalqa
Cast:Nadim Sawalha, Rana Sultan, Hussein Al-Sous

The Windmill Movie

What if someone wrote your autobiography? 200 hours of footage, dusty boxes of film, a broken editing computer: these were the pieces of filmmaker Richard P. Rogers’ daring attempt to make his own autobiography. He died in 2001, leaving a lifetime of filmed memories, until his student and protégé, Alexander Olch began making a movie out of the pieces. Writing in his teacher’s voice, working with with Wallace Shawn, Bob Balaban, and Richard’s wife - acclaimed photographer Susan Meiselas - Olch steps into his mentor’s shoes and his past - to make a film that was impossible to make. An autobiography, that isn’t. A documentary which is fiction. A lifetime of questions, finally answered.



Genre:Documentary
Director:Alexander Olch
Cast:Wallace Shawn, Bob Balaban, Richard P. Rogers, Susan Meiselas

Flicker

Flicker is the feature film about a weekend camping trip to a small mountain town. Pretty and Jack wake up in the middle of the night to discover that their friends are missing. A bloody tent, homicidal cops, creepy locals and brutal elements create the world that Pretty must escape.





Genre:Drama, Horror, Thriller
Director:Aaron Hendren
Cast:Katy Houska, Babak Tafti, Kate Schroeder, Alex Knight, Kevin R Elder, Abigail Blueher, Hannah Kauffmann

Evangelion 1.0

There was no foreseeable warning before it happened — a catastrophe of unparalleled scale and magnitude overwhelmed the entire globe. This event, recorded in history as “The Second Impact,” caused half the population of the Earth to perish and devastated the world. All that remains of Japan is Tokyo-3, a city that is now being attacked by giant creatures that seek to destroy mankind. These creatures are called Angels. Fourteen year old Shinji Ikari is called to Tokyo-3 by his father who he hasn’t seen in more than eight years. He is asked to come to the NERV headquarters to meet his father. His father reveals to him a gigantic humanoid weapons system that the special governmental agency has secretly developed to fight the Angels and then orders Shinji to pilot the giant artificial human Evangelion Unit One. With the fate of the world resting on his shoulders, how will the 14 year old boy Shinji fight? Wht is the truth behind “The Human Instrumentality Project,” an operation somehow related to the “Second Impact”? And who is the true enemy? The Angels, NERV, the mysterious SEELE, or the demons held within the hearts of the people involved? Gendō Ikari, a man who holds many answers to these questions, watches silently and attentively as his son fights a desperate battle…


Genre:Foreign, Fantasy, Action and Adventure
Director:Hideaki Anno
Cast:Allison Keith-Shipp, Spike Spencer, Colleen Clinkenbeard, Caitlin Glass, John Swasey, Brina Palencia

Weather Girl

After learning her boyfriend (Harmon) cheated on her with his co-host (Olson), a Seattle morning show weather girl (O’Kelley) freaks out on-air and is fired. Forced to move in with her little brother (Devlin) and deal with his best friend (Adams), she has to learn to cope with being 35, single, unemployed, and unfortunately famous for being the Sassy Weather Girl who lost it on live television



Genre:Comedy
Director:Blayne Weaver
Cast:Tricia O’Kelley, Patrick J. Adams, Ryan Devlin, Mark Harmon, Kaitlin Olson

Kambakkht Ishq

Kambakkth Ishq explores the relationship between two individuals as different from each other as chalk & cheese. No matter how many times they are pushed together, there are only fireworks…no fire. Viraj Shergill (Akshay Kumar) is a swashbuckling stuntman in Hollywood who lives by the mantra “women are only good for two things … making love & making love” Simrita Rai (Kareena Kapoor) is a firebrand who is more than able to stare down the most arrogant male with her caustic wit and sardonic tongue … her firm belief “there’s no such thing as love”So what happens when the two people who hate each other the most meet at Simrita’s best friend Kamini’s and Viraj’s brother Lucky’s wedding?…..a wedding that both Viraj and Simrita are violently opposed to and desperate to stop. Sparks fly, accidents occur, and both are thrown together in a manner that they could have never ever even dreamed of in their wildest fantasies. The battle of the sexes is on. Who is going to throw the punches and who us going to blow the kisses?


Genre:Foreign, Drama
Director:Sabbir Khan
Cast:Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Aftab Shivdasani, Amrita Arora, Sylvester Stallone, Denise Richards

A Woman In Berlin

Set in 1945 during the Red Army invasion of Berlin. Women are victims of rape and devastation; one of them is Anonyma (NINA HOSS), who had been a journalist and photographer. In her desperation, she decides to look for an officer who can protect her. She meets a Russian officer Andrej (EVGENY SIDIKHIN) - an encounter which develops into a complex symbiotic relationship that forces them to remain enemies until the bitter end. An official selection of the Toronto Film Festival.


Genre:Foreign, Drama
Director:Max Färberböck
Cast:Nina Hoss, Evgeny Sidikhin, Irm Hermann, Ruediger Vogler, Ulrike Krumbiegel

Five Minutes of Heaven

Lurgan Northern Ireland, 1975. A low level civil war has been underway, with the IRA targeting British loyalists and the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force exacting revenge on Catholics they claim are militant republicans. Alistair Little, 16 is the leader of a UVF cell, eager to be blooded. He and his gang are given the go ahead to kill a young Catholic man, James Griffin, as a reprisal and a warning to others. When the hit is carried out, Joe Griffin - the 11-year old little brother of the target - watches in horror his brother is shot in the head. Thirty years later Joe Griffin and Alistair are to meet, on camera, with a view to reconciliation. Alistair has served his sentence, and peace may have been agreed to in N. Ireland, but Joe Griffin is not coming on the program for a handshake. Unbeknownst to the production team, he intends to stick a knife in his brother’s killer - live on air


Genre:Drama, Thriller
Director:Oliver Hirschbiegel
Cast:Liam Neeson, James Nesbitt, Anamaria Marinca

Daybreakers

Two-time Academy Award nominee® Ethan Hawke plays Edward Dalton, a researcher in the year 2019, in which an unknown plague has transformed the world’s population into vampires. As the human population nears extinction, vampires must capture and farm every remaining human, or find a blood substitute before time runs out. However, a covert group of vampires makes a remarkable discovery, one which has the power to save the human race.




Genre:Horror, Action and Adventure
Director:The Spierig Brothers
Cast:Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Claudia Karvan, Michael Dorman, Vince Colosimo, Isabel Lucas, Sam Neill

Lion’s Den

Sent to prison for allegedly killing her lover, Julia discovers she is pregnant and is sent to a high-security maternity ward to serve her time. Julia’s only concern now is her son. Her fellow inmate Marta becomes her ally; her mother Sofía, her opponent. One attempts to teach her how to be a mother; the other wishes to take over rearing the child. The film, shot in a real prison with inmates as extras, shines a light on a little known aspect of prison life: motherhood behind bars. An official selection of Cannes Film Festival.





Genre:Foreign, Drama
Director:Pablo Trapero
Cast:Martina Gusman, Elli Medeiros, Rodrigo Santoro, Laura García

The Informant!

What was Mark Whitacre thinking? A rising star at agri-industry giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Whitacre suddenly turns whistleblower. Even as he exposes his company’s multi-national price-fixing conspiracy to the FBI, Whitacre envisions himself being hailed as a hero of the common man and handed a promotion. But before all that can happen, the FBI needs evidence, so Whitacre eagerly agrees to wear a wire and carry a hidden tape recorder in his briefcase, imagining himself as a kind of de facto secret agent. Unfortunately for the FBI, their lead witness hasn’t been quite so forthcoming about helping himself to the corporate coffers. Whitacre’s ever-changing account frustrates the agents and threatens the case against ADM as it becomes almost impossible to decipher what is real and what is the product of Whitacre’s rambling imagination. Based on the true story of the highest-ranking corporate whistleblower in U.S. history.


Genre:Drama
Director:Steven Soderbergh
Cast:Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Joel McHale, Melanie Lynskey

Couples Retreat

Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Malin Akerman, Kristin Davis, Kristen Bell and Faizon Love star in Universal Pictures’ upcoming comedy Couples Retreat. Based on an original idea of Vaughn’s, the comedy follows four Midwestern couples who embark on a journey to a tropical island resort. While one of the couples is there to work on their marriage, the other three set out to jet ski, spa and enjoy some fun in the sun. They soon discover that participation in the resort’s couples therapy is not optional. Suddenly, their group-rate vacation comes at a price. What follows is a hilarious look at real world problems faced by all couples. The film also stars Kali Hawk and Jean Reno.


Genre:Comedy
Director:Peter Billingsley
Cast:Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Faizon Love, Kristin Davis, Malin Akerman, Kristen Bell

2012

Never before has a date in history been so significant to so many cultures, so many religions, scientists, and governments. 2012 is an epic adventure about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle of the survivors.







Genre:Drama
Director:Roland Emmerich
Cast:John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton

The Stepfather

Michael Harding (Penn Badgley) returns home from military school to find his mother (Sela Ward) happily in love and living with her new boyfriend, David (Dylan Walsh). As the two men get to know each other, Michael becomes more and more suspicious of the man who is always there with a helpful hand. Is he really the man of her dreams or could David be hiding a dark side?




Genre:Drama
Director:Nelson McCormick
Cast:Dylan Walsh, Sela Ward, Penn Badgley, Amber Heard, Jon Tenney

The Last Airbender

Air, Water, Earth, Fire. Four nations tied by destiny when the Fire Nation launches a brutal war against the others. A century has passed with no hope in sight to change the path of this destruction. Caught between combat and courage, Aang (Noah Ringer) discovers he is the lone Avatar with the power to manipulate all four elements. Aang teams with Katara (Nicola Peltz), a Waterbender, and her brother, Sokka (Jackson Rathbone), to restore balance to their war-torn world. Based on the hugely successful Nickelodeon animated TV series, the live-action feature film “The Last Airbender” is the opening chapter in Aang’s struggle to survive.

Genre:Action and Adventure, Family, Fantasy
Director:M. Night Shyamalan
Cast:Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Dev Patel, Jackson Rathbone, Shaun Toub, Aasif Mandvi, Cliff Curtis

Spread

SPREAD is a fresh, funny, and racy look at the trials and tribulations of sleeping your way to a life of privilege in Los Angeles. Comic and karmic, the film is an “immorality tale” about a gorgeous guy who gives women what they want in order to live exactly as he likes. In SPREAD, Nikki (Ashton Kutcher) isn’t a gigolo. He’s a sexual grifter, a fun-loving, freeloading hipster who understands his greatest assets are his looks and sexual prowess, which he uses to charm his way into the hearts of the city’s richest women and enjoy their lifestyle. Nikki gets a free place to live, fantastic gifts, A- list access, and plenty of sex. The women get to feel young, beautiful… and utterly fulfilled in the bedroom. It’s a mutually beneficial set-up. Nikki’s latest conquest is Samantha (Anne Heche), a stunning middle- aged lawyer who gives him more than he’s ever had before. But then he meets a gorgeous waitress his own age named Heather (Margarita Levieva). She comes to visit Nikki at Samantha’s house while Samantha is out of town, sees what an incredible place it is… and comes to the mistaken conclusion it’s his. Unbeknownst to Nikki, Heather lives by playing the same game. When Samantha comes home, she discovers Nikki’s infidelity and he’s put out on the street. With nowhere else to turn, Nikki pulls out all the stops to win Heather over and they begin to form their own kind of bond. Sexually charged by a game of one-upsmanship, each shows the other their best grifts, and they unexpectedly begin falling in love – the one thing they can’t do in the life they lead. Soon, the truth of their unfolding relationship forces a choice between love and money, and Nikki has to decide whether he can live on his own once and for all in the hopes of finding something real.


Genre:Comedy
Director:David Mackenzie
Cast:Ashton Kutcher, Anne Heche, Margarita Levieva, Sebastian Stan, Rachel Blanchard, Sonia Rockwell

Ponyo

From the Academy Award®-winning director and world-renowned Japanese animation legend Hayao Miyazaki comes PONYO, a story inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Little Mermaid.” Already a box-office success in Japan, the story of a young and overeager goldfish named Ponyo (voiced by NOAH CYRUS) and her quest to become human features an outstanding roster of voice talent, including CATE BLANCHETT, MATT DAMON, TINA FEY, FRANKIE JONAS, CLORIS LEACHMAN, LIAM NEESON, LILY TOMLIN and BETTY WHITE.




Genre:Family, Action and Adventure

The Goods: Live Hard. Sell Hard

Who is Don Ready? Salesman? Lover? Song Stylist? Semi-professional dolphin trainer? Ready is all of the above - except for a dolphin trainer. When he’s asked to help save an ailing local car dealership from bankruptcy, Ready and his ragtag crew descend on the town of Temecula like a pack of coyotes on a basket full of burgers. Selling, drinking, selling and going to strip clubs is their stock and trade. And they do it well. What Don doesn’t expect is to fall in love and find his soul (cue heartfelt piano).






Genre:Comedy
Director:Neal Brennan
Cast:Jeremy Piven, Ving Rhames, James Brolin, David Koechner, Kathryn Hahn, Jordana Spiro