Tag Archives: 2000s

The field of economics can study more than the workings of economies or businesses, it can also help explore human behavior in how it reacts to incentives. Economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner host an anthology of documentaries that examines how people react to opportunities to gain, wittingly or otherwise. The subjects include the possible role a person’s name has for their success in life, why there is so much cheating in an honor bound sport like sumo wrestling, what helped reduce crime in the USA in the 1990s onward and we follow an school experiment to see if cash prizes can encourage struggling students to improve academically.
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American writer Tom Ricks comes to Paris desperate to put his life together again and win back the love of his estranged wife and daughter. When things don’t go according to plan, he ends up in a shady hotel in the suburbs, having to work as a night guard to make ends meet. Then Margit, a beautiful, mysterious stranger walks into his life and things start looking up. Their passionate and intense relationship triggers a string of inexplicable events… as if an obscure power was taking control of his life.
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On a late-summer Sunday in 2011, a female director gathers a team of filmmakers, writers, musicians, artists, critics, and friends in an apartment to recreate a scene from Michael Curtiz’s Depression-era drama The Cabin in the Cotton. Over plates of pasta and glasses of red wine, a round robin of non-professional actors take turns performing the same scene, again and again, In different permutations. With a freedom Influenced by pre–Code Hollywood, cameras, phones, and laptops are scattered around & set at almost every possible angle, documenting the action both in front of and behind the camera as it unfolds, from rehearsals to equipment adjustments to the banter between takes. An intimate. playful, and spontaneous look Into the collaborative cinematic process emerges. a snapshot of the filmmaker’s perennial struggle to capture fleeting moments before the day (and light) slip away.
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“Goddess” stands for French “Déesse”, the nickname of Citroën DS, the name of a famous car designed in the fifties. A young and well-situated Japanese man is dreaming of such a car, and one fine day he finds an offering on the net. He calls the seller (a man living in Australia), they agree upon the price and so he travels to Australia in order to buy the car. But when he reaches his destination, there’s chaos all around: The seller as well as his wife lay dead in their house and a 17 year old girl lets him in and offers him something to eat. He walks out with horror but then comes back because he forgot to ask about the car… The girl lets him see the car, and then they start a 5 day trip through the outback, and, at the same time, a trip back in time into the early youth of the girl and into her family’s chronicle.
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Mousse and Louis are young, beautiful, rich and in love. But drugs have invaded their lives. One day, they overdose and Louis dies. Mousse survives, but soon learns she’s pregnant. Feeling lost, Mousse runs away to a house far from Paris. Several months later, Louis’ brother joins her in her refuge.
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Tsuboi and Kinoshita have just arrived at a desolate town. Both of them are amateur filmmakers. Tsuboi is a screenwriter and Kinoshita a director. They have come to this town because Funaki, an actor, has tempted them to come here, but he has yet to arrive. Tsuboi and Kinoshita start wandering around the town and happen to meet a young woman, Atsuko. The three of them go on a journey together and become friends. But one day, Atsuko disappears.
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‘Kurt’ claims to be a sales rep. He also claims to be English in spite of his heavy Italian accent. Kurt is an habitual liar and a dangerous driver, at the very least. In the south of France he meets Léa, age 16. Between his increasingly strange dates with Léa, Kurt engages in a number of armed robberies, some successful, some not… The police are perplexed by a series of crimes including disappearances and a murder. They conclude that they are dealing with a madman… After he proposes, Léa breaks up with Kurt. The attempt to find a new girlfriend leads to a shooting by Kurt, now calling himself André. Léa’s information identifies Kurt/André as Roberto Succo, psychiatric patient and parental murderer. The police hunt for Roberto covers three countries.
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A film comprised of three interconnected vignettes that depict women at three stages of life in Iran. The first part centers on a young girl on her ninth birthday who is told that she can no longer play with the boys she had been playing with only the day before because she is now a woman. Told from the perspective of a 9-year-old girl who does not feel like or know what the word “woman” refers to, we see how devastatingly this affects both the girl and the boy with whom she had been friends. The second part is about a young woman who decides to enter a bicycle race against her husband’s wishes. As first, the husband and then increasing numbers of men from her village ride beside her on horseback to convince her to return home. The race begins to symbolize a freedom that she desperately wants from the limitations that have been placed on her. Finally, the third part shows us an old woman who has come into some money and is now free to do what she wants.
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Eyal, an Israeli Mossad agent, is given the mission to track down and kill the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex-Nazi officer, who might still be alive. Pretending to be a tourist guide, he befriends his grandson Axel, in Israel to visit his sister Pia. The two men set out on a tour of the country during which, Axel challenges Eyal’s values.
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In France, the disturbed and mysterious Alexandre Demarre is hired as security guard for the Vigilante armored truck company earning 1,200 euros per month and lodges in a hotel nearby the company for 1,450 euros for a month. He becomes close to his colleagues, actually a group of losers, without motivation or perspective, paranoids, depressed and substances addicted men, and prepares a personal file with the profile of each one. Along the days, the real intentions of Alex in working at Vigilante are disclosed.
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As every year, chief inspector Paul Bellamy spends a few days with his wife Françoise in the family house in Nîmes. Jacques, Paul’s stepbrother, turns up unawares, which is bad news since the fellow is an alcoholic good for nothing. Also annoying is this stranger at bay who asks Bellamy for protection. Farewell peaceful holiday!
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Bilike has never seen a ping-pong ball before. He and his family live without electricity and running water in a solitary tent home among the vast steppe grasslands. The magnificent landscape here has changed little since the days of Genghis Kahn. But life in the middle of nowhere can be exciting for a young boy. The smallest of details become big events for curious Bilike and his best friends Erguotou and Dawa. The mystery of the small white ball floating in the creek leads to questions about the world around them, as well as innocent mischief. Bilike’s grandmother says the ball is a glowing pearl from heaven. But the boys are sceptical after waiting all night outdoors for the ball to light up. Since nobody has an idea about the odd white object, they trek to the faraway monastery to consult the wise lamas. But even the grasslands’ most knowledgeable inhabitants are stumped. While watching the new TV-set Dawa’s father has won, the boys learn about pingpong.
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Thomas is a young agoraphobic man; he’s afraid of coming to any kind of contact with other people, so he lives totally isolated in his apartment. The story takes place in the near future where everything can be done through computers, so Thomas hasn’t left his apartment for eight straight years. However, although his life seems complete, he misses human contact, so his psychoanalyst consults him to meet a woman through some on-line service. Is it possible for Thomas to fall in love with a woman? And if so, is he going to get out of his apartment for that woman?
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The teenage girl Vera left her family after an incident at home, and is now living with a middle-aged drug addict, Morgan, who is using her as a prostitute to get money for drugs and debts. Meanwhile, the rest of her family is falling apart, and her father, Mats, is trying to figure out how to get her back before it’s too late.
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In LA, Jason Lair is recently separated, living with his grandfather and his son; he’s a banker, tense, with a limp. Grandfather Henry, an archaeologist, wants to take the family van on a trip to Albuquerque. His plans are interrupted when Turner, Jason’s father and Henry’s son, appears after years of absence. Henry wants to celebrate family, as does Zach, Jason’s son; Jason is angry and distant, Turner seems detached and says he’s got a bus to catch in the morning. This prompts Henry to put in place an elaborate plan that will send his “tribe” on that VW bus trip to New Mexico sorting out relationships and digging up a crippled family history. Dust and dogs figure prominently.
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