Tag Archives: 2000s

With the odds against him, underdog supreme, ultra-local here Donnie Dumphy enters a mini-bike competition to win back his girl and totally shag-up a bunch of bad guys. On the eve of the biggest dirt bike competition of the year, working class hero and utterly ‘unique human’ Donnie Dumphy cashes his welfare cheque, tours the sketchiest regions of town, loses the love of his life Brenda, has tea with his Nan, eats fish n’ chips, almost drowns, performs his trademark gibberish rap at the biggest party in town and sleeps with his social worker. ‘How To Be Deadly’ is a hero’s journey with a Newfoundland twist, because on the east coast, you’re only as good as your last story.
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Tamar, 35, a beautiful young woman, lives alone with her two daughters. She can’t restrain her sexual appetite and gives herself to several men of the village. Shai, a young veterinary, just moved in the region and soon falls under the spell of Tamar. They quickly become lovers but will Tamar be satisfied with only one partner?
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Investigative journalist Fabian Groys enjoys great freedom since the stories he uncovers make for strong sales. He works for a political news magazine in their Berlin head office. In this context, his arrogance raises few eyebrows.
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In a quirky, small town, situated in the outskirts of everything, 14-year-old Martin is getting ready for one of the most formal transitions from boy to man; the communion. It’s 1976, music’s in the air and hormones are blossoming. But in the midst of it all Martin’s mother suddenly passes away and her tragic death trickers a series of events that not only changes Martin’s life forever, but also affects everyone else in the local community. An intense, humorous and evocative story about how life and death demands a transition in us all.
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The lonely and silent rider Tae-suk breaks in empty houses and lives a normal life while the owners are traveling. He does not steal anything and moves from house to house without any loss other than food, and he cleans the houses, provides small repairs or washes some clothes to pay for the hospitality. When he enters in the house of Sun-hwa, he does not see the woman that is wounded in her room after being beaten up on by her abusive husband Min-gyu Lee. Tae-suk helps the hurt woman and when Min-gyu returns, he hits the husband with golf balls and Sun-hwa leaves her husband with Tae-suk on his motorcycle. When they break in the house of an old man, they find that the man is dead and Tae-suk provides funeral service for him. However, his son returns and Tae-suk and Sun-hwa are arrested by two abusive police detectives. He is sent to prison and Sun-hwa is forced to return home. But she never forgets him.
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Israel 1956. Rachel, a Jew, rather unexpectedly meets an old friend at the kibbutz where she is working as a teacher. It brings back memories of her experiences in The Netherlands during the war, memories of betrayal. September 1944. Rachel is in trouble when her hiding place is bombed by allied troops. She gets in contact with a man from the resistance and joins a group of Jews who are to be smuggled across the Biesbosch by boat to the freed South Netherlands. Germans from a patrol boat murder them all however. Only Rachel is able to escape. She is rescued by a resistance group under the leadership of Gerben Kuipers. When Kuipers’ son is captured after trying to smuggle weapons, he asks Rachel to seduce SS-hauptsturmführer Ludwig Müntze. Soon she will find out the attack in the Biesbosch wasn’t a coincidence.
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Having packed up her possessions to move in with her lover, Laure is more unsettled than she appears. Needing to get out and have a change of scenery, she jumps in her car to go to have dinner with friends–only to become stuck in a terrible traffic jam. Laure completely forgot about the mass transit strike that has thrown the city into chaos. But Laure feels good in her car, the only place she has for herself right now. As she takes in the sights and sounds around her–the blare of horns and arguments, the shimmer of lights and camaraderie–Laure notices a calm and self-assured stranger, Jean, approach her car. Soon thereafter, she opens her car door door to the man who–that night–will change her life.
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The movie is set in the Pacific Northwest; specifically, Washington state. We know this from a glimpse of a license plate, the craftsman architecture of the two houses, and the mature, rich landscapes in between. The setting, like the scrutiny of the four main character’s lives, is defined by the narrowness of the camera’s field-of view. The one commercial street in town is only seen in the reflection of a store window, a shot of a non-descript auto-yard, or the tunnel of a tree-lined suburban sidewalk. The lush, wooded landscape is understood as an immediate presence in the domestic and professional lives of the characters; a steep hill, railroad tracks, a rushing stream, and a path over an old steel bridge are revisited again and again by the characters in their capacities as lovers, parents and friends.
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The movie is based on the infamous “Stanford Prison Experiment” conducted in 1971. A makeshift prison is set up in a research lab, complete with cells, bars and surveillance cameras. For two weeks 20 male participants are hired to play prisoners and guards. The ‘prisoners’ are locked up and have to follow seemingly mild rules, and the ‘guards’ are told simply to retain order without using physical violence. Everybody is free to quit at any time, thereby forfeiting payment. In the beginning the mood between both groups is insecure and rather emphatic. But soon quarrels arise and the wardens employ ever more drastic sanctions to confirm their authority.
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In Los Angeles, Annie and Darren are a married couple in a comfortable relationship that’s lost its spark. They talk constantly, express affection verbally, start the day with high-end coffee, end the afternoon with gelato, shop at the farmer’s market, prepare dinner as a team, do crossword puzzles, and talk in bed. Darren wonders if a one-night stand would help bring more sex to their marriage. Soon, the two of them are laying out the ground rules and talking through the mechanics of each finding a lover for one night. They agree to give each other no details about the experience. The night comes. Will this give their relationship a needed boost?
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