Screening in 2D

Peter Jackson directs this homage to the British troops of the First World War with never-before-seen-footage of soldiers as they faced the fear and uncertainty of frontline battle in Belgium. Digitally remastered and now in color, the footage has been studied by lip reading experts whose transcripts were recorded and used as audio for the film. Overlayed by a narrative of those who partook in the war from interviews made in the 1960s and 1970s, this historic revisiting marks one hundred years since the end of the Great War.

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Snoop Dogg, Isla Fisher, Martin Lawrence, Zac Efron, Jonah Hill

The Beach Bum follows the hilarious misadventures of Moondog (Matthew McConaughey), a rebellious rogue who always lives life by his own rules. Co-starring Snoop Dog, Zac Efron, and Isla Fisher, The Beach Bum is a refreshingly original and subversive new comedy from director Harmony Korine (Kids, Spring Breakers).

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez

The Umbrella Corporation’s deadly T-virus continues to ravage the Earth, transforming the global population into legions of the flesh eating Undead. The human race’s last and only hope, Alice, awakens in the heart of Umbrella’s most clandestine operations facility and unveils more of her mysterious past as she delves further into the complex. Without a safe haven, Alice continues to hunt those responsible for the outbreak; a chase that takes her from Tokyo to New York, Washington, D.C. and Moscow, culminating in a mind-blowing revelation that will force her to rethink everything that she once thought to be true. Aided by new found allies and familiar friends, Alice must fight to survive long enough to escape a hostile world on the brink of oblivion. The countdown has begun.

Starring: Pamela Anderson, Temuera Morrison, Victoria Rowell, Jack Noseworthy, Xander Berkeley, Udo Kier

In the early 21st century, the USA is in the wake of the Second Civil War. The whole country is in a constant state of emergency. What was formerly called the American Congress now rules the country with fascistic methods. There is only one free city left, Steel Harbor, a coastal California industrial town which is headquarters for the resistance. This is the home town of Barb Wire, owner of the Hammerhead nightclub. As times aren’t good, Barb has a second job. She’s a bounty hunter and you probably wouldn’t want her after you. Barb’s credo is to never take sides for anybody and that’s the only way to survive these days in the crime-ridden streets of Steel Harbor. One evening, her former lover Axel Hood appears at the club asking for a favor to help him and his lover Cora D flee the country to Canada, Barb suddenly finds herself to be key player on high political stage. Now she has to take sides.

Starring: Lori Petty, Ice-T, Naomi Watts, Malcolm Mcdowell

This wild, futuristic action-fantasy is set in the year 2033 where drought and pollution have turned the Earth into a desert wasteland. The planet’s water supply is controlled by a despotic company that is opposed by a few courageous rebels who regularly risk their lives to poach the precious fluid.

Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells, Jane Curtin, Ben Falcone

The true story of bestselling celebrity biographer (and friend to cats) Lee Israel, who made her living in the 1970s and ’80s profiling the likes of Katherine Hepburn, Tallulah Bankhead, Estee Lauder and journalist Dorothy Kilgallen. When Lee is no longer able to get published because she has fallen out of step with current tastes, she turns her art form to deception, abetted by her loyal friend Jack.

Oscar Snubs
While Can You Ever Forgive Me does have nominations (Best Actress, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and Best Adapted screenplay co-written by Nicole Holofcener) we feel as if the Academy certainly feel that Marielle Heller should have received a Best Director nod and the film is definitely a Best Picture contender.

Starring: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey

The most personal project to date from Academy Award-winning director and writer Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men, Y Tu Mama Tambien), Roma follows Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a young domestic worker for a family in the middle-class neighborhood of Roma in Mexico City. Delivering an artful love letter to the women who raised him, Cuarón draws on his own childhood to create a vivid and emotional portrait of domestic strife and social hierarchy amidst political turmoil of the 1970s.

Starring: Zain Al Rafeea, Yordanos Shiferaw, Boluwatife Treasure Bankole

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Nadine Labaki’s Capernaum tells the story of Zain, a Lebanese boy who sues his parents for the “crime” of giving him life. Capernaum follows Zain, a gutsy streetwise child as he flees his negligent parents, survives through his wits on the streets, takes care of Ethiopian refugee Rahil and her baby son, Yonas, being jailed for a crime, and finally, seeks justice in a courtroom. Capernaum was made with a cast of non-professionals playing characters whose lives closely parallel their own. Following her script, Labaki placed her performers in scenes and asked them to react spontaneously with their own words and gestures. When the non-actors’s instincts diverged from the written script, Labaki adapted the screenplay to follow them.

While steeped in the quiet routines of ordinary people, Capernaum is a film with an expansive palette: without warning it can ignite with emotional intensity, surprise with unexpected tenderness, and inspire with flashes of poetic imagery. Although it is set in the depths of a society’s systematic inhumanity, Capernaum is ultimately a hopeful film that stirs the heart as deeply as it cries out for action.

Starring: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, Borys Szyc

Cold War is a passionate love story between a man and a woman who meet in the ruins of post-war Poland. With vastly different backgrounds and temperaments, they are fatefully mismatched and yet condemned to each other. Set against the background of the Cold War in 1950s Poland, Berlin, Yugoslavia and Paris, it’s the tale of a couple separated by politics, character flaws and unfortunate twists of fate – an impossible love story in impossible times.

Note: controversial subject matter included

For the 14th consecutive year, Shorts HD and Magnolia Pictures present the Oscar-Nominated Short Films, opening on February 8. This is your annual chance to predict the winners (and have the edge in your Oscar pool)! A perennial hit with audiences around the country and the world, don’t miss this year’s selection of shorts. The Academy Awards take place Sunday, Feb. 24^th.

Madre
Rodrigo Sorogoyen and Maria del Puy Alvarado, Spain, 19 minutes
A single mother receives a call from her seven-year-old son who is on vacation with his father in the French Basque Country. At first the call is a cause for joy, but soon it becomes a nightmare when the child tells her that he is alone, cannot find his father, and a stranger is approaching.

Fauve
Jeremy Comte and Maria Gracia Turgeon, Canada, 17 minutes
Set in a surface mine, two boys sink into a seemingly innocent power game with Mother Nature as the sole observer. Alone in the wild, the two boys play around. Complicity evolves into a confrontation where one wants power over the other. This game will not prove as harmless as they thought.

Marguerite
Marianne Farley and Marie-Helene Panisset, Canada, 19 minutes
An aging woman and her nurse develop a friendship that inspires her to unearth unacknowledged longing, and helps her make peace with her past.

Detainment
Vincent Lambe and Darren Mahon, Ireland, 30 minutes
Two ten year-old boys are detained by police under suspicion of abducting and murdering a toddler. A true story based on interview transcripts from the James Bulger case which shocked the world in 1993 and continues to incite public outrage across the UK today.

Skin
Guy Nattiv and Jaime Ray Newman, USA, 20 minutes
A small supermarket in a blue collar town, a black man smiles at a 10 year old white boy across the checkout aisle. This innocuous moment sends two gangs into a ruthless war that ends with a shocking backlash.