TV
A Nero Wolfe Mystery
Genius detective Nero Wolfe and his right-hand man, Archie Goodwin, solve seemingly impossible crimes.
MOVIE
I Am a Seagull!
Valentina Karavayeva had her career ruined when her face was injured in a car crash. Weaving scenes from Russian war classics, Valentina’s personal soliloquies and contemporary footage, director Paradzhanov has created a wonderfully stylish portrait of a quintessential romantic artist.
MOVIE
Shark in a Bottle
Guy Normal (probably not his real name) is clumsy, has amnesia, and has fallen into the hands of an unscrupulous man who arranges killings for hire. The Arranger trains Guy to be a killer (and there's evidence that Guy perpetrated a mass murder in an Arizona post office), then sends him to do various jobs. Although Guy bumbles, the jobs get done. But Guy rebels against this life, tries to reconstruct his past, and falls in love with the Arranger's mistress (who also has no place else to go). When Guy becomes expendable, his days seem numbered. Can Guy outsmart the mastermind and the highly skilled assassins sent to kill him?
MOVIE
A Boy Named Sue
A Boy Named Sue chronicles the transformation of a transsexual named Theo from a woman to a man over the course of six years. Following Theo's physiological and psychological changes during the process, as well as their effects on his lesbian lover and community of close friends, A Boy Named Sue tells a story about gender identity, relationships, and how even things that seem permanent can change.
MOVIE
A War Named Desire
Younger brother from HK visits older brother, who is a mid-level mobster in Thailand. He is looking to recoup money the brother took from the family when he fled HK 15 years earlier. His pesky girlfriend, refusing to stay in HK, learns the hard way that there's more to Thailand than elephant rides. The elder brother is caught up in an internal struggle within the mob. Someone is injecting drugs into their gambling operation. His search leads to a tug of war, with the brother and girlfriend caught in the middle.
MOVIE
Birth of a Butterfly
Tensions abound in the relationships featured in the three episodes which make up the film - that between two young children and their stepfather, a cripple setting off alone on a pilgrimage without the company of his fellow villagers, and a teacher returning to his remote village and finding himself the subject of unrealistic expectations of the other villagers.
TV
A History of Britain
Stretching from the Stone Age to the year 2000, Simon Schama's Complete History of Britain does not pretend to be a definitive chronicle of the turbulent events which buffeted and shaped the British Isles. What Schama does do, however, is tell the story in vivid and gripping narrative terms, free of the fustiness of traditional academe, personalising key historical events by examining the major characters at the centre of them. Not all historians would approve of the history depicted here as shaped principally by the actions of great men and women rather than by more abstract developments, but Schama's way of telling it is a good deal more enthralling as a result.
Schama successfully gives lie to the idea that the history of Britain has been moderate and temperate, passing down the generations as stately as a galleon, taking on board sensible ideas but steering clear of sillier, revolutionary ones. Nonsense. Schama retells British history the way it was--as bloody, convulsive, precarious, hot-blooded and several times within an inch of haring off onto an entirely different course. Schama seems almost to delight in the goriness of history. Themes returned to repeatedly include the wars between the Scots and the Irish and the Catholic/Protestant conflicts--only the Irish question remains unresolved by the new millennium. As Britain becomes a constitutional monarchy, Schama talks less of Kings and Queens but of poets and idea-makers like Orwell. Still, with his pungent, direct manner and against an evocative visual and aural backdrop, Schama makes history seem as though it happened yesterday, the bloodstains not yet dry.
MOVIE
A Shot at Glory
The irascible manager of a lower-division Scottish football side must contend with problems off and on the field when his team's impatient American owner demands they win the Scottish Cup or else be relocated to Ireland, while also dealing with the forced arrival of a new star striker - who happens to be his estranged son-in-law, whom he blames for the breakdown of his relationship with his daughter.
MOVIE
Not with a Bang
Cesare Settembre is a twenty-six year old studying law to follow in the footsteps of his lawyer father. On the eve of his last exam, Cesare falls ill with depression and begins to remain secluded at home, completely deprived of strength. The only person to try to help him is his friend Antonio, while his mother seems more concerned with taking care of the strange plant she keeps in her room, his father is only interested in his son's university career. To find a purpose in life, Cesare falls in love with Milena, Antonio's girlfriend, but in the meantime his family falls into chaos.
MOVIE
A Twist of Faith
Vancouver Police Detective Henry Smith is one of those investigating the murder of Roman Catholic Father Martin, who was crucified in his own church.
MOVIE
Sealed with a Kiss
Bennett, who's engaged to his boss's daughter, just lost a major client for his company. When a letter meant for someone else is accidentally mailed to his home, Bennett tries to return it to its author. She turns out to be Robbie, curator of the museum home of the poet Longfellow which is desperate for funding. Bennett is drawn to Robbie and decides to help her save the museum. In the process, he finds himself reevaluating his life.
MOVIE
Through a Blue Lens
This documentary, set in the Lower East End of Vancouver's downtown core, is a pretty honest account of life on the streets in urban Canada. It is aimed at educating high school kids on the dangers of addiction to hard drugs and is the brainchild of a group of city police officers who videotape their interactions with local homeless personalities.
MOVIE
Is God a Number?
This documentary explores whether we can use mathematics to describe the observable universe in order to reveal the potential connection to the mysteries of consciousness.
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