I hope that this post finds all well with you, your familias and significant others. Not sure how the weather's been for you all, but here it's been hot. Damn hot! Hot enough to throw some steak and veggies in my shorts and do a little crotch pot cooking. With that in mind, I've assembled a list of flicks you might enjoy should you find yourself confined to controlled climes:
10. Street Fight
This documentary follows the 2002 mayoral campaign in Newark, New Jersey in which the Cory Booker attempted to unseat longtime mayor Sharpe James.
9. 13 Tzameti
Sebastian, a young man, has decided to follow instructions intended for someone else, without knowing where they will take him. Something else he does not know is that Gerard Dorez, a cop on a knife-edge, is tailing him. When he reaches his destination, Sebastian falls into a degenerate, clandestine world of mental chaos behind closed doors in which men gamble on the lives of others men.
8. Dream With the Fishes
Terry is a suicidal voyeur who doesn't seem to be able to kill himself. While preparing for jumping off a bridge, he meets Nick who ends up saving his life. Terry discovers that Nick is terminally ill and doesn't have much time left. Scared by the lack of time, Nick offers Terry a deal he can't refuse: Terry will become the beneficiary of Nick's life insurance or, since money doesn't matter to Terry, Nick promises to kill him before he dies. All Nick asks is Terry's help to realize a few fantasies before dying.
7. Joyeux Noel
In 1914, World War I, the bloodiest war ever at that time in human history, was well under way. However on Christmas Eve, numerous sections of the Western Front called an informal, and unauthorized, truce where the various front-line soldiers of the conflict peacefully met each other in No Man's Land to share a precious pause in the carnage with a fleeting brotherhood. This film dramatizes one such section as the French, British and German sides partake in the unique event, even though they are aware that their superiors will not tolerate its occurrence.
6. Grandma's Boy
When his roommate spends the rent money on Filipino hookers. Alex, a 35 year video game tester has to find a new place to live. After a "encounter" with his friends mom, Alex is forced to move in with his grandmother. Trying to keep sake from his younger co-workers, Alex says that he is living "with three hot babes" (meaning his grandmother and her two roommates).
5. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
A petty thief posing as an actor is brought to Los Angeles for an unlikely audition and finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation along with his high school dream girl and a detective who's been training him for his upcoming role...
4. Layer cake
A successful cocaine dealer, who has earned a respected place among England's Mafia elite, plans an early retirement from the business. However, big boss Jimmy Price hands down a tough assignment: find Charlotte Ryder, the missing rich princess daughter of Jimmy's old pal Edward, a powerful construction business player and gossip papers socialite. Complicating matters are two million pounds' worth of Grade A ecstasy, a brutal neo-Nazi sect and a whole series of double crossings. The title "LAYER CAKE" refers to the layers or levels anyone in business goes through in rising to the top. What is revealed is a modern underworld where the rules have changed. There are no 'codes', or 'families' and respect lasts as long as a line. Not knowing who he can trust, he has to use all his 'savvy', 'telling' and skills which make him one of the best, to escape his own. The ultimate last job, a love interest called Tammy, and an international drug ring threaten to draw him back into the 'cake mix'. But, time is running out and the penalty will endure a lifetime..
3. Bobby
Tuesday, June 4, 1968: the California presidential primary. As day breaks Robert Kennedy arrives at the Ambassador Hotel; he'll campaign, then speak to supporters at midnight. To capture the texture of the late 1960s, we see vignettes at the hotel: a couple marries so he can avoid Vietnam, kitchen staff discuss race and baseball, a man cheats on his wife, another is fired for racism, a retired hotel doorman plays chess in the lobby with an old friend, a campaign strategist's wife needs a pair of black shoes, two campaign staff trip on LSD, a lounge singer is on the downhill slide. Through it all, we see and hear RFK calling for about a better society and a better nation.
2. Hustle & Flow
With help from his friends, a Memphis pimp in a mid-life crisis attempts to become a successful hip-hop emcee.
1. Primer
At night and on weekends, four men in a suburban garage have built a cottage industry of error-checking devices. But, they know that there is something more. There is some idea, some mechanism, some accidental side effect that is standing between them and a pure leap of innovation. And so, through trial and error they are building the device that is missing most. However, two of these men find the device and immediately realize that it is too valuable to market. The limit of their trust in each other is strained when they are faced with the question, If you always want what you can't have, what do you want when you can have anything?
The wife is working the crazy hours we expected, but seems to be enjoying it otherwise. I've been busy with work myself, but had a chance to see a few folks from the "old country".
