A LONG WAY DOWN
Four lost souls – a disgraced TV presenter, a foul-mouthed teen, an isolated single mother and a solipsistic muso – decide to end their lives on the same night, New Year’s Eve. When this disillusioned quartet of strangers meet unintentionally at the same suicide hotspot, a London high-rise with the well-earned nickname Topper’s Tower, they mutually agree to call off their plans for six weeks, forming an unconventional, dysfunctional family, becoming media sensations as the Topper House Four and searching together for the reasons to keep on
living.
AFFLUENZA
Suburbia, 2008. Swept up in a heady pre-recession world of absentee parents, plentiful booze and casual sex, aspiring photographer Fisher Miller (Ben Rosenfield) escapes his middle-class life for the moneyed mansions of the young, beautiful elite. With a stash of high-quality weed and a vintage camera, he gains access to his gorgeous cousin Kate’s (Nicola Peltz) circle of wealthy and indulged friends, just as their entitled reality is about to spin out of control. A revealing take on the hidden perils of privilege. Also starring Gregg Sulkin, Grant Gustin, Samantha Mathis & Steve Guttenberg.
BOYHOOD
Filmed over 12 years with the same cast, Richard Linklater’s BOYHOOD is a groundbreaking story of growing up as seen through the eyes of a child named Mason (a breakthrough performance by Ellar Coltrane), who literally grows up on screen before our eyes. Starring Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as Mason’s parents and newcomer Lorelei Linklater as his sister Samantha, BOYHOOD charts the rocky terrain of childhood like no other film has before. Snapshots of adolescence from road trips and family dinners to birthdays and graduations and all the moments in between become transcendent, set to a soundtrack spanning the years from Coldplay’s Yellow to Arcade Fire’s Deep Blue. BOYHOOD is both a nostalgic time capsule of the recent past and an ode to growing up and parenting. It’s impossible not to watch Mason and his family without thinking about our own journey.
DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
A growing nation of genetically evolved apes led by Caesar is threatened by a band of human survivors of the devastating virus unleashed a decade earlier. They reach a fragile peace, but it proves short-lived, as both sides are brought to the brink of a war that will determine who will emerge as Earth’s dominant species..
DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES TRAILER
LAND HO!
Back when they were brothers-in-law, married to two sisters, MITCH (Earl Lynn Nelson) and COLIN (Paul Eenhorn) were close friends, but they drifted apart as Mitch and his wife divorced and Colin’s wife died. Now Mitch, a retired surgeon who can’t quite admit to being retired, recruits a reluctant Colin on a holiday to Iceland—just the ticket to perk up a pair who have endured their share of disappointments but still have a spirit of adventure in them.
Brassy, relentlessly cheery, and prone to colorfully profane language (“…this is so delicious it’s like angels pissin’ on your tongue!”) Southerner Mitch is the live wire of the duo. Colin, a more reserved Australian, is picking up the pieces after a second marriage gone sour. For both men, aging, loneliness, and disenchantment are silent adversaries to be countered with gumption.
Women are much on the radar during their travels: in upscale Reykjavik, they hit the nightclubs with Mitch’s much younger first-cousin-once-removed ELLEN (Karrie Crouse) and her friend JANET (Elizabeth McKee), who happen to be traveling through at the same time. Even though Mitch, who is something of a Dapper Dan, disapproves of the unrevealing outfits worn by the ladies (Ph.D candidates both), a good time, of sorts, is had by all.
As their rented SUV pilots them deeper into the Icelandic hinterlands, Colin and Mitch encounter fellow adventurers, get on each others’ nerves, play movie trivia games, get lost on the moonless moors, grouse about their sons, smoke pot, speak of regrets, and marvel at Iceland’s otherworldly beauty. The vast, haunting landscapes—moss-coated cliffs, fog-shrouded mountains, geothermal pools—form a primordial Eden, the perfect backdrop for the friends’ escapades.
And as Mitch exclaims when Colin’s spirits flag, “Don’t get that Sunday afternoon attitude—good times are still a-comin’!”—a testament to the fact that joie de vivre can replenish us at any age.
UNDERWATER DREAMS
UNDERWATER DREAMS chronicles the epic story of four teenage boys from the desert who built an underwater robot from Home Depot parts and went up against engineering powerhouse MIT in a NASA contest,… and won.
This is how it transpired. Two energetic high school science teachers, on a whim, entered their high school, a Title I school where most of the students live in poverty, into a sophisticated underwater robotics competition sponsored by NASA and the Office of Naval Research, among others. Only four boys signed up for the competition, but once assembled, with enthusiasm and verve, they started calling oceanic engineers for design help. They were advised that their underwater robot would require glass syntactic flotation foam. Short on money, all they could afford was PVC pipe from Home Depot. And some duct tape.
After a few test runs of their robot (aptly named Stinky), the team was confident that they would not come in last at the event, so they all piled into a beat up van to head to the competition. The boys entered the main pool area, seeing college teams in matching gear, with robots sponsored by the likes of Exxon Mobil. Feeling a bit overwhelmed, the boys put Stinky in the water for a test run. Only the PVC did not hold up. The robot leaked. And sunk.
The boys put their heads together and hilariously came up with a brilliant solution. Twelve hours later, armed with 8 super-plus tampons to plug the leak in Stinky’s mechanical housing, the robot was lowered into the pool again. Only this time, Stinky performed admirably. Fast forward to a shocking result. This rag-tag high school team of undocumented Mexican boys did what no one thought possible – they won!. The competition, however, was only the beginning. These boys forged a legacy that could not have been imagined. A legacy of aspiration. Of activism. Of dreamers.