December 2014 Soundtracks

The Better Angels looks at the formative years of Abraham Lincoln's life in the harsh wilderness of Indiana in 1817.

Reporter Maziar Bahari is accused of being a spy and imprisoned by the Iranian government shortly after a "Daily Show" correspondent interviews him in Iran in 2009. He spends the next three months in Iran’s most notorious prison, enduring brutal interrogation sessions at the hands of a man he knows only by his smell: Rosewater. Bahari later reveals he was not imprisoned because of the TV show interview, but because his captors wanted an excuse to lock him up.

Mr. Turner explores the last quarter century of the great if eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851).

Profoundly affected by the death of his father, loved by a housekeeper he takes for granted and occasionally exploits sexually, he forms a close relationship with a seaside landlady with whom he eventually lives incognito in Chelsea, where he dies.

Throughout this, he travels, paints, stays with the country aristocracy, visits brothels, is a popular if anarchic member of the Royal Academy of Arts, has himself strapped to the mast of a ship so that he can paint a snowstorm, and is both celebrated and reviled by the public and by royalty.

Not far from Timbuktu, now ruled by the religious fundamentalists, Kidane lives peacefully in the dunes with his wife Satima, his daughter Toya, and Issan, their twelve-year-old shepherd. In town, the people suffer, powerless, from the regime of terror imposed by the Jihadists determined to control their faith. Music, laughter, cigarettes, even soccer have been banned. The women have become shadows but resist with dignity. Every day, the new improvised courts issue tragic and absurd sentences. Kidane and his family are being spared the chaos that prevails in Timbuktu. But their destiny changes when Kidane accidentally kills Amadou, the fisherman who slaughtered “GPS,” his beloved cow. He now has to face the new laws of the foreign occupants.

Based on the best-selling book, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, the story details the life of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic track star, who was captured by the Japanese navy during WWII.

A retelling of the story of Moses, from his near death as an infant to his adoption into the Egyptian royal family, his defiance of the Pharaoh and deliverance of the Hebrews from enslavement.

Larry "Doc" Sportello, a pothead private eye wanders through the Summer (and winter) of Love in 1969 Los Angeles.

Intertwines several classic fairytale characters, including Cinderella, Rapunzel and Little Red Riding Hood, with the story of a baker and his wife’s attempt to have a family.