Browse Movies : 2012 : NR

When Nirvana burst onto the scene in 1991, the music they played spoke directly to an angry and disenfranchised generation. Grunge took over MTV and radio overnight… but just three years later, the drug-related deaths of several musicians and the suicide of Kurt Cobain closed the books on an all too brief era. Patty Schemel, the acclaimed drummer for Courtney Love's seminal rock band Hole, was in the middle of all of it. The openly gay woman who always felt different never dreamed she would be in a multi-platinum band, touring with legends… or that, thanks to drug addiction, she could lose it all. Given a video camera just before Hole's infamous Live Through This world tour, Patty filmed everything the shows, the parties, and startlingly intimate footage of Kurt and Courtney. This footage has never been seen... until now.

Wake in Fright is the story of John Grant (Gary Bond), a bonded teacher who arrives in the rough Australian outback mining town of Bundanyabba, planning to stay overnight before catching the plane to Sydney. But, as his one night stretches to five, he plunges headlong toward his own destruction. When the alcohol-induced mist lifts, the educated John Grant is no more. Instead there is a self-loathing man in a desolate wasteland, dirty, red-eyed, sitting against a tree and looking at a rifle with one bullet left.

Chely Wright: Wish Me Away is the story of Chely Wright, the first Nashville music star to come out as gay. Over three years, the filmmakers were given extraordinary access to Chely's struggle and her unfolding plan to come out publicly. Using interviews with Chely, her family, her pastor, and key players in the music world, alongside Chely's intimate private video diaries, the film goes deep into her back story as an established star and then forward as she steps into the national spotlight to reveal her secret. Chronicling the aftermath in Nashville and within the LGBT community, Chely Wright: Wish Me Away reveals both the devastation of her own internalized homophobia and the transformational power of living an authentic life.

A drama starring Monica Bellucci and Louis Garrel from French master Philippe Garrel, examines the once-happy marriage between brooding painter Frederic (Louis Garrel, the director's son) and his movie-star wife Angele (Bellucci) as it hits the rocks. When another young couple--actors Paul (Jerome Robart) and Elisabeth (Celine Sallette)--joins them on a Roman holiday, tensions and passions flare.

A documentary about pop music, spirituality and celebrity, Ben Lee: Catch my Disease is an acerbic, playful yet profoundly intimate portrait of a unique child pop star who stepped through the looking glass of fame.

The story of Rod, a young software salesman on the brink of launching a solar panel business in Silicon Valley. Things really seem to be going Rod’s way, especially when he reconnects with beautiful high school classmate Nathalie, a model who Victoria’s Secret chooses out of the blue to be their new cover girl. Their unbelievably perfect world is shattered by a sudden, unexplained bird attack. The vultures team up with the eagles, and begin dropping caustic liquids and exploding like bombs. Rod and Nathalie find themselves on a terror-filled ride up and down the coast, fighting off the vicious birds with their wits and...coat hangers.

Featuring Tony Hawk and directed by Stacy Peralta (Dogtown and Z-Boys), Bones Brigade: An Autobiography is a very personal story of a group of young, dorky, strait-laced American kids who did the impossible through a combination of work, skill, passion, and the belief that anything is possible: they succeeded in turning skateboarding from a fringe pastime to a thrilling action sport filled with extraordinary gravity-defying feats, and generated a billion dollar industry. The Bones Brigade was the team they formed that revolutionized not only their lives, but international popular culture as well.

Does hell exist? If so, who ends up there, and why? Featuring an eclectic group of authors, theologians, pastors, social commentators and musicians, Hellbound? is a provocative, feature-length documentary that looks at why we are so bound to the idea of hell and how our beliefs about hell affect the world we are creating today.

The story of the brave young men and women who successfully reversed the tide of an epidemic, demanded the attention of a fearful nation and stopped AIDS from becoming a death sentence. This improbable group of activists bucked oppression and, with no scientific training, infiltrated government agencies and the pharmaceutical industry, helping to identify promising new medication and treatments and move them through trials and into drugstores in record time. In the process, they saved their own lives and ended the darkest days of a veritable plague, while virtually emptying AIDS wards in American hospitals in the process. The powerful story of their fight is a classic tale of empowerment and activism that has since inspired movements for change in everything from breast cancer research to Occupy Wall Street. Their story stands as a powerful inspiration to future generations, a road map, and a call to arms. This is how you change the world.

The film, which will incorporate elements of improv, centers on a yoga guru (Posey) from the city who brings her entourage to a chicken farm in the country and attempts to co-exist with the farmers there.

The journey of the tragically star-crossed Noah and Emily who are linked by a rare psychological disorder classified as ICD-10 F24, madness of two.

In central China, a Master coach recruits poor rural teenagers and turns them into Western-style boxing champions. Through hard work and discipline, these boys and girls come of age, trained in the art of boxing and the game of life. They are filled with Olympic dreams, hoping to become China's next amateur heroes. But the pull of professionalism also weighs upon their shoulders. Their coach hopes to show them the way. The top student boxers face dramatic choices as they graduate--should they fight for the collective good as amateurs or for themselves and their own personal gain as professionals? It's a metaphor for the choices that everyone faces now, in the New China.

For the young dancers at the Youth America Grand Prix, one of the world's most prestigious ballet competitions, lifelong dreams are at stake. With hundreds competing for a handful of elite scholarships and contracts, practice and discipline are paramount, and nothing short of perfection is expected. Bess Kargman's documentary, First Position, follows six young dancers as they prepare for a chance to enter the world of professional ballet, struggling through bloodied feet, near exhaustion and debilitating injuries all while navigating the drama of adolescence.

Legendary dancers and choreographers Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Suzanne Farrell, Mark Morris, Judith Jamison and Bill Irwin appear alongside new innovators to reveal the passion, discipline, and daring of the world of dance in Never Stand Still. Filmed at the iconic Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, this thrilling documentary features amazing performances by world-renowned dancers interwoven with intimate interviews, behind-the-scenes insights, and rare archival footage.

The ubiquitous pink ribbons of breast cancer philanthropy--and the hand-in-hand marketing of brands and products associated with that philanthropy--permeates our culture, providing assurance that we are engaged in a successful battle against this insidious disease. But the campaign obscures the reality and facts of breast cancer: more and more women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, and they face the same treatment options they did 40 years ago. Yet women also are the most influential market group, buying 80 percent of consumer products and making most major household purchasing decisions. So then who really benefits from the pink ribbon campaigns - the cause or the company? And what if the very companies and products that profit from their association have actually contributed to the problem?

Follows the story of Melville, a cardinal who suddenly finds himself elected as the next Pope. Never the front runner and completely caught off guard, he panics as he's presented to the faithful in St. Peter's Square. To prevent a world wide crisis, the Vatican's spokesman calls in an unlikely psychiatrist who is neither religious or all that committed, played by Moretti, to find out what is wrong with the new Pope. As the world nervously waits outside, inside the therapist tries to find a solution. But Cardinal Melville is adamant: he does not want the job, or at least needs time to think it over. What follows is a marvelous insight into the concept of a human being existing behind the title of God's representative on Earth.

It is 1972. An abandoned Mexican prison sits alone in the dusty Chihuahua desert. KGB mole Nikolai Dzerzhinsky waits for his contact from the Washington Post. Dzerzhinsky holds explosive evidence against the CIA--information he will trade for asylum in the United States. Special Agent Robert Harper must obtain this evidence and kill Dzerzhinsky or risk the end of his CIA career. As the two men hunt each other, they discover that the sins from their past destined them for this deadly confrontation.

LACHLAN MacALDONICH (Robert Carlyle) is former Britpop rocker who has settled into a comfortably numb existence in farm country just outside Los Angeles. By day, he works on an organic farm and travels regularly to the city's farmers' markets to sell produce. By night, he retreats to his crummy apartment to record "Flame-Outs," his podcast that recounts the tragic deaths of great musicians. The only spark in his humdrum existence is BEAU (Alexia Rasmussen), a lovely struggling actress and amateur chef who frequents the Silver Lake farmers' market. One night, Lachlan gets pulled over for a DUI, a charge that dredges up his past drug offense and threatens him with deportation. Lachlan's only hope of staying in the U.S. is proving that his removal would cause "extreme hardship" to a U.S. citizen spouse or relative. Lachlan contacts his estranged ex-wife and daughter, raising past demons that he must finally confront.

Nobody noticed when thirty-eight year old Joyce Vincent died in her apartment above a shopping mall in North London in 2003. When her skeleton was discovered three years later, her television was still on. Newspaper reports offered few details of Joyce's life- not even a photograph. Who was Joyce Vincent? And how could this happen to someone in our day and age--the so-called age of communication? Dreams of a Life is Carol Morley's quest to discover who Joyce was and how she came to be so forgotten.

Based on a true story, Quill: The Life of a Guide Dog is the sweet tale of a yellow Labrador Retriever guide dog for the blind named Quill. We follow Quill from the litter to his selection as a guide dog shortly after his first birthday. After training at a school for guide dogs, Quill is paired with a blind man named Watanabe who at first is reluctant to rely on him. But Quill's great patience, gentleness and skill eventually win him over and they become inseparable friends.