Unrated, 1 hr. 50 min. Drama Directed By: Bahman Ghobadir , Bahman Ghobadi Written By: Bahman Ghobadi In Theaters: Dec 14, 2007 Wide On DVD: Mar 4, 2008 Half Moon (Niwe Mung) Director Bahman Ghobadi follows the success of Turtles Can Fly and A Time for Drunken Horses with this tale of an iconic Kurdish musician who, despite his failing health, determines to lead a dozen of his sons to Iraq for a concert staged to celebrate Saddam Hussein's fall and the end of the brutal Iraqi dictator's repression of Kurdish music. Authorization has just been granted for the concert, and upon receiving word of the upcoming musical celebration, Kako (Allah-Morad Rashtian) immediately procures a school bus and sets about rounding up his father, Mamo, and many brothers. Mamo is an elderly statesman of Kurdish music, and as the jovial collection of men make their way across the border between Iranian and Iraqi Kurdistan, they bear witness to a wide-ranging variety of sights both sublime and soul-scarring. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
PG-13, 1 hr. 35 min. Documentary, Special Interest Directed By: Errol Morris In Theaters: Dec 19, 2003 Limited
The Fog of War - Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003)Former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara is the sole focus of documentarian Errol Morris' The Fog of War, a film that not only analyzes McNamara's controversial decisions during the first half of the Vietnam War, but also his childhood upbringing, his education at Berkeley and Harvard, his involvement in World War II, and his later years as president of the World Bank. Culling footage from almost 20 hours of interviews with the Secretary, Morris details key moments from McNamara's career, including the 1945 bombing of Tokyo, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and President Kennedy's suggestions to the Secretary that the U.S.
remove itself from Vietnam. Throughout the film, the 85-year-old McNamara expounds his philosophies on international conflict, and shows regret and pride in equal measure for, respectively, his mistakes and accomplishments. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi
8.3
The Fog of War - Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003)
G, 1 hr. 40 min. Animation, Kids & Family, Comedy Directed By: Andrew Stanton , Lee Unkrich Written By: Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, David Reynolds In Theaters: May 30, 2003 Wide
Finding Nemo (2003)In this stunning underwater adventure, with memorable characters, humor and heartfelt emotion, Finding Nemo follows the comedic and momentous journey of an overly protective clownfish named Marlin (voice by Albert Brooks) and his son Nemo (voice by Alexander Gould) -- who become separated in the Great Barrier Reef when Nemo is unexpectedly taken far from his ocean home and dumped into a fish tank in a dentist's office.
Buoyed by the companionship of Dory (voice by Ellen DeGeneres), a friendly-but-forgetful Pacific regal blue tang, Marlin embarks on a dangerous trek and finds himself the unlikely hero of an epic effort to rescue his son -- who hatches a few daring plans of his own to return safely home. -- (C) Official Site
R, 2 hr. 3 min. Drama, Romance, Comedy Directed By: Alexander Payne Written By: Jim Taylor, Alexander Payne In Theaters: Sep 13, 2004 Wide
Sideways (2004)Directed by Alexander Payne, Sideways follows Miles (Paul Giamatti), who is distressed about his lack of success as a novelist, and Jack (Thomas Haden Church), an equally unsuccessful actor with a rapidly approaching wedding.
In a last-ditch effort to sow their wild oats, Jack and Miles take off on a final road trip to California's wine country the week prior to Jack's wedding. Both men have goals for the vacation -- Miles wants to turn Jack on to the art of wine tasting, while Jack is concerned with exploiting his last days as a bachelor -- but when the two men come across two fascinating women (Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh), the duo is forced to examine their morality, and if maturity isn't such a depressing prospect -- at least, for one of them. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi
Howard Zinn - You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (2004)Directed by Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller, Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train offers a retrospective on the life and times of Howard Zinn. Activist, best-selling author, and historian, Zinn is considered the catalyst for some of the most notable progressive movements of the past 60 years.
Noam Chomsky, who claims that Zinn "changed the consciousness of a generation," is featured in several interviews, along with Marian Wright Edelman, Alice Walker, Tom Hayden, Daniel Ellsberg, and Zinn himself. The documentary also features rare archival footage. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi
Unrated, 1 hr. 18 min. Documentary, Special Interest Directed By: Deb Ellis , Denis Mueller In Theaters: Jul 23, 2004 Wide
7.4
Howard Zinn - You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (2004)
PG-13, 1 hr. 10 min. Documentary, Special Interest Directed By: Keith Beauchamp In Theaters: Oct 14, 2005 Limited
The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till (2004)In 1955, Emmett Louis Till was a 14-year-old African-American from Chicago who traveled to Money, MS, to visit his relatives. Till came home several months later in a box; Till had supposedly whistled at a white woman, and 14 white men, angered by the young man's perceived arrogance, beat him senseless, shot him to death, and dumped his body in the Tallahatchie River, weighing it down with an engine from a cotton gin.
Emmett's mother, Mamie Till, was a fearless woman determined to see that justice was done (she had an open casket at Emmett's funeral and allowed Jet magazine to publish a photo of his badly mutilated body so others could see the full extent of the crime), but convicting white men on charges of lynching a black teenager in the Deep South in the 1950s was all but impossible, and the two charged with Emmett's death, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were found not guilty by a jury who deliberated for so short a period they stopped for a cold drink to stretch the wait to an hour. Only a few months later, Bryant and Milam admitted they had committed the crime to a reporter from Look magazine, knowing they were protected from further prosecution under double jeopardy statutes.
The other 12 men involved in the crime were not charged. Almost 50 years later, filmmaker Keith Beauchamp traveled to Mississippi to investigate the surviving characters in this heinous crime, and The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till combines newsreel footage shot during the investigation of the murder in 1955 with present-day interviews, including Till's cousins, who watched helplessly as he was dragged away by an angry mob; Till's uncle, who identified the guilty men in court; friends and co-workers of the men who committed the crimes (five of whom were still alive when the film was completed), and Mamie Till. In 2005, in part because of evidence uncovered by the filmmakers, the Emmett Till case was reopened in Mississippi. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
