Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends.
If your account is linked with Facebook and you have turned on sharing, this will show up in your activity feed. If not, you can turn on sharing
here
.
A ballet dancer wins the lead in "Swan Lake" and is perfect for the role of the delicate White Swan - Princess Odette - but slowly loses her mind as she becomes more and more like Odile, the Black Swan.
Director:
Darren Aronofsky
Stars:
Natalie Portman,
Mila Kunis,
Vincent Cassel
A mentally unstable Vietnam war veteran works as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge to violently lash out, attempting to save a teenage prostitute in the process.
Director:
Martin Scorsese
Stars:
Albert Brooks,
Robert De Niro,
Jodie Foster
In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police, conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives.
Director:
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Stars:
Martina Gedeck,
Ulrich Mühe,
Sebastian Koch
A horrific car accident connects three stories, each involving characters dealing with loss, regret, and life's harsh realities, all in the name of love.
Director:
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Stars:
Emilio Echevarría,
Gael García Bernal,
Goya Toledo
A veteran high school teacher befriends a younger art teacher, who is having an affair with one of her 15-year-old students. However, her intentions with this new "friend" also go well beyond platonic friendship.
1965, three Mossad agents cross into East Berlin to apprehend a notorious Nazi war criminal. Thirty years later, the secrets the agents share come back to haunt them.
A troubled hedge fund magnate desperate to complete the sale of his trading empire makes an error that forces him to turn to an unlikely person for help.
A high school teacher's unusual experiment to demonstrate to his students what life is like under a dictatorship spins horribly out of control when he forms a social unit with a life of its own.
Martha has run away from an abusive hippie-like cult where she was living as Marcy May for two years. She turns to her sister and brother-in-law who take her in and want to help her. The problem is Martha is having a hard time separating dreams from reality and when haunting memories of her past keep resurfacing, she may need more help than anyone is able to give her. Written by
napierslogs
Greetings again from the darkness. This one has been on my radar since the Sundance Festival and all the raves about Elizabeth Olsen's performance. After attending a screening last evening, I find myself at a loss to adequately describe not just her stunning turn, but also this unusual film from writer/director Sean Durkin.
On the surface, this sounds like just another movie peeking inside a creepy cult that brainwashes, and psychologically and physically abuses women, and is led by a charismatic (and creepy) religious style figure-head. There are many similarities to the Manson-family story of which much has been published, but Mr. Durkin takes the film in a much different and very creative direction by concentrating on what happens to Martha (Olsen) after she escapes the cult.
In the Q&A, Durkin states he did much research and found the most fascinating story to be that of a cult escapee and what she went through during her first three weeks of freedom. Martha sneaks out early one morning and places a panic call to her older sister, whom she hasn't communicated with in two years. Settling in to the lake house with big sis and new brother-in-law, it becomes quite obvious that Martha doesn't know how to fit in society and has absolutely no interest in discussing her recent past.
The sister is played very well by Sarah Paulson, and her husband is Hugh Dancy (so very good in Adam). This seemingly normal yuppie couple is trying to do right by Martha, but the fits of paranoia, outbursts of anger, and societal goofs are just too much for them.
The genius of this film is in the story telling. The cinematic toggling between today and moments of time at the cult farm house leads the viewer right into the confused mind of Martha. We don't get much back story but it's obvious she was "ripe" for cult world when she was chosen. We see how Patrick, the quietly charismatic leader, sings her a song and steals her heart ... she wants so much to belong. We also see how she bonds with the other women at the farm house, and ends up in a situation that seems to snap her out just enough so she finds the strength to leave. The editing of scenes between these two worlds in outstanding and serve to keep the viewer glued to the screen.
Last year I raved about an independent film called Winter's Bone. I chose it as one of the year's best and it ended with some industry award recognition. I am not willing to say this film is quite at that level, but I will say that the younger sister of the Olsen twins, Elizabeth, delivers an incredible first feature film performance and Sean Durkin deserves an audience for his first feature film as writer/director. Another bond between the two indies is that John Hawkes plays the cult leader Patrick, and Hawkes was a standout in Winter's Bone.
There will undoubtedly be some debate about whether this is cutting edge independent filmmaking or just another snooty art-house mind-messer. All I can say is, I hope the film grabs enough audience for the debate to matter ... it deserves it.
86 of 115 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful to you?
Greetings again from the darkness. This one has been on my radar since the Sundance Festival and all the raves about Elizabeth Olsen's performance. After attending a screening last evening, I find myself at a loss to adequately describe not just her stunning turn, but also this unusual film from writer/director Sean Durkin.
On the surface, this sounds like just another movie peeking inside a creepy cult that brainwashes, and psychologically and physically abuses women, and is led by a charismatic (and creepy) religious style figure-head. There are many similarities to the Manson-family story of which much has been published, but Mr. Durkin takes the film in a much different and very creative direction by concentrating on what happens to Martha (Olsen) after she escapes the cult.
In the Q&A, Durkin states he did much research and found the most fascinating story to be that of a cult escapee and what she went through during her first three weeks of freedom. Martha sneaks out early one morning and places a panic call to her older sister, whom she hasn't communicated with in two years. Settling in to the lake house with big sis and new brother-in-law, it becomes quite obvious that Martha doesn't know how to fit in society and has absolutely no interest in discussing her recent past.
The sister is played very well by Sarah Paulson, and her husband is Hugh Dancy (so very good in Adam). This seemingly normal yuppie couple is trying to do right by Martha, but the fits of paranoia, outbursts of anger, and societal goofs are just too much for them.
The genius of this film is in the story telling. The cinematic toggling between today and moments of time at the cult farm house leads the viewer right into the confused mind of Martha. We don't get much back story but it's obvious she was "ripe" for cult world when she was chosen. We see how Patrick, the quietly charismatic leader, sings her a song and steals her heart ... she wants so much to belong. We also see how she bonds with the other women at the farm house, and ends up in a situation that seems to snap her out just enough so she finds the strength to leave. The editing of scenes between these two worlds in outstanding and serve to keep the viewer glued to the screen.
Last year I raved about an independent film called Winter's Bone. I chose it as one of the year's best and it ended with some industry award recognition. I am not willing to say this film is quite at that level, but I will say that the younger sister of the Olsen twins, Elizabeth, delivers an incredible first feature film performance and Sean Durkin deserves an audience for his first feature film as writer/director. Another bond between the two indies is that John Hawkes plays the cult leader Patrick, and Hawkes was a standout in Winter's Bone.
There will undoubtedly be some debate about whether this is cutting edge independent filmmaking or just another snooty art-house mind-messer. All I can say is, I hope the film grabs enough audience for the debate to matter ... it deserves it.