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- A young journalist stumbles across something much more sinister than a simple suicide in the death of a politician - the death seems to be an assassination contrived by an American multinational company intent on taking over several French industries. The journalist's objective is to garner enough evidence to expose the American corporation for what it really is, before French companies start disappearing - and before any more corpses accumulate, including his own.
- While Microsoft may be the biggest software company in the world, not every computer user is a fan of their products, or their way of doing business. While Microsoft's Windows became the most widely used operating system for personal computers in the world, many experts took issue with Microsoft's strict policies regarding licensing, ownership, distribution, and alteration of their software. The objections of many high-profile technology experts, most notably Richard Stallman, led to what has become known as "the Open Source Movement," which is centered on the belief that computer software should be free both in the economic and intellectual senses of the word. Eventually, one of Stallman's admirers, Linus Torvalds, created a new operating system called Linux, a freely distributed software which many programmers consider to be markedly superior to Windows. Revolution OS is a documentary that examines the genesis of the Open Source Movement, and explores and explains the technical and intellectual issues involved in a manner understandable to computer aficionados and non-techheads alike.
- Created from footage captured during the filming of the PBS series Carrier, explores the struggle waged by three men in various stages of fatherhood to serve their country while living and working in the harsh environment of an aircraft carrier, and constantly thinking of the loved ones they left behind. Doug Booher, Randy Brock, and Chris Altice are three of 5,000 sailors living onboard the USS Nimitz. Summoned from their families for a six-month deployment to the Persian Gulf, these men may perform disparate tasks yet they all have one thing in common -- they're all either parents, or expecting a child. By delving deep into the personal lives of all three, the filmmakers raise numerous questions about their work onboard the Nimitz, and the role of the Navy in times of war. A fighter pilot in the famed "Black Aces" squadron, Lt. Booher is attempting to balance his life and military career, no simple task for a man with a newborn back home. Meanwhile, tough-talking Gunnery Sergeant Brock repairs planes for the Marine squadron "The Red Devils" while pondering what kind of father he will be to the son who is born during his deployment. Abandoned at age three by his own parents, a pair of carnival workers, Sergeant Brock doesn't want to be an absent father. And while 21-year-old ordnance man Altice would rather be partying in a frat house than arming military jets for war, his responsibilities back home are about to take a giant leap; just before he left for the Persian Gulf, his new girlfriend revealed that she was pregnant.
- Luna Park is an aged amusement park located in an area of prime real estate in Sydney Australia. Tiny Tim, at the time of this documentary, was an aged entertainer, who mined all of popular songwriting history for his performances. Both of them came together in 1979 for Tim's first attempt to set a world record for non-stop singing. Without attempting to comment on the eccentric singer's life or seek a deeper meaning in it, this documentary screens moments from his entire career as a celebrity, going back to his marriage to "Miss Vicky" on the Johnny Carson show. Tiny Tim was a curiously charismatic, gawky, beak-nosed man who played a ukulele, sang in a falsetto voice, and had extremely long, wavy hair. He was also an unparalleled scholar of popular music going back to the mid-nineteenth century, with a repertoire of tens of thousands of songs. In fact, so extensive was his knowledge that he was much sought-after by scholars and musicologists around the world. Despite the limitations of his persona and performance technique which would normally have resulted in his being only a novelty act, he had an astonishingly long and successful performing career. The other focus of this documentary is Luna Park, which was for Sydney residents what Coney Island is for New Yorkers. At one point it was closed as a result of a series of well-publicized fatal accidents, probably caused by sabotage arranged by unscrupulous developers who coveted the land it was on
- Following a car chase and shootout, a man stumbles into a girl's apartment and dies. Frantic to be rid of this encumbrance, and wishing to avoid getting involved with the police, the girl finds a willing lad in a bar who will help her with her predicament. He loads the body into the back of his father's car. Before he can find a place to dump the body, his father takes off in it to see his mistress. In this comedy, the car with the body, chased by the girl and her helpful new friend, slips from their grasp time after time.
- Two men -- one elderly, one in his twenties -- are touched by tragedies linked to a single source in this drama from Malaysian filmmaker Woo Ming Jin. Yun Ding (Berg Lee Seng Wan) is a young layabout who earns a meager living with his friend Long Chai (Cheong Wai Loon) by leaving sharp objects on the road, and then charging motorists to help fix their inevitable flat tires. Sometimes Yun and Long catch fish from the nearby ocean, but a strange and virulent illness has been infecting the local catch, and those who eat it die in a matter of hours, putting the local fishing fleet out of business. One veteran fisherman, Ah Ngau (Chung Kok Keung), has lost his wife to the illness, and after his home was quarantined by the local health department, he's left with nowhere to go but a homeless shelter. Yun is also touched by loss when Long unexpectedly dies, and he ends up escorting customers to a brothel to keep his head above water. As his prospects become more grim, Yun becomes fascinated with an exotic fish displayed at a local pet store, which he's told will bring him good luck. Ah, meanwhile, discovers his unfortunate story brings out charitable instincts in others, which he hopes he can use to his advantage.
- The third in the Notes Alive series with the Minnesota Orchestra is another fine introduction for kids to the arts. This computer-animated version of the Dr. Seuss story about the mood of colors (narrated by Holly Hunter) is combined with footage of a concert symphony. We follow a boy and his dog juggling his various moods, something soaring like a bird ("a blue day") or moping around the house ("a gray day"). The music is outstanding; Richard Einhorn created a new composition, which focuses on the individuality of instruments in the 30-minute piece. A percussive, hand-clapping sequence is quite fun. The animation doesn't seem as fresh in this day and age of A Bug's Life--it's quite bulky. Yet the film is brisk enough to entertain the youngsters and they will undoubtedly ask questions about the various instruments shown. There's also a 15-minute short on the making of the film. It includes interviews with the animators, the composer, and, most notably, with Theodore Geisel's (Dr. Seuss) wife, who talks about her husband's influences and gives a tour of their house. (Other Notes Alive titles are On the Day You Were Born and Nutcracker: The Untold Story.)
- After over 50 years of wandering up and down Japan, finally in the 1970s the rough-hewn blind shamisien player and folk-song collector named Chikuzan became a musical sensation. This biographical drama chronicles his wanderings and his life, with a particular focus on his humble beginnings as a peasant on a remote and arid island.
- Crime is an unfortunate fact of life in most of the world's major Metropolitan cities, but few have seen a plague of kidnapping like that which has been visited upon Mexico City since the dawn of the 21st Century. According to a United Nations report, there are more reported kidnappings in Mexico than in any nation in the world (usually ten a day), and a corrupt police force and inefficient judicial system allows many criminals to act with veritable impunity. The new wave of kidnapping in Mexico City respects no political, social or economic boundaries, and in 2004 thousands of citizens participated in a mass rally to protest the kidnapping epidemic after an especially ugly case in which two brothers were murdered by their abductors, even though their parents had already paid the ransom. Educator and filmmaker Ricardo Ainslie is a Mexican émigré who examines this unusual crime wave in the documentary Ya Basta. The film includes interviews with several kidnapping victims who survived the experience, a visit with a convicted kidnapper, and the thoughts of a number of authorities who discuss the social and psychological toll the threat of abduction has brought to one of Mexico's greatest cities. Ya Basta (the title roughly translates as "Enough!") was given a special "sneak preview" screening at the 2007 South by Southwest Film Festival.
- Fab Four fans seeking to learn more about their favorite pop quartet than ever before are offered a guided tour from the dive bars of Hamburg, Germany to the biggest venues that the world has to offer in a documentary that speaks with friends, family, colleagues, and lovers of John, Paul, George, and Ringo in to offer an insider's perspective on Beatlemania. From their darkest hours to their greatest achievements, no story is left untold as the personal and professional secrets of each band member are recounted in vivid detail
