General Education Film Series: Previously Shown Films

Spring 2008
Fall 2007
Spring 2007
Fall 2006
Spring 2006

Spring 2008 Semester Schedule

Film Summaries

No End in Sight
"A clear-eyed, coherent dissection of how crucial decisions were made in the first weeks and months following the American invasion of Iraq.”  – The Reeler

Not rated.
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews | Internet Movie Database entry

Bamako
A courtroom drama and a portrait of everyday life in Mali:  “surprisingly moving, funny, tragic, strange and undogmatic.” – Salon

Not rated.
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews | Internet Movie Database entry

Kamp Katrina
“A touching documentary by Ashley Sabin and David Redmon introduces us to [residents] of the makeshift Kamp Katrina [following the hurricane].”  – The New York Post

Not rated.
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews

The Fountain
An impressionistic, imaginative fable about life and death:  “a haunting and remarkably emotional journey” –Maxim

Rated PG-13.
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews | Internet Movie Database entry

A Mighty Heart
Powerful dramatization of the life of Mariane Pearl:  “A worthy film on a great, tragic subject” – Chicago Tribune

Rated R.
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews | Internet Movie Database entry

Fall 2007 Semester Schedule

Film Summaries

Maxed Out
Directed by James D. Scurlock
Maxed Out is an at-once hilarious, shocking, and sobering look at debt in America. Director James D. Scurlock takes the viewer on a journey to small towns and big cities throughout the US as he dissects the modern financial industry. He also sheds light on how the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. The film is a savvy investigation of important questions: What is a wise use of credit? What is personal financial responsibility? Is lending fair to all Americans?

Rated R.
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews | Internet Movie Database entry

Sicko
Directed by Michael Moore
Sicko, Michael Moore’s latest documentary, reveals the desperate state of health care in America. In his characteristic one-man approach to investigation, Moore combines interviews and news clips to shed light on the baffling experiences of individuals seeking medical care. Moore believes, “If you want to stay healthy in America, don’t get sick.” Michael Moore is the award-winning director of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine.

Rated R
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews | Internet Movie Database entry

Spring 2007 Semester Schedule

Film Summaries

C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America
Directed by Kevin Willmott
Through the eyes of a British "documentary", this film takes a satirically humorous, and sometimes frightening, look at the history of an America where the South won the Civil War.

Rated R.
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews | Internet Movie Database entry

Eros
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, Steven Soderberg, and Kar Wai Wong
Three award-winning directors take a look at eroticism, sex, and love in different ways in the international omnibus film EROS. Hong Kong's Wong Kar-Wai (IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, CHUNGKING EXPRESS) contributes "The Hand," a moving, poignant tale of a simple tailor, Zhang (Chang Chen), who becomes obsessed with an elegant, demanding, beautiful call girl, Ms. Hua (Gong Li), as he makes special dresses for her, knowing that she will wear them while being with other men. As her life dovetails, Zhang is faced with the choice of remaining her friend or leaving her to drown in the gutter. In "Equilibrium," writer-director Steven Soderbergh (TRAFFIC, ERIN BROCKOVICH) tells a black-and-white noir farce starring Robert Downey Jr. as an ad man relating his erotic dream to a psychiatrist (Alan Arkin) who appears to be more interested in peeping out his office window. And in "The Dangerous Thread of Things," Italian master Michelangelo Antonioni (BLOWUP, L'AVVENTURA) relates the story of fast-living rich people who toy with sex and romance as if they're games, as a husband (Christopher Buchholz) and wife (Regina Nemni) both become curious about a woman (Luisa Ranieri) who rides her horse across the beach. EROS is a tribute to Antonioni--he was 89 years old when he began filming his segment in 2001--who helped choose Wong and Soderbergh because both have pointed to him as a major influence.

Rated R
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews | Internet Movie Database entry

Kontroll
Directed by Nimrod Antal
Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2004 Academy Awards, writer-director Nimrod Antal's debut is a thrilling, claustrophobic, wild ride through the subway system in the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Sandor Csanyi stars as Bulcsu, the leader of a small crew that patrols the underground making sure that passengers have purchased a ticket. However, the men actually have little power themselves, so many people that they stop humiliate them, physically and verbally abuse them, and easily run away. Within this small world, Bulcsu and his gang, which includes the older Professor (Zoltan Mucsi), the narcoleptic Muki (Csaba Pindroch), the diminutive Lecso (Sandor Badar), and the young and innocent Tibi (Zsolt Nagy), battle Gonzo (Balazs Lazar) and his far more successful group of ticket checkers. In one of the film's most exciting scenes, Bulcsu and Gonzo go railing--racing down the tracks in between two moving trains. Meanwhile, a mysterious hooded person in black is pushing people in front of trains, a man named Bootsie (Bence Matyassy) continually escapes from the ticket checkers' clutches, a train conductor (Lajos Kovacs) indulges himself in food, drink, and smoke, and an odd woman (Eszter Balla) roams around the subway wearing a cute bear costume. But the more the story focuses on Bulcsu, who lives in the subway and always seems to be bleeding, the more powerful the film becomes, propelled by NEO's thumping techo soundtrack.

Rated R   
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews | Internet Movie Database entry

The Science of Sleep
Directed by Michel Gondry
For his first non-documentary film after 2004's ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, French writer/director Michel Gondry applies his highly inventive cinematic vision to THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP. Largely set in the very active subconscious mind of Stephane (Gael Garcia Bernal), the movie bounces back and forth between his vivid dreams and mundane real life, which involves living in a Parisian apartment owned by his mother (Miou-Miou) and working at an office with a strange crew of characters, including the crass Guy (Alain Chabat). When Stephane meets Stephanie, a shy neighbor from next door (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, the daughter of Gallic crooner Serge Gainsbourg and British singer/actress Jane Birkin), the two form an unusual friendship, one that may or may not lead to romance.

Rated R
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews | Internet Movie Database entry

Summaries courtesy of Internet Movie Database and Rotten Tomatoes.

Fall 2006 Semester Schedule

Film Summaries

Tsotsi
Directed by Gavin Hood
Winner of the 2006 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
Based on South African playwright Athol Fugard's only novel, Tsotsi is a thrilling, provocative look at life in the ghettos outside present-day Johannesburg. Presley Chweneyagae stars as the title character, a teenager with a killer stare who lives alone in a ramshackle room in a poor shantytown, where he pulls off petty crimes with the help of three compatriots—Boston, Butcher, and Aap. But after they stab a man to death on the subway and Tsotsi (which means "thug" or "gangster") beats up Boston for trying to find out about his past, Tsotsi runs off to a wealthy section of the city, shoots a woman, and steals her car. Only later does he discover that there is a baby in the back seat and decides to keep it for himself. As Tsotsi finally does look back at his own childhood, he tries to take care of the infant, carrying it around in a paper bag and forcing a young mother, Miriam, to breastfeed it at gunpoint.

At this point, writer-director Gavin Hood could have opted for trite sentimentality, but instead he delves deeper into Tsotsi's psyche, as the young man might have already gone too far to turn back now. Tsotsi is a pulsating, electrifying film propelled by Chweneyagae's powerful, mesmerizing performance.   

Rated R.
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews | Internet Movie Database entry

It's A Gift
Directed by Norman Z. McLeod
Typical of Fields' films, he lampoons all the things in life he disliked the most: children, family life, salesmen, bothersome neighbors, and shrewish, nagging wives. The comedian/actor appears in virtually every scene as a hassled grocer, with a running monologue lampooning human behavior with masterful verbal humor. 

Unrated
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews | Internet Movie Database entry

Heart of Game
Directed by Ward Serrill
When Seattle filmmaker Ward Serrill met Bill Resler, a college tax professor who moonlights as a girls' basketball coach, he didn't realize that he was about to embark on an incredible seven-year journey. Serrill, camera in hand, followed Resler - who looks more like Santa Claus in Birkenstocks than a whistle-blasting high school coach - into the Roosevelt High School gym and soon discovered a group of girls whose unbridled toughness, passion and energy he came to call The Heart of the Game.
Then, one day, onto the Roughriders' court (and into the film) walked Darnellia Russell - a tough, inner-city girl whose off-court struggles would eventually threaten to crash the star athlete's plans to play college ball and be the first person in her family to get a college education. At the center of The Heart of the Game is Darnellia's unforgettable true story—the loss of her eligibility and her legal battle to get back on court to play the game that means everything to her. With Coach Resler, her team and her family standing by her side, she takes on enormous personal obstacles as well as the ruling body of high school sports in Washington.

Rated PG-13   
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews | Internet Movie Database entry

Duck Season
Directed by Fernando Eimbcke
Flama and Moko are fourteen years old; they have been best friends since they were kids. They have everything they need to survive yet another boring Sunday: an apartment without parents, videogames, porn magazines, soft drinks and pizza delivery. The electricity company, Rita, the neighbor, Ulises, a pizza deliveryman, eleven seconds, the Real Madrid-Manchester game, some chocolate brownies and a horrible painting of ducks, all combine to break the harmony of what promised to be a placid Sunday, and reveal issues such as the parents' divorce, loneliness, the confusion between adolescent love and friendship, as well as frustration in adult life. "Temporada de Patos" is a movie that shows that, when the lights go off, we can see the stars.

Rated R
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews | Internet Movie Database entry

The Notorious Bettie Page
Directed by Mary Harron
The story of Bettie Page, uber-successful 1950's pin-up model, one of the first sex icons in America, and the target of a Senate investigation (based on her bondage photos).

Rated R
Rotten Tomatoes Review | Internet Movie Database entry

Summaries courtesy of Internet Movie Database.

Spring 2006 Semester Schedule

Film Summaries
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Directed by Alex Gibney (USA)
Based on the best-selling book of the same name by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, a multidimensional study of one of the biggest business scandals in American history.

Rated R.
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews | Internet Movie Database entry

Confidences trop intimes (Intimate Strangers)
Directed by Patrice Leconter (France)
Because she picked the wrong door, Anna ends up confessing her marriage problems to a financial adviser named William Faber. Touched by her distress, somewhat excited as well, Faber does not have the courage to tell her that he is not a psychiatrist.

Rated R. In French with English subtitles.
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews | Internet Movie Database entry


Hsi Yen (The Wedding Banquet)
Directed byAng Lee
Simon and Wei-Tung are a gay couple living together in Manhattan. To defer the suspicions of Wei-Tung's parents, Simon suggests a marriage of convenience between Wei-Tung and Wei-Wei, an immigrant in need of a green card. When Wei-Tung's parents come to America for the wedding, they insist upon an elaborate banquet, resulting in several complications.

Rotten Tomatoes Reviews | Internet Movie Database entry

Syriana
Directed by Stephen Gaghan (USA)
From writer/director Stephen Gaghan, winner of the Best Screenplay Academy Award for Traffic, comes Syriana, a political thriller that unfolds against the intrigue of the global oil industry. From the players brokering back-room deals in Washington to the men toiling in the oil fields of the Persian Gulf, the film's multiple storylines weave together to illuminate the human consequences of the fierce pursuit of wealth and power.
Rated R.

Rotten Tomatoes Review | Internet Movie Database entry

Summaries courtesy of Internet Movie Database.

Questions?
Anna Cox
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David Shoenthal
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