New Movie Releases

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Bill Cunningham New York

Release Date: March 16, 2011 (NY)
Studio: Zeitgeist Films
Director: Richard Press
Screenwriter: Not Available
Starring: Bill Cunningham, Anna Wintour, Michael Kors
Genre: Documentary
MPAA Rating: Not Available Plot Summary: "The best fashion show is always on the street" – Bill Cunningham, The New York Times's peripatetic, octogenarian, bicycle-riding fashion photographer. Filmmaker Richard Press says it took 10 years to make this portrait of Cunningham, the first eight spent convincing his subject to acquiesce. Anyone who has so much as glanced at the Style section of the Times will recognize Cunningham's work: an obsessive, meticulous, witty and eclectic array of images of New Yorkers dressed to kill. Cunningham is famous for spotting trends before anyone else, for giving young and unknown fashionistas as much play as society's grande dames, and for rejecting every hostess's effort to get him to stop for just one moment to sip champagne or shoot the breeze. Living in monk-like asceticism above Carnegie Hall for 50 years, Cunningham is a New York original, a man who has joyously transformed fashion into urban anthropology.

Lord of the Dance 3D

Release Date: March 17, 2011 (limited)
Studio: Not Available
Director: Marcus Viner
Screenwriter: Not Available
Starring: Michael Flatley, Bernadette Flynn, Tom Cunningham, Ciara Sexton
Genre: Musical
MPAA Rating: Not Available 

Plot Summary: Millions of people around the world have been enchanted by Lord of the Dance. Since its premiere in 1996, it has been captivating audiences and critics around the globe and has grossed over one billion dollars worldwide. However, no one has ever had the opportunity to experience the magic, excitement, and passion by being part of the performance, until now, when "Lord of the Dance" is released in 3D for a limited engagement on March 17th. "Lord of the Dance" tells a timeless story based on Irish folklore of good versus evil, and through the media of dance and music it is understood and appreciated by every culture. Now, with unprecedented access to Flatley's performance, moviegoers will get an unparalleled sense of the scale of the show as never seen before. The spectacular new set design, lighting, special effects and costumes will captivate audiences and fans around the world as they behold the charismatic creator, producer, director and star, Michael Flatley, dominate the stage and experience the movie event of the year.

The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman

Release Date: March 18, 2011 (limited)
Studio: China Lion
Director: Wuershan
Screenwriter: An Changhe, Wu Ershan
Starring: Masanobu Ando, You Benchang, Liu Xiaoye, Ashton Xu, Kitty Zhang Yuqi
Genre: Action, Comedy
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of stylized violence including some bloody images, brief crude humor and partial nudity)
Plot Summary: A tale of revenge, honor and greed follows a group of misfits that gets involved with a kitchen cleaver made from the top five swords of the martial arts world in this wild and brash action comedy.

Cracks

Release Date: March 18, 2011 (limited)
Studio: IFC Films
Director: Jordan Scott
Screenwriter: Jordan Scott, Ben Court, Caroline Ip
Starring: Eva Green, Juno Temple, Imogen Poots, Maria Valverde, Sinead Cusack
Genre: Drama
MPAA Rating: Not Available

Plot Summary: In an austere and remote all girls boarding school, the most elite clique of girls are the illustrious members of the schools' diving team, lead by Di (Juno Temple). The girls compete for the attention of their glamorous teacher Miss G (Eva Green), and Miss G in turn thrives on the attention she receives from her girls and believes it is her role to teach them the ways of the world. When a beautiful Spanish girl, Fiamma (Maria Valverde), arrives at the school and joins the diving team. DI, pulls rank as team captain and lays down the rules in an attempt to assert her position but MISS G is spellbound by Fiamma's beauty and maturity and becomes obsessed with her new favorite girl.

Desert Flower

Release Date: March 18, 2011 (limited)
Studio: National Geographic Entertainment
Director: Sherry Horman
Screenwriter: Sherry Horman, Smita Bhide
Starring: Liya Kebede, Sally Hawkins, Craig Parkinson, Meera Syal, Anthony Mackie, Juliet Stevenson, Timothy Spall
Genre: Drama
MPAA Rating: Not Available

Plot Summary: Based on the international best-selling novel of the same name by Waris Dirie, "Desert Flower" tells Dirie's amazing, heartbreaking, and inspirational story from a nomadic goat-herding family to one of the world's most sought after supermodels and then to a United Nations Spokeswoman. Born into poverty in Somalia, Dirie at age 13 fled her impending forced marriage by walking days across the Northeast African desert to Somalia's capital where her relatives aided her escape by putting her on a plane to London. There, arose her fear of returning home this time to a war-torn Somalia when the Embassy she worked as a maid was shutting down. So Dirie, homeless and illiterate, takes a job at a fast-food restaurant where she is discovered one day by modeling, star photographer, Terry Donaldson. After her rise to fame, and ever burdened by a violent, childhood secret, she gave an interview in which she spoke of her female genital mutilation (FGM) at the age of five. Her openness unleashed a wave of sympathy and controversy in which she decided to dedicate her life fighting against and educating about this horrifying practice. Now a United Nations Spokeswoman against FGM, Waris Dirie travels the world to speak out against this brutal and often life-threatening practice, ensuring autonomy for young women and girls all over the world. Her books "Desert Flower," "Desert Dawn," "Desert Children" and "Letter To My Mother" became international bestsellers.

Limitless

Release Date: March 18, 2011 

Studio: Relativity Media 

Director: Neil Burger 

Screenwriter: Leslie Dixon 

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Abbie Cornish, Anna Friel, Tomas Arana 

Genre: Action, Thriller 

MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for thematic material involving a drug, violence including disturbing images, sexuality and language)

Plot Summary: Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro star in "Limitless," a paranoia-fueled action thriller about an unsuccessful writer whose life is transformed by a top-secret "smart drug" that allows him to use 100% of his brain and become a perfect version of himself. His enhanced abilities soon attract shadowy forces that threaten his new life in this suspenseful and provocative film. Aspiring author Eddie Morra (Cooper) is suffering from chronic writer's block, but his life changes instantly when an old friend introduces him to NZT, a revolutionary new pharmaceutical that allows him to tap his full potential. With every synapse crackling, Eddie can recall everything he has ever read, seen or heard, learn any language in a day, comprehend complex equations and beguile anyone he meets—as long as he keeps taking the untested drug. Soon Eddie takes Wall Street by storm, parlaying a small stake into millions. His accomplishments catch the eye of mega-mogul Carl Van Loon (De Niro), who invites him to help broker the largest merger in corporate history. But they also bring Eddie to the attention of people willing to do anything to get their hands on his stash of NZT. With his life in jeopardy and the drug’s brutal side effects taking their toll, Eddie dodges mysterious stalkers, a vicious gangster and an intense police investigation as he attempts to hang on to his dwindling supply long enough to outwit his enemies.

The Lincoln Lawyer

Release Date: March 18, 2011
Studio: Lionsgate
Director: Brad Furman
Screenwriter: John Romano
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei, Josh Lucas, John Leguizamo, Frances Fisher, Bob Gunton, Laurence Mason, Bryan Cranston, William H. Macy
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
MPAA Rating: R (for some violence, sexual content and language)

Plot Summary: In the gripping thriller "The Lincoln Lawyer," Matthew McConaughey stars as Michael "Mick" Haller, a slick, charismatic Los Angeles criminal defense attorney who operates out of the back of his Lincoln Continental sedan. Having spent most of his career defending petty, gutter-variety criminals, Mick unexpectedly lands the case of a lifetime: defending a rich Beverly Hills playboy (Ryan Phillippe) who is accused of attempted murder. However, what initially appears to be a straightforward case with a big money pay-off swiftly develops into a deadly match between two masters of manipulation and a crisis of conscience for Haller.

The Music Never Stopped

Release Date: March 18, 2011 (limited) 

Studio: Roadside Attractions

Director: Jim Kohlberg 

Screenwriter: Gwyn Lurie, Gary Marks 

Starring: J.K. Simmons, Lou Taylor Pucci, Cara Seymour, Julia Ormond 

Genre: Drama 

MPAA Rating: PG (for thematic elements, some mild drug references, language and smoking)

Plot Summary: "The Music Never Stopped," based on the case study "The Last Hippie" by Dr. Oliver Sacks, M.D. ("Awakenings"), chronicles the journey of a father and son adjusting to cerebral trauma and a lifetime of missed opportunities. Through the music that embodied the generation gap of the 1960s, and working with music therapist Dianne Daly (Ormond), the film weaves the heartwarming progress of Henry (Simmons) and Gabriel (Pucci). 

Nostalgia For The Light

Release Date: March 18, 2011 (NY)
Studio: Icarus Films
Director: Patricio Guzmán
Screenwriter: Not Available
Starring: Not Available
Genre: Documentary
MPAA Rating: Not Available 

Plot Summary: For his new film master director Patricio Guzman, famed for his political documentaries ("The Battle of Chile," "The Pinochet Case"), travels 10,000 feet above sea level to the driest place on earth, the Atacama Desert, where atop the mountains astronomers from all over the world gather to observe the stars. The sky is so translucent that it allows them to see right to the boundaries of the universe. The Atacama is also a place where the harsh heat of the sun keeps human remains intact: those of Pre-Columbian mummies; 19th century explorers and miners; and the remains of political prisoners, "disappeared" by the Chilean army after the military coup of September, 1973. So while astronomers examine the most distant and oldest galaxies, at the foot of the mountains, women, surviving relatives of the disappeared whose bodies were dumped here, search, even after twenty-five years, for the remains of their loved ones, to reclaim their families' histories. Melding the celestial quest of the astronomers and the earthly one of the women, "Nostalgia for the Light" is a gorgeous, moving, and deeply personal odyssey. 

Paul

Release Date: March 18, 2011 

Studio: Universal Pictures 

Director: Greg Mottola 

Screenwriter: Nick Frost, Simon Pegg

Starring: Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Jane Lynch, Sigourney Weaver, Joe Lo Truglio, David Koechner, Blythe Danner, John Carroll Lynch 

Genre: Adventure, Comedy 

MPAA Rating: R (for language including sexual references, and some drug use)

Plot Summary: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost ("Hot Fuzz," "Shaun of the Dead") reunite for the comedy adventure "Paul" as two sci-fi geeks whose pilgrimage takes them to America's UFO heartland. While there, they accidentally meet an alien who brings them on an insane road trip that alters their universe forever. For the past 60 years, an alien named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen) has been hanging out at a top-secret military base. For reasons unknown, the space-traveling smart ass decides to escape the compound and hop on the first vehicle out of town -- a rented RV containing Earthlings Graeme Willy (Pegg) and Clive Collings (Frost). Chased by federal agents and the fanatical father of a young woman that they accidentally kidnap, Graeme and Clive hatch a fumbling escape plan to return Paul to his mother ship. And as two nerds struggle to help, one little green man might just take his fellow outcasts from misfits to intergalactic heroes.

Tornado Alley

Release Date: March 18, 2011 (limited)
Studio: Giant Screen Films
Director: Sean Casey
Screenwriter: Mose Richards
Starring: Not Available
Genre: Documentary
MPAA Rating: Not Available

Plot Summary: Join Storm Chasers star Sean Casey and the researchers of VORTEX 2, the most ambitious effort ever made to understand the origins and evolution of tornadoes, on this heart-pounding science adventure. Armed with a 70mm camera, a fleet of customized vehicles designed to withstand gale force winds, torrential rains and unrelenting hail, and an arsenal of the most advanced weather measurement instruments ever created, the stars of Tornado Alley take audiences on a thrilling quest to experience a tornado's destructive power at point blank range. Experience the adrenaline and the science of nature's most dramatic phenomena! Traversing the "severe weather capital of the world," Tornado Alley documents two unprecedented missions seeking to encounter one of Earth's most awe-inspiring events--the birth of a tornado. Filmmaker Sean Casey's personal quest to capture the birth of a tornado with a 70mm camera takes viewers on a breathtaking journey into the heart of the storm. A team of equally driven scientists, the VORTEX2 researchers, experience the relentless strength of nature's elemental forces as they literally surround tornadoes and the supercell storms that form them, gathering the most comprehensive severe weather data ever collected. This science adventure reveals the beauty and the power of some of our planet's most extreme--and least understood--weather phenomena.

Win Win

Release Date: March 18, 2011 (limited) 

Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures 

Director: Thomas McCarthy

Screenwriter: Thomas McCarthy 

Starring: Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Melanie Lynskey, Bobby Cannavale, Jeffrey Tambor, Alex Shaffer 

Genre: Drama 

MPAA Rating: R (for language)

Plot Summary: Tom McCarthy, acclaimed writer/director of "The Visitor" and "The Station Agent," explores the allegiances and bonds between unlikely characters with a lighter touch in his new film. Struggling attorney Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti), who moonlights as a high school wrestling coach, becomes legal guardian of an elderly client in an attempt to help keep his practice afloat. When the client's teenage grandson runs away from home and shows up on his grandfather's doorstep, Mike's family life and his wrestling team are turned upside down. Mike's win-win proposition turns into something much more complicated than he ever bargained for. McCarthy's deft touch balancing drama and comedy, broken hearts and poignant humanity is at play in "Win Win."

Winter In Wartime

Release Date: March 18, 2011 (NY, LA)
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Director: Martin Koolhoven
Screenwriter: Mieke de Jong, Martin Koolhoven
Starring: Martijn Lakemeier, Yorick van Wageningen, Jamie Campbell Bower, Raymond Thiry, Melody Klaver, Anneke Blok, Mees Peijnenburg, Jesse van Driel, Dan van Husen, Ad van Kempen, Tygo Gernandt
Genre: Drama, War
MPAA Rating: R (for some language)

Plot Summary: Near the end of World War II, 14-year-old Michiel becomes involved with the Resistance after coming to the aid of a wounded British soldier. With the conflict coming to an end, Michiel comes of age and learns of the stark difference between adventure fantasy and the ugly realities of war.