ABCs at the Movies: The Doubles Round!

[oilgun]

Synopsis:   H.M.S. Avenger is headed into battle against the French fleet during the Napoleonic Wars, and the dark shadow of two recent mutinies in the English fleet concern Captain Vere. He relies on his cruel and often sadistic Master-at-Arms John Claggert to maintain what he believes to be tenuous order and discipline aboard the ship. When a new seaman, Billy Budd, is pressed into service from a passing merchantman, his innocent, happy-go-lucky attitude quickly endears him to both his messmates as well as the ship's officers. However, his charismatic naivete seems to bother Claggert, whose perverse depravity makes him resent Billy's good-natured purity, especially after the teenager's promotion to fore-top captain. The mean-spirited Claggert unfairly plots to put him on report and ultimately perjures himself when he accuses Billy of conspiring to mutiny.

I heard that rubbing it brings good luck!

[Fran]

From IMDb:  When a broken-hearted boy loses the treasured wooden Nativity set that links him to his dead father, his worried mother persuades a lonely ill-tempered woodcarver to create a replacement and to allow her son to watch him work on it. The commission takes their relationship to unexpected places as the young client makes greater and more difficult demands of the woodcarver's ability, and as Christmas approaches, the three struggle to come to terms with each other, their painful memories, and the process of putting their unhappiness behind them.

[southendmd]

[memento]

IMDB: Maggie Foley (Ellen Barkin) is a reporter who's interviewing the surviving members of a band who's music is being revived. Memories of the band's leader Eddie Wilson (Michael Pare) are being relived as Frank Ridgeway (Tom Berenger) is reunited with the old members of the band. As the memories are relived on the screen, it becomes clear that someone is looking for the lost unpublished tapes of the band's final recording and that someone might be Eddie!

[oilgun]

Synopsis:  The title characters are children in the exuberant and colorful Ekdahl household in a Swedish town early in the twentieth century. Their parents, Oscar and Emilie, are the director and the leading lady of the local theatre company. Oscar's mother and brother are its chief patrons. After Oscar's early death, his widow marries the bishop and moves with her children to his austere and forbidding chancery. The children are immediately miserable. The film dramatizes and resolves those conflicts. A sub-plot features Isak, a local Jewish merchant who is the grandmother's lover and whose odd household becomes the children's refuge.

[southendmd]

Plot (from Human Rights Watch): 
Born George Beyer, one-time prostitute turned politician Georgina Beyer was elected to New Zealand's Parliament in 1999, becoming the world's first transsexual to hold a national office. Amazingly, a mostly white -and naturally conservative - rural constituency voted this former sex worker of Maori heritage into office. Chronicling Georgina's transformations from farm boy to celebrated cabaret diva to grassroots community leader, the documentary couples interviews and sensual images of Beyer's nightclub and film performances with footage from a day in the life of the Minister of Parliament. The film presents a remarkable account of Beyer's precedent-setting accomplishment, revealing her intelligence, charisma, and humor.

[Fran]

From IMDb:  Harold Lee and Kumar Patel are two stoners who end up getting the munchies. What they crave the most after seeing a TV advertisement is a trip to White Castle. So from here follows a journey for the burgers they require.

[memento]

IMDB: A couple, Irvin and Ida, get ready for a night at the opera. Their clothes are elegant, their conversation oddly stilted. Where do they actually go? On other nights, they celebrate Halloween - she as Marilyn Monroe, he as Elvis - and Thanksgiving. Sometimes they argue, sometimes they sit companionably. What is the nature of their relationship? Irvin thinks a lot about his mother; Ida remembers her father with longing. Ida talks of leaving. Irvin's memories take on qualities of hallucination. Can either break free?

[southendmd]

Plot:  A young American woman becomes a nanny in the home of a recent British widower.

=aside= Players
I'm off to Don Wroe's for a few days.  See you soon.

[Fran]

From IMDb:  "I was nobody until I killed the biggest somebody on earth." The words of Mark David Chapman perfectly sum up this Andrew Piddington biopic of the estranged murderer of John Lennon. Not only does the film track Chapman's movements in the months leading up to the fateful event, but it also follows what happened to the killer from the moment he shot the infamous Beatle, right through to his committal into a psychiatric hospital. The unknown Jonas Ball's portrayal of Chapman is splendidly subtle and disturbing, and combined with the artful and experimental direction of Piddington, "The Killing of John Lennon" makes for an aesthetically pleasing, yet chilling, examination into the mind of a killer who just wanted to be famous.

=aside= Paul
God bless Don Wroe.
Have fun.