Possession has been a lifelong preoccupation for William Friedkin. He’s addressed it head-on as both fiction and fact, but Bug sees him take a more oblique route. Here’s the story of a man so thoroughly possessed by paranoia that his delusions are contagious. One demon leaves one body to enter another, but an obsession is Legion. Every Michael Shannon performance is arguably his best, but this is a film tailor-made for his fascinating idiosyncrasies. Aphid and spastic, his body language stops short of actually turning into a freaking insect. Ashley Judd, however, has a more challenging role, because not only does she have to sell the transition from sane to crazy, but then she has to catch up with Shannon, go toe-to-toe with him, match his manic intensity — and I’ll be damned if she doesn’t; Judd digs deep and reaches a place of utter darkness and desperation. She stares right into the abyss and doesn’t flinch. Everybody is in point, though; Friedkin and screenwriter Tracy Letts, pull off the rare double-turn (to use wrestling terminology). Harry Connick Jr., who plays Judd’s character’s abusive ex, is all brawn and no brains, while Shannon starts out helpless and meek (his patented, infallible calm-before-the-storm routine); we begin to dread the seemingly inevitable moment when Connick beats Shannon within an inch of his life, only to end up wishing that the former would slap some sense into the latter. The only problem with this film is that it builds so much momentum it just can’t help crashing and burning. It’s so climactic that it actually becomes anticlimactic. There’s no resolution, no catharsis. For all its shock and awe, The Exorcist allows itself a hopeful, optimistic coda; Bug lacks such an escape valve. This time, the Devil wins.
After a deadly and striking confrontation, a boy is sure he is being haunted and attacked by a dead former friend.
Five different criminals face imminent death after botching a job quite badly.
The story of an old Jewish widow named Daisy Werthan and her relationship with her black chauffeur, Hoke. From an initial mere work relationship grew in 25 years a strong friendship between the two very different characters, in a time when those types of relationships were shunned.
Gabriel, Bobby and Costa are old friends from Altona, a multicultural hood in Hamburg. Just out of prison, Gabriel wants to turn his back on crime, but the others continue to operate as petty criminals. Friendships are tested as the trio navigate a dark world of mafia bosses and deals gone wrong.
When you read the title ‘Summer on the Balcony’ you probably think it will be a light Berlin summer comedy but it’s not. This film is an intimate study of two women friends who come to each other because of troubles with everyday life and with men and thus try to enjoy a life based on their ideas.
From the youth directed novel of the same name by Greogor Tressnow comes a film by Detlev Buck that is a realistic portrait of life in the section of Berlin called Neukölln. It’s about power and weakness, delinquents and victims, and the difficulties a 15-year-old faces in a poor and criminal environment.
Matti and Niila, growing up in the mid-sixties in the harsh and conservative environment of a Finnish-speaking part of Tornedalen in Swedish Laponia, close to the Finnish border. Their big dream is to become rock stars. In the present the now grown-up Matti feels guilt for the death of his drug-addicted rock star friend Niila.
George, host of a television show focusing on literature, receives videos shot on the sly that feature his family, along with disturbing drawings that are difficult to interpret. He has no idea who has made and sent him the videos. Progressively, the contents of the videos become more personal, indicating that the sender has known George for a long time.
Brilliant mathematician, John Nash, is on the brink of international acclaim when he becomes entangled in a mysterious conspiracy.
In director Baz Luhrmann's contemporary take on William Shakespeare's classic tragedy, the Montagues and Capulets have moved their ongoing feud to the sweltering suburb of Verona Beach, where Romeo and Juliet fall in love and secretly wed. Though the film is visually modern, the bard's dialogue remains.
In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henry IV," Mike Waters is a hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike's estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.