Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The Lost Pyramids Of Caral (BBC)

The magnificent ancient city of pyramids at Caral in Peru hit the headlines in 2001. The site is a thousand years older than the earliest known civilisation in the Americas and, at 2,627 BC, is as old as the pyramids of Egypt. Many now believe it is the fabled missing link of archaeology - a 'mother city'. If so, then these extraordinary findings could finally answer one of the great questions of archaeology: why did humans become civilised?
The mother of all cities.
For over a century, archaeologists have been searching for what they call a mother city. Civilisation began in only six areas of the world: Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, Peru and Central America. In each of these regions people moved from small family units to build cities of thousands of people. They crossed the historic divide, one of the great moments in human history. Why? To find the answer archaeologists needed to find a mother city - the first stage of city-building.
Civilisation through conflict.
They couldn't find one anywhere. Everywhere this first stage seemed destroyed or built over. And so, instead, scientists developed a number of theories. Some said it was because of the development of trade, others that it was irrigation. Some even today believe it was all because of aliens. Gradually an uneasy consensus emerged. The key force common to all civilisations was warfare.
The theory was that only the fear of war could motivate people to give up the simple life and form complex societies. To prove it, archaeologists still had to find a city from that very first stage of civilisation. If it showed signs of warfare, then the theory had to be true.
When archaeologist Ruth Shady discovered her 5,000 year old city of pyramids in the Peruvian desert, all eyes were on the New World. Ruth's extraordinary city, known as Caral, is so much older than anything else in South America that it is a clear candidate to be the mother city. It also is in pristine condition. Nothing has been built on it at all. Instead laid out before the world is an elaborate complex of pyramids, temples, an amphitheatre and ordinary houses.
Make love not war.
Crucially, there is not the faintest trace of warfare at Caral; no battlements, no weapons, no mutilated bodies. Instead, Ruth's findings suggest it was a gentle society, built on commerce and pleasure. In one of the pyramids they uncovered beautiful flutes made from condor and pelican bones. They have also found evidence of a culture that took drugs and perhaps aphrodisiacs. Most stunning of all, they have found the remains of a baby, lovingly wrapped and buried with a precious necklace made of stone beads. [wikipedia]


Superbad (2007)

Seth and Evan are best friends, inseparable, navigating the last weeks of high school. Usually shunned by the popular kids, Seth and Evan luck into an invitation to a party, and spend a long day, with the help of their nerdy friend Fogell, trying to score enough alcohol to lubricate the party and inebriate two girls, Jules and Becca, so they can kick-start their sex lives and go off to college with a summer full of experience and new skills. Their quest is complicated by Fogell's falling in with two inept cops who both slow and assist the plan. If they do get the liquor to the party, what then? Is sex the only rite of passage at hand? [imdb]


Balls of Fury (2007)

In the unsanctioned, underground, and unhinged world of extreme Ping-Pong, the competition is brutal and the stakes are deadly. Down-and-out former professional Ping-Pong phenom Randy Daytona is sucked into this maelstrom when FBI Agent Rodriguez recruits him for a secret mission. Randy is determined to bounce back and recapture his former glory, and to smoke out his father's killer - one of the FBI's Most Wanted, arch-fiend Feng. But, after two decades out of the game, Randy can't turn his life around and avenge his father's murder without a team of his own. He calls upon the spiritual guidance of blind Ping-Pong sage and restaurateur Wong, and the training expertise of Master Wong's wildly sexy niece Maggie, both of whom also have a dark history with Feng. All roads lead to Feng's mysterious jungle compound and the most unique Ping-Pong tournaments ever staged. There, Randy faces such formidable players as his long-ago Olympics opponent, the still-vicious Karl Wolfschtagg. Can Randy keep his eye on the ball? Will he achieve the redemption he craves while wielding a paddle? Is his backhand strong enough to triumph over rampant wickedness? [imdb]




ALTERNATE SOURCE



Martian Child (2007)

What's the nature of being a parent and of being a child? David is a widower grieving for two years. He writes science fiction and was considered weird as a boy. He meets Dennis, a foster child who claims to be on a mission from Mars, stays in a large box all day, fears sunlight, and wears a belt of flashlight batteries so he won't float away. David takes the six-year-old home on a trial. His sister and his wife's best friend offer support, but the guys are basically alone to figure this out. Dennis takes things, is expelled, and is coached by David in being normal. Will the court approve the adoption, and will Dennis stay? Can a man become a father and a child become a son? [imdb]


The Mist (2007)

Everyone thought of it as a harmless lightning storm. When Dave Drayton notices a strange mist on the lake, he thinks nothing of it. When his son, Billy Drayton, his neighbor Brent Norton, and himself travel to the supermarket, the unthinkable happens. On their way to the market, they see the army, the firefighters, and the police, heading toward the mist. When he sees this Brent mentions something about "Project Arrowhead", a secret military plan that no one knows about. As they are shopping, they see three army men walk in, just to pick up a few things then head toward the mist. All eighty of the store's shoppers had no clue what was going on until an old man runs in the market with a bloody nose and declares "Something in the mist!" He tells them to close the door. About five seconds after they do close the door, the entire store shakes, as though it was lifted feet above the ground. When David is asked to check on the generator, the loading dock door was being pushed by something outside. Then there was a groan heard by Dave. He asks three people to come with him. When Norm the bag-boy volunteers to go out, he is taken by a creature with large squid-like tentacles that have mouths, teeth, and arms of their own. When Dave and the other three fight it off, they alarm everyone in the store what is out there. After hearing this, Mrs. Carmody exclaims that it is the end of times and that God is punishing them. People don't believe it until Mrs. Carmody has almost everyone in the store on her side. Does 'Project Arrowhead' have anything to do with this? Will Dave Drayton, his son, and his friends make it out alive as they make their last stand against this destruction? Or will they be taken by the demon-like creatures of 'The Mist'? [imdb]


Press here to watch this movie in full screen mode.

...And Justice for All. (1979)

Arthur Kirkland, an idealistic defense attorney in Baltimore, cares about his clients and visits his aging grandfather, who put him through law school, every week. Things aren't going well for Arthur: two of his clients are increasingly desperate, neither should be in prison, his partner is behaving bizarrely, he's begun an affair with an attorney who's on the bar's disciplinary committee, his favorite judge may have a death wish, and then, the judge he dislikes most, a by-the-book martinet, demands that Arthur defend him when he's accused of a brutal assault on a young women. Is there any way to expose real corruption and find justice for all? [imdb]


Tideland (2005)

From the world's most visionary contemporary filmmaker comes the unforgettable tale of one extraordinary little girl. Poetic, darkly funny, and infused with amazing performances and beautiful photography this unique and incredible film is director Terry Gilliam at his very best. Enter the magical world of Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland), an unusual child with an even more unusual story. Hers is a world where squirrels talk, where fireflies have names, and where the heads of dolls, long since separated from their bodies, are her closest friends. After the sudden death of her junkie mother (Jennifer Tilly), Jeliza embarks on a strange journey with her father (Jeff Bridges), a rock-and-roll musician well past his prime, who quickly over-doses and leaves Jeliza only having her own imagination, the crazy bee lady, and the neighborly mentally handicapped boy to look after her. But this journey offers little for Jeliza by way of consolation and as the vast loneliness of her new existence grows she falls deeper and deeper into the twisted world of fantasy that she has created in her mind. Leaving you exhausted at the amazingness and power behind the story you just wore told. [imdb]


In the Mix (2005)

A successful DJ named Darrel (Usher), managed to rescue a powerful mobster one night. In order to repay Darrell, the mobster, Frank Pacelli, gives him the task of protecting his daughter, Dolly (Chriqui). [imdb]


Hard Core Logo (1996)

A psuedo-rockumentary along the lines of 'This is Spinal Tap', we follow director Bruce Macdonald as he follows punk bank Hard Core Logo on a harrowing last-gasp reunion tour throughout Western Canada. As magnetic lead-singer Joe Dick holds the whole magilla together through sheer force of will, all the tensions and pitfalls of life on the road come bubbling hilariously to the surface. [imdb]


Horton Hears a Who! (2008)

One day, Horton the elephant hears a cry from help coming from a speck of dust. Even though he can't see anyone on the speck, he decides to help it. As it turns out, the speck of dust is home to the Whos, who live in their city of Whoville. Horton agrees to help protect the Whos and their home, but this gives him nothing but torment from his neighbors, who refuse to believe that anything could survive on the speck. Still, Horton stands by the motto that, "After all, a person is a person, no matter how small." [imdb]


Old School (2003)

Mitch, Frank and Beanie are disillusioned with their personal lives begining when Mitch's nymphomanic girlfriend, Heidi, cheats on him, then former party animal Frank gets married, but unwilling to get go of his wild life, and Beanie is a family man seeking to reclaim his wild and crazy youth. Beanie suggests that they form their own fraternity in Mitch's new house on a college campus to re-live their glory days by bringing together a variety of misfit college students, losers, middle-aged and elderly retirees as their new friends and later try to avoid being evicted by the new Dean of Students, Pritchard, whom still holds a personal grudge against all three of them. [imdb]


The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)

Prequal to the 2003 version of 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' is set in 1969, the height of the Vietnam War. Two young men are spending a last weekend with their girlfriends before being shipped overseas to the war. At the same time in a small Texas town, the only major business (a meat-packing plant and slaughterhouse) goes out of business forcing the town's inhabitants to move on to greener pastures. One of the men who works in the plant is Thomas Hewitt, a deformed, demented psychopath (who will become known as Leatherface). When Hewitt finds out what is happening, he savagely murders the foreman of the plant. Meanwhile, the two young men and their girlfriends are headed down a lonely highway towards the town when they are involved in an car accident that cripples their vehicle. Soon they encounter the local sheriff, who is not really the sheriff, but the homicidal Charlie Hewitt, the uncle of Leatherface who has murdered the sheriff and taken his job and police car knowing that with the town deserted, no one will notice. Uncle Charlie/Sheriff Hoyt kidnaps three of the teens and takes them to his home where he, Leatherface Hewitt, the senile Uncle Monty, and Charlie's sister, Luda Mae, reside. Charlie wants the developing monster 'Leatherface' to "refine" his murderous abilities. The one girl, Chrissie, who escaped unnoticed attempts to rescue them with the help of a biker whose girlfriend was killed by 'Sheriff Hoyt'. What follows is a night of sheer terror at the hands of a family of cannibalistic, inbred psychopaths... [imdb]


Transformers (2007)

When teenager Sam Witwicky buys his first car, what he doesn't know, is that it's actually an alien robot. This isn't the only alien to arrive on Earth. Optimus Prime and a fellow group of transforming robots have arrived in search of the AllSpark. But, Optimus Prime and his Autobots aren't the only aliens to appear. Megatron and the Decepticons are also searching for the AllSpark, and it would do anything to get it, even if it means destroying the city. [imdb]


Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Riddles of the Dead: Einstein's Genius (National Geographic)

Albert Einstein's brain has often been a subject of research and speculation. Einstein's brain was removed within seven hours of his death. The brain has attracted attention because of Einstein's reputation for being one of the foremost geniuses of the 20th century, and apparent regularities or irregularities in the brain have been used to support various ideas about correlations in neuroanatomy with general or mathematical intelligence. Scientific studies have suggested that regions involved in speech and language are smaller, while regions involved with numerical and spatial processing are larger. Other studies have suggested an increased number of glial cells in Einstein's brain. [wikipedia]


Cryonics: Death in the deep freeze (CH5)

The one-hour documentary shows the American woman's "emotional journey" - illustrated by interviews with her and her husband - to eventual cryonic preservation. It will show for the first time the "shocking and compelling invasive procedure used to freeze her", which has been performed only on around 150 people. [wikipedia]


The Doomsday Code (CH4)

Tony Robinson travels to America, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Africa to gather evidence that might uncover the realities behind the prophecies contained within the Book of Revelation. He interviews people who believe millions will be spirited up to Heaven, Israel will fight a nuclear war, that the Secretary General of the UN will be unmasked as the Anti-Christ and the world will end after the Battle of Armageddon. [wikipedia]


The Invisible World (National Geographic)

Each moment, events take place that the human eye cannot perceive because these occurrences are too small, too large, too fast, too slow or beyond the spectrum of visible light. Witness some of the captivating sights that will forever alter your knowledge and perception of the world around us. This 1979 classic video shows us that 'hidden' world. Different sizes, different spectrums, and even different rates of speed can illuminate the underlying processes that are beyond the limits of our eyes. [wikipedia] [imdb]


Naked Science : Telepathy (National Geographic)

The supposed ability of some individuals to mentally transmit and receive thoughts is examined in this hour. Unsubstantiated claims are not proof, so several experiments are conducted to put the phenomenon to the test. This includes exploring the telepathic connection that some twins claim to experience through a series of tests on one twin and recording the other twin's reaction, and a Ganzfeld test where a person in one room attempts to transmit mental pictures to another person in a different room. [wikipedia]


The Attic (2008)

Emma doesn't like the new her family has moved into, especially the attic. Since moving in the house, the whole family is unsettled, Emma becoming reclusive. One day Emma is in the attic alone and is attacked by what appears to be her identical twin. Emma sets out to find out the riddle set before her. [imdb]

In the Valley of Elah (2007)

In Monroe, Texas, Hank Deerfield, an aging warrior, gets a call that his son, just back from 18 months fighting in Iraq, is missing from his base. Hank drives to Fort Rudd, New Mexico, to search. Within a day, the charred and dismembered body of his son is found on the outskirts of town. Deerfield pushes himself into the investigation, marked by jurisdictional antagonism between the Army and local police. Working mostly with a new detective, Emily Sanders, Hank seems to close in on what happened. Major smuggling? A drug deal gone awry? Credit card slips, some photographs, and video clips from Iraq may hold the key. If Hank gets to the truth, what will it tell him? [imdb]

Mad Money (2008)

Bridget Cardigan (Diane Keaton) is shocked to learn that she is on the verge of losing her home and comfortable upper middle class lifestyle when her husband Don (Ted Danson) is downsized from his job of 30 years. Don has been looking for a job for a whole year with no luck. Armed only with a decades old English Lit degree and years as a dedicated mother and corporate wife, Bridget is forced into the unfamiliar labor market with no job skills. Finally, she takes the only position she can find as a janitor at the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City.
The one-time suburban mom soon discovers she has more in common with her new co-workers than she thought. Bridget forges an unexpected bond with Nina (Queen Latifah), a hard-working single mom with two kids to raise who shreds old money all day, and Jackie (Katie Holmes), an exuberant free spirit with nothing to lose who moves the old money cart. Every day the bank shreds over a million dollars. Caught up in a system that underestimates their talents and keeps their dreams just out of reach, Bridget, Nina and Jackie set out to even the score.
After a lifetime of playing by the rules, the three join forces and devise a plan to smuggle soon-to-be destroyed currency out of the supposedly airtight Federal Reserve. As the unlikely crime syndicate amasses piles of cash, it looks like they have pulled off the perfect crime until a minor misstep alerts the authorities. With more money than they know what to do with, the women are pushed to the limits of their ingenuity to stay one step ahead of the law! [imdb]

Harm's Way (2007)

A woman and her daughter escape an abusive home and end up in a remotewomen's shelter. When the seemingly compassionate owner of the shelter befriends the little girl, she begins to turn against her mother. [imdb]

Who's Your Caddy? (2007)

When a rap mogul from Atlanta tries to join a conservative country club in the Carolinas he runs into fierce opposition from the board President- but it's nothing that he and his entourage can't handle. [imdb]

Crazy Eights (2006)

Six friends reunite after 20 years at a mutual childhood friend's funeral. A search through their deceased friend's house reveals a map to a trunk. The map spurs the friends to find it and dig it up. After uncovering the trunk, the unexpected is found ... the rotted remains of a child. A child from a past they've long forgotten, a child that begins to haunt their every waking moment and makes them question who they really are. The closer they come to remembering the circumstances of the mysterious child's death, the closer they come to their own reckoning. [imdb]

Trainwreck: My Life as an Idoit (2007)

A dramatic comedy about a self-induced attention-deficit disordered, learning disabled, Tourette's syndrome suffering, balance impaired, ex-alcoholic young man from the Upper East Side of Manhattan and the gold-digging girl who inspires him to try to get it together. [imdb]

Prism (2007)

When a young autistic boy witnesses the brutal murder of his parents and falls into a mysterious catatonic state a lovely young psychologist takes on the challenge of helping him. But her solitary quest for answers gets more peculiar and unnerving at each turn, leading her in a direction which tests her professionalism, relationships, and her very hold on reality. [imdb]

Solstice (2008)

A young girl uncovers a disturbing secret about her twin sister, who committed suicide just a few months before. [imdb]

Fear House (2008)

Friends and family pursue an estranged writer to an isolated house only to find that, once they've entered, their own fears will kill them if they leave. [imdb]

Surf's Up (2007)

This story follows a teenage rock hopper penguin named Cody Maverick from his hometown of Shiverpool, Antarctica, where all of the other penguins think he's nothing but a surfing fool, to the "Big Z Memorial Surf Off" on Pen Gu Island. Young Cody is determined to win the most important competition in the world of penguin surfing in honor of "Big Z," a deceased surfing legend whom he has idolized since childhood. But the waves in Pen Gu are different than in Shiverpool, and the competition is steep. The current champ, egotistical Tank Evans, isn't just about to let this little penguin knock him from first place without a fight. When Cody wipes out and encounters Geek, a recluse aging former surfer, living in the jungle, he learns some important lessons about life and surfing, and even teaches Geek a thing or two. [imdb]

The Savages (2007)

Jon and Wendy Savage are two siblings who have spent their adult years trying to recover from the abuse of their abusive father, Lenny Savage. Suddenly, a call comes in that his girlfriend has died, he cannot care for himself with his dementia and her family is dumping him on his children. Despite the fact Jon and Wendy have not spoken to Lenny for twenty years and he is even more loathsome than ever, the Savage siblings feel obliged to take care of him. Now together, brother and sister must come to terms with the new and painful responsibilities with their father now affecting their lives even as they struggle with their own personal demons Lenny helped create. [imdb]

Teeth (2007)

Still a stranger to her own body, a high school student discovers she has a physical advantage when she becomes the object of male violence. [imdb]

Doomsday (2008)

A lethal virus spreads throughout the British isles,infecting millions and killing hundreds of thousands. To contain the threat, acting authorities brutally quarantine the country as it succumbs to fear and chaos. The quarantine is successful. Three decades later, the Reaper virus violently resurfaces in a major city. An elite group of specialists, including Eden Sinclair, is urgently dispatched into the still-quarantined country to retrieve a cure by any means necessary. Shut off from the rest of the world, the unit must battle through a landscape that has become a waking nightmare. [imdb]






ALTERNATE SOURCE


First Blood (1982)

Ex-Green Beret John Rambo wanders up north in search of a friend. Rambo was awarded with the medal of honor for his service in Vietnam but has not found solace in the States thereafter. And he certainly does escape prejudice when a small town's tough, idealistic sheriff spots him entering. The sheriff believes Rambo would be something of a light disturbance to the town and tries to keep him out. When Rambo rebels and then escapes into the cold misty forests, the force embarks on a massive manhunt to subdue him flanked by his former superior officer Colonel Trautman who knows the odds and ends of Rambo's cunning. [imdb]

Monday, April 28, 2008

The Up in Smoke Tour (2000)

Dr Dre, Eminem, Ice Cube, Xzibit, Nate Dogg, Warren G. and Snoop Dogg shows the way and how the perfect Concert should be! The tour was originally dubbed the Chronic 2000 Tour, under the pretext of Dr. Dre's album initially expected to be titled The Chronic 2000, with Snoop Dogg stating "Yeah, me, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Xzibit, Warren G, and Nate Dogg," in September, 1999. By April, 2000, Ice Cube was onboard as part of the tour, which was slated for a June 15 in San Diego. MC Ren, one time MC of N.W.A, was expected to join the tour in order to have reunited version of N.W.A, along with Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and Snoop Dogg. By May, the tour officially became known as the Up In Smoke Tour[ and Dr. Dre also stated "It's gonna be incredible. We're gonna give everybody that's been buying our records a real show, something they've never seen before." By June, the month that the tour begins to kick off, plans were finalised with Kurupt joining the tour. It was decided that he would start the opening set, which would be followed by Warren G and Xzibit, then Ice Cube would take the third spot whilst Eminem would take the fourth set. Dr. Dre would be the final set, with collaborations including Snoop Dogg and the N.W.A reunion taking place during this segment. Also, surprise guests were promised during various shows. [imdb]



Sunday, April 27, 2008

Savage Grace (2007)

The true story of the beautiful and charismatic Barbara Daly, who married above her class to Brooks Baekeland, heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune. Their only child is a failure in his father's eyes, and as he matures and becomes increasingly close to his lonely mother, the seeds for tragedy are sown. [imdb]

Charlie Bartlett (2007)

Wealthy teenager Charlie Bartlett is failing miserably at fitting in at a new public high school run by the world-weary Principal Gardner. As he begins to better understand the social hierarchy, Charlie's honest charm and likability positions him as the resident "psychiatrist" dishing out advice, and the occasional prescription with his partner and fellow student, Murphy Bivens, to other students in need. Along the way, he decides to take some of his own advice, find romance, and learn to accept who he is, thus wielding a witty dark comedy about the angst-filled years before college. [imdb]


Joe the King (1999)

A destitute 14 year old (Noah Fleiss) struggles to keep his life together despite harsh abuse at his mother's (Karen Young) hands, harsher abuse at his father's (Val Kilmer), and a growing separation from his slightly older brother (Max Ligosh). Petty thefts for food grow into more major takes until he steals a cash box from the diner where he works. Although Joe uses the money to pay off some of his father's debts and to replace his mother's records that his father smashed in a fit of temper, Joe gets no thanks... [imdb]

The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)

In 1896, a construction engineer from the British Army, J.H. Patterson (Kilmer) is sent to build a railway bridge across Uganda's Tsavo River for the British East African Railway. Soon after he arrives, workmen begin to disappear at night from their tents - never to be seen alive again. The engineer soon discovers that a pair of man-eating lions are stalking around the bridge and campsites, killing the workmen for food. He tries a number of different methods to get rid of them, but the beasts always seem to know what Patterson is doing and avoid being shot. After 30 men have been killed Patterson's boss recruits a hunter, Charles Remington (Douglas) to hunt down and destroy the lions. But the lions continue killing the workmen until they flee the camps, jumping onto the train as it rolls through Tsavo. Now Remington, Patterson & his aide (John Kani) must face these brilliant yet frightening monsters alone. [imdb]

One Missed Call (2008)

In this remake of the Japanese horror film "Chakushin Ari" (2003), several people start receiving voice-mails from their future selves - messages which include the date, time, and some of the details of their deaths. [imdb]


Because I Said So (2007)

Daphne Wilder is a mother whose love knows no bounds or boundaries. She is the proud mom of three daughters: stable psychologist Maggie, sexy and irreverent Mae and insecure, adorable Milly - who, when it comes to men, is like psychotic flypaper. In order to prevent her youngest from making the same mistakes she did, Daphne decides to set Milly up with the perfect man. Little does Milly know, however, that her mom placed an ad in the on-line personals to find him. Comic mayhem unfolds as Daphne continues to do the wrong thing for the right reasons...all in the name of love. In a battle of strong wills, the mother-daughter dynamic is tested in all its fierce, wacky complexity. The girls help Daphne finally discover the truths and impossibilities of motherly love, all while trying to answer the questions: where does it begin and where should it end? [imdb]

The Hottie and the Nottie (2008)

Nate moves to L.A. to track down Cristabel, the woman he's been in love with since childhood, only to discover that his plan to woo her only has one hurdle to overcome: what to do with June, Cristabel's ever-present, not-so-hot best friend? What's even more complicating is Nate's growing feelings for June, whose true beauty starts to emerge. [imdb]