FARGO

USA, 1996
Genre: Crime

Director: Joel Cohen
Producers: Ethan & Joel Cohen
Writers: Joel & Ethan Cohen
Cast: William H. Macy, Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, Harve Presnell
Budget: $7M

Plot Summary:
Jerry works in his father-in-law's car dealership and has gotten himself in financial problems. He tries various schemes to come up with money needed for a reason that is never really explained. It has to be assumed that his huge embezzlement of money from the dealership is about to be discovered by father-in-law. When all else falls through, plans he set in motion earlier for two men to kidnap his wife for ransom to be paid by her wealthy father (who doesn't seem to have the time of day for son-in-law). From the moment of the kidnapping, things go wrong and what was supposed to be a non-violent affair turns bloody with more blood added by the minute. Jerry is upset at the bloodshed, which turns loose a pregnant sheriff from Brainerd, MN who is tenacious in attempting to solve the three murders in her jurisdiction.

DETOUR

USA, 1945
Genre: Crime

Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
Producers: Leon Fromkess
Writer: Martin Goldsmith
Cast: Tom Neal, Ann Savage
Budget: $30K

Plot Summary:
After his girlfriend Sue has left for the West Coast, Al Roberts decides to join her and starts a journey hitchhiking westwards. When he finds a driver who'd given him a lift dead, he decides to get rid of the body and take the man's identity, fearing he'd be accused of murder if he would go to the police. However, Vera, a hitchhiking girl Al picks up, sees through him and starts blackmailing him into going along with her schemes which get him deeper and deeper into trouble.

BORAT: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

USA, 2006
Genre: Comedy

Director: Larry Charles
Producers: Sacha Baron Cohen, Jay Roach
Writer: Sacha Baron Cohen, Peter Baynham, Anthony Hines, Dan Mazer, Todd Phillips
Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen, Ken Davitian
Budget: $18M

Plot Summary:
Borat Sagdiyev is a TV reporter of a popular show in Kazakhstan as Kazakhstan's sixth most famous man and a leading journalist. He is sent from his home to America by his government to make a documentary about American society and culture. Borat takes a course in New York City to understand American humor. While watching Baywatch on TV, Borat discovers how beautiful their women are in the form of C. J. Parker, who was played by actress Pamela Anderson who hails from Malibu, California. He decides to go on a cross-country road trip to California in a quest to make her his wife and take her back to his country. On his journey Borat and his producer encounter a country full of strange and wonderful Americans, real people in real chaotic situations with hysterical consequences.

FROZEN RIVER

USA 2008
Genre: Drama
Director: Courtney Hunt
Writer: Courtney Hunt
Producers: Chip Hourihan, Heather Rae
Cast: Melissa Leo, Misty Upham, Charlie McDermott, Michael O'Keefe
Budget: $1M

Plot Summary:
After her husband takes off in their family vehicle for an unknown destination, Ray Eddy attempts to survive alone, raising two sons, Richard and James, and works part-time at Yankee Dollar, near Saint Lawrence River near Quebec and New York State. One day she witnesses a Mohawk woman driving their family vehicle, she follows and confronts her, finds out that the woman's name is Lila Littlewolf, and is actively engaged in smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States via a treacherous frozen river. The lure of money attracts Eddy and she decides to join forces with her new associate.

CREATIVE NON FICTION

USA, 2009
Genre: Comedy

Director: Lena Dunham
Writer: Lena Dunham
Producer:
Cast: Richard Brundage, Jeffery Cristiani, Grace Dunham, Lena Dunham
Budget: $18K

Plot Summary:

Plot SummaryCollege student Ella is completely focused on her ambiguously romantic relationship with her dorm-mate, Chris. She is so consumed by trying to understand his behavior that she's neglecting the screenplay she is supposed to write in order to graduate. When she does sit down to work on the script, her increasingly awkward social life bleeds onto the page and her work begins to express her true feelings about her own situation.

BRIGHT STAR

USA, 2009
Genre: Drama

Director: Jane Campion
Writer: Jane Campion
Producers: Jan Chapman, Caroline Hewitt
Cast: Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Paul Schneider
Budget: $8.5M

Plot Summary:
A Romance based on the last three years of life of the poet John Keats and his love affair with the girl next door, Fanny Brawne.

Days Of Being Wild

Hong Kong, 1990

Genre: Drama

Director: Wong Kar-Wai

Producer: Robert Tang

Writer: Wong Kar-Wai

Cast: Leslie Cheung, Maggie Cheung, Andy Lau, Carina Lau

Plot Summary:

Set in 1960, the film centres on the young, boyishly handsome Yuddy, who learns from the drunken ex-prostitute who raised him that she is not his real mother. Hoping to hold onto him, she refuses to divulge the name of his real birth mother. The revelation shakes Yuddy to his very core, unleashing a cascade of conflicting emotions. Two women have the bad luck to fall for Yuddy. One is a quiet lass named Su Lizhen who works at a sports arena, while the other is a glitzy showgirl named Mimi. Perhaps due to his unresolved Oedipal issues, he passively lets the two compete for him, unable or unwilling to make a choice. As Lizhen slowly confides her frustration to a cop named Tide, he falls for her. The same is true for Yuddy's friend Zeb, who falls for Mimi. Later, Yuddy learns of his birth mother's whereabouts and heads out to the Philippines.

Un Chien Andalou

France, 1929
Genre: Short, Fantasy
Director: Luis Buñuel
Producers: Luis Buñuel
Writers: Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí
Cast: Luis Buñuel, Simonne Mareuil, Young girl Pierre Batchef, Salvador Dalí

Plot Summary:
Un Chien Andalou consists of seventeen minutes of bizarre and surreal images that may or may not mean anything. A straight razor seems to be placed by a woman's eye, a small cloud formation obscures the moon, a cow's eye is slit open, a woman pokes at a severed hand in the street with his cane, a man drags two grand pianos containing dead and rotting donkeys and live priests, and a man's hand has a hole in the palm from which ants emerge.

All My Good Countrymen

Czechoslovakia, 1969
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Director:Vojtech Jasný
Producers: Vojtech Jasný
Writers: Jaroslav Jílovec
Awards: Cannes 1969 (Best Director)
Cast: Vlastimil Brodský, Radoslav Brzobohatý, Vladimír Mensík, Waldemar Matuska, Drahomira Hofmanová

Plot Summary:
Stories about seven friends in a small Moravian village following the socialization of Czechoslovakia in 1948, developing gradually into the story of Frantiek, the resister. The film offers some direct political criticism, particularly of the process of collectivizing agriculture. After the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, it was promptly banned.

Shaun Of The Dead

UK, 2004
Genre: Comedy
Director: Edgar Wright
Producers: Nira Park, Eric Fellner, Tim Bevan
Writers: Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg
Budget: $4M
Cast: Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield, Nick Frost

Plot Summary:
Shaun is having many problems in life. His long-time girlfriend has dumped him due to their almost-daily expedition to Shaun's favorite pub, the Winchester. His temporary management job isn't going well at Foree Electronics, with his subordinates not even giving him the time of day. His deadbeat flatmates, Pete and Ed, are at each others' throats. And, oh yeah, London is overrun with multitudes of zombies. In the midst of this, he must save himself, Ed, his ex, his mom, and his precious record collection. There is a time when a hero must rise...from his couch.