Sunday Night Film Club – DC

A dignified send-off for a loved one erupts into uproarious chaos when romance, jealousy, in-laws, hallucinogens, dark secrets, life-long yearnings and a spot of bold blackmail collide graveside in this irreverent British comedy.

Rogue agent Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is being hunted by the people in the CIA who trained him to be an assassin. Still suffering from amnesia and determined to finally learn of his true identity, he is lured out of hiding to contact a journalist named Simon Ross (Paddy Considine), who has been following his story. Throughout his research, Ross has gathered valuable information about Bourne and Treadstone, which trained him. This is rather inconvenient for U.S. government official Noah Vosen (David Strathairn), who is hoping to start a new organization under the codename Blackbriar (which is briefly mentioned at the end of the first film) which would follow in Treadstone’s footsteps.

With intent to kill Bourne and the journalist before they expose the program’s disturbing secrets, Vosen sends agent Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) to lead the search effort. Simultaneously, Paz (Edgar Ramirez), one of the remaining living Treadstone assassins, is dispatched to find and neutralize Bourne and Ross. In order to finally learn of his true origins and find inner peace, Bourne will have to evade, out-maneuver, and outsmart the deadliest group of highly-trained agents and assassins yet.

Ten stories, each inspired by one of the ten commandments.

A tense, claustrophobic thriller set 50 years from now, as the sun is dying and mankind along with it. Our last hope: a spaceship and a crew of eight men and women. They carry a device which will breathe new life into the star. But deep into their voyage, out of radio contact with Earth, their mission is starting to unravel. There is an accident, a fatal mistake, and a distress beacon from a spaceship that disappeared seven years earlier. Soon the crew is fighting not only for their lives, but their sanity.

Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes”—quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams—Edward Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris. Director Jennifer Baichwal follows Burtynsky through China, as he shoots the evidence and effects of that country’s massive industrial revolution. With breathtaking sequences, such as the opening tracking shot through an almost endless factory, the filmmakers also extend the narratives of Burtynsky’s photographs, allowing us to meditate on our impact on the planet and witness both the epicenters of industrial endeavor and the dumping grounds of its waste.

In the 1960s, in Washington, D.C., vibrant soul music and exploding social consciousness were combining to unique and powerful effect. With the support of his irrepressible and tempestuous girlfriend Vernell (Taraji P. Henson), the newly minted ex-con Petey (Don Cheadle) talks his way into an on-air radio gig. At WOL-AM, Petey becomes an iconic radio personality, surpassing even the established popularity of his fellow disc jockeys, Nighthawk (Cedric The Entertainer) and Sunny Jim (Vondie Curtis Hall). Combining biting humor with social commentary, Petey openly courts controversy for station owner E.G. Sonderling (Martin Sheen). As Petey’s voice, humor, and spirit surge across the airwaves with the vitality of the era, listeners tune in to hear not only incredible music but also a man speaking directly to them about race and power in America like few people ever have.

John McClane takes on an Internet-based terrorist organization who is systematically shutting down the United States.

Lily (Loren Horsley) is a lonely oddball and fast-food waitress who happens to be a hopeless romantic. Then thereÂ’s Jarrod (Jemaine Clement), the man of LilyÂ’s dreams, another lonely oddball and video game clerk, who has spent the last decade plotting ultimate vengeance on a bully from his high school past. When these two connect at a “dress as your favorite animal” party, sheÂ’s an anemic Shark and heÂ’s a fluffy-headed Eagle. ItÂ’s a match that seems made in outcast heaven, but when Lily decides to risk everything for love, her hopes are nearly dashed. After a brief fling, Jarrod dumps Lily because heÂ’s too busy “training” for his all-important payback mission. But neither of them can anticipate just what kind of grit the steadfastly optimistic Lily will show in her heartbreak. As JarrodÂ’s day of reckoning arrives, and everything hits the fan, Jarrod and Lily will find something that goes beyond romantic fantasies and revenge — faith in who they are.

Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and the gang would have only one reason to pull off their most ambitious and riskiest casino heist—to defend one of their own. Ruthless casino owner Willy Bank (Al Pacino) never imagined that the odds were against him when he double-crossed Danny Ocean’s friend and mentor Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould). He may have taken down one of the original Ocean’s eleven, but he left the others standing and, worse for him, gave them a shared purpose: to take Bank down on the night of what should be his greatest triumph—the grand opening of his new casino, appropriately named The Bank. Their strategy is twofold. First they will ruin him financially by turning the tables on the precept that the house always wins. The knockout punch will be to Bank’s personal pride and joy: his reputation as the only hotelier who has earned the Royal Review Board’s Five Diamond Award on every single one of his hotels.