With unprecedented access, CARTEL LAND is a riveting, on-the-ground look at the journeys of two modern-day vigilante groups and their shared enemy – the murderous Mexican drug cartels. In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as “El Doctor,” leads the Autodefensas, a citizen uprising against the violent Knights Templar drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years. Meanwhile, in Arizona’s Altar Valley – a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley – Tim “Nailer” Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to stop Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across our border. Filmmaker Matthew Heineman embeds himself in the heart of darkness as Nailer, El Doctor, and the cartel each vie to bring their own brand of justice to a society where institutions have failed. CARTEL LAND is a chilling, visceral meditation on the breakdown of order and the blurry line between good and evil.
Nine-year-old Rob Cole felt the life force slipping from his mother’s hand he could not foresee that this terrifying awareness of impending death was a gift that would lead him from the familiar life of 11th-century London to small villages throughout England and finally to the medical school at Ispahan. Though apprenticed to an itinerant barber surgeon, it is the dazzling surgery of a Jewish physician trained by the legendary Persian physician Avicenna that inspires him to accept his gift and to commit his life to healing by studying at Avicenna’s school. Despite the ban on Christian students, Rob goes there, disguising himself as a Jew to gain admission. Gordon has written an adventurous and inspiring tale of a quest for medical knowledge pursued in a violent world full of superstition and prejudice.
With :Tom Payne, Stellan Skarsgård, Olivier Martinez, Emma Rigby, Ben Kingsley
Russia is the biggest country in the world, spanning one-eighth of the earth’s landmass. But where did it all begin? Alex Gendler explores the epic history of the Kievan Rus, where characters ranging from Viking raiders and Western crusaders to Byzantine missionaries and Mongol hordes all played a role to create a unique civilization standing at the crossroads of culture and geography.
Individual freedom is the dream of our age. It’s what our leaders promise to give us, it defines how we think of ourselves and, repeatedly, we have gone to war to impose freedom around the world. But if you step back and look at what freedom actually means for us today, it’s a strange and limited kind of freedom.
Politicians promised to liberate us from the old dead hand of bureaucracy, but they have created an evermore controlling system of social management, driven by targets and numbers. Governments committed to freedom of choice have presided over a rise in inequality and a dramatic collapse in social mobility. And abroad, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the attempt to enforce freedom has led to bloody mayhem and the rise of an authoritarian anti-democratic Islamism. This, in turn, has helped inspire terrorist attacks in Britain. In response, the Government has dismantled long-standing laws designed to protect our freedom.
The Trap is a series of three films by Bafta-winning producer Adam Curtis that explains the origins of our contemporary, narrow idea of freedom. It shows how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today’s idea of freedom. This model was derived from ideas and techniques developed by nuclear strategists during the Cold War to control the behaviour of the Soviet enemy.
Mathematicians such as John Nash developed paranoid game theories whose equations required people to be seen as selfish and isolated creatures, constantly monitoring each other suspiciously always intent on their own advantage. This model was then developed by genetic biologists, anthropologists, radical psychiatrists and free market economists, and has come to dominate both political thinking since the Seventies and the way people think about themselves as human beings.
However, within this simplistic idea lay the seeds of new forms of control. And what people have forgotten is that there are other ideas of freedom. We are, says Curtis, in a trap of our own making that controls us, deprives us of meaning and causes death and chaos abroad.
Diabetes. Prostate cancer. Alcoholism. Parkinson’s diseases. Just a handful of many common illnesses that Western medicine has been inadequate in curing or treating. Witness the story of eight brave souls as they leave the developed world behind in search of deeper answers. Living in seclusion for one month in the heart of the Amazon jungle, these men and women take part in the powerful healing practices of Peru’s indigenous medicine men, working with centuries-old plant remedies and spiritual disciplines. In their most desperate hour, these patients are forced to confront not only their physical ailments, but their own spiritual and psychological barriers in the process. Five will return with real results, two will return disappointed, and one won’t come back at all.
A mysterious black-clad gunfighter wanders a mystical Western landscape encountering multiple bizarre characters as he confronts warrior Masters on a trans-formative desert journey. El Topo (the mole) claims to be God, riding a horse through a spiritual landscape strewn with ancient Eastern religious symbols. El Topo’s surreal way is bloody, sexual and self-reflective, musing of his own demons, as he tries to vanquish those he encounters.
Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky (as Alexandro Jodorowsky)
Writer: Alejandro Jodorowsky (as Alexandro Jodorowsky)
Stars: Alejandro Jodorowsky, Brontis Jodorowsky, José Legarreta
Police sergeant Howie is sent to Summerisle, a Scottish island village to investigate the disappearance of a young girl whom the townsfolk claim never existed. He discovers that the locals are weird and unhelpful, and becomes determined to get to the bottom of it. Stranger still are the rites that take place there.
Director: Robin Hardy
Writer: Anthony Shaffer (screenplay)
Stars: Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento, Britt Ekland, Gerry Cowper, Ingrid Pitt
Tom Grant, a private investigator once hired by Courtney Love, reveals his take on the events behind Kurt Cobain’s death as seen through his eyes as he was hired by Courtney Love in 1994 to track down her missing husband (Kurt Cobain) only days before his deceased body was found at their Seattle home. Cobain’s death was ruled a suicide by the police (a reported self-inflicted gunshot wound), but doubts have circulated for twenty years as to the legitimacy of this ruling, especially due to the work of Mr. Grant, a former L.A. County Sheriff’s detective, who did his own investigation and determined there was significant empirical and circumstantial evidence to conclude that foul play could very well have occurred. The film develops as a narrative mystery with cinematic re-creations, interviews with key experts and witnesses and the examination of official artifacts from the 1994 case.
Returning from Navy service in World War II, Freddie Quell drifts through a series of breakdowns, unsettled and uncertain of his future. Finally he stumbles upon a cult which engages in exercises to clear emotions and he becomes deeply involved with them – tantalized by The Cause and its charismatic leader.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Writer: Paul Thomas Anderson
Stars: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Madisen Beaty
In his exploration of the wonders of the universe, Professor Brian Cox goes in search of humanity’s very essence to answer the biggest questions of all: what are we? And where do we come from? This film is the story of matter – the stuff of which we are all made.
Brian reveals how our origins are entwined with the life cycle of the stars. But he begins his journey here on Earth. In Nepal, he observes a Hindu cremation. Hindu philosophy is based on an eternal cycle of creation and destruction, where the physical elements of the body are recycled on to the next stage. Brian draws a parallel with the life cycle of the stars that led to our own creation.
Next, he explains how the Earth’s resources have been recycled through the ages. How every atom that makes up everything we see, was at some time a part of something else. Our world is made up of just 92 elements, and these same 92 elements are found throughout the entire universe. We are part of the universe because we are made of the same stuff as the universe. -Wonders of the Universe 2011: Episode 2
Viennese doctor Josef Breuer meets with philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche to help him deal with his despair.
A great period piece that will delight all who care about philosophy and psychology
Director: Pinchas Perry
Writers: Pinchas Perry, Irvin D. Yalom (novel)
Stars: Ben Cross as Josef Breuer, Armand Assante as Nietzsche, Jamie Elman as Sigmund Freud, Andreas Beckett as Zarathustra, Katheryn Winnick as Lou Salome
Leiji Matsumoto supervised the creation of several music videos for the French electronic-music group Daft Punk (who are huge fans of Matsumoto), set to tracks from their album “Discovery”. These videos were issued end-to-end, making a full-length animated movie titled Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem (2003). Read more
In the near future, crime is patrolled by a mechanized police force. When one police droid, Chappie, is stolen and given new programming, he becomes the first robot with the ability to think and feel for himself.
Director: Neill Blomkamp
Writers: Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell
Stars: Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Ninja, Yo-Landi Visser, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Sigourney Weaver, Brandon Auret
7.1-Channel Home Cinema Receiver / 5.1 Speaker Package
Enjoy the Convenience of Packaged Home Cinema Without Sacrificing Quality
With the HT-S6305 (TX-SR508 7.1-Channel Home Cinema Receiver + HTP-638 5.1-Channel Home Cinema Speaker System), Onkyo offers a choice selection of today’s key home cinema features in a superbly integrated and user-friendly package. Four HDMI® 1.4a inputs take care of your high-def sources and provide compatibility with upcoming 3D video content. Other inputs include a Universal Port for Onkyo peripherals and the UP-A1 dock for your iPhone or iPod. Belying its status as a packaged system, the HT-S6305 brings master-quality HD audio to your living room in the form of lossless Dolby and DTS codecs. What’s more, if you complement the included five-speaker set with two extra satellites, you have the option of powered audio in a second room or the immersive “front height” channels of Dolby® ProLogic® IIz. During speaker set-up, a full suite of Audyssey equalization and roomcorrection technologies ensure a properly balanced soundstage and an enveloping presentation. And when you need to fine-tune A/V settings on the fly, Onkyo’s new overlaid on-screen display makes it easy and seamless. The bedrock underpinning it all is Onkyo’s hallmark high-current power supply and precision-honed WRAT amplification. Read more
“It seems life is constructed in a way that no one can fulfill it alone. Just as it’s not enough for flowers to have pistils and stamens. An insect or a breeze must introduce a pistil to a stamen. Life contains its own absence, which only an other can fulfill. It seems the world is the summation of others. And yet, we neither know nor are told that we will fulfill each other. We lead our scattered lives, perfectly unaware of each other… Or at times, allowed to find the other’s presence disagreeable. Why is it, that the world is constructed so loosely?”
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Writers: Yoshiie Goda (manga), Hirokazu Koreeda (screenplay)
Stars: Doona Bae, Arata Iura, Itsuji Itao Read more
In 2027, in a chaotic world in which women have become somehow infertile, the world’s youngest citizen has just died at 18, and humankind is facing the likelihood of its own extinction. Set in and around a dystopian London fractious with violence and warring nationalistic sects, Children of Men follows the unexpected discovery of a lone pregnant woman and the desperate journey to deliver her to safety to a sanctuary at sea.
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Writers: Alfonso Cuarón, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, P.D. James
Stars: Julianne Moore, Clive Owen, Clare-Hope Ashitey, Michael Cain, Pam Ferris, Peter Mullan, Oana Pellea
Something’s wrong at the Rileys. Married nearly 30 years, Doug and Lois rarely talk. He has a long-time Thursday night mistress whom he invites to go with him to a plumbing supply conference in New Orleans. Once there, Doug calls Lois to say he’s staying for a while, as he seeks salvation by caring for a wayward young woman. And Lois, can she break out?
Director: Jake Scott
Writer: Ken Hixon
Stars: James Gandolfini, Kristen Stewart, Melissa Leo
An apocalyptic story set in the furthest reaches of our planet, in a stark desert landscape where humanity is broken, and almost everyone is crazed fighting for the necessities of life. Within this world exist two rebels on the run who just might be able to restore order. There’s Max, a man of action and a man of few words, who seeks peace of mind following the loss of his wife and child in the aftermath of the chaos. And Furiosa, a woman of action and a woman who believes her path to survival may be achieved if she can make it across the desert back to her childhood homeland.
Director: George Miller
Writers: George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nick Lathouris
Stars: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Josh Helman, Nathan Jones, Zoë Kravitz, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton
When the young republic of The Netherlands is attacked by England, France and Germany and the country itself is on the brink of civil war, only one man can lead the county’s strongest weapon, the Dutch fleet: Michiel de Ruyter.
Director: Roel Reiné
Writers: Lars Boom, Alex van Galen
Stars: Charles Dance, Rutger Hauer, Barry Atsma, Derek de Lint, Aurélie Meriel, Tygo Gernandt, Frank Lammers, Egbert Jan Weeber
Caleb, a 26 year old coder at the world’s largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world’s first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.
Director: Alex Garland
Writer: Alex Garland
Stars: Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac , Sonoya Mizuno
For the last 40 years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. He has witnessed some of the major events of our recent history; international conflicts, starvation and exodus. He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of wild fauna and flora, and of grandiose landscapes as part of a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet’s beauty.
Directed by Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, Wim Wenders
Writing Credits: Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, David Rosier
Cast: Sebastião Salgado, Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, Hugo Barbier, Jacques Barthélémy, Lélia Wanick Salgado
Elise and Didier fall in love at first sight, in spite of their differences. He talks, she listens. He’s a romantic atheist, she’s a religious realist. When their daughter becomes seriously ill, their love is put on trial. A touching and moving tale of passionate love between two outsiders, the drama slips between the couple’s first intense encounters and their later fight against the illness that threatens their daughter Maybelle. He is the embodiment of the true artisan, a bearded wild man living off the land, obsessed with Americana; she is a tattooed vixen, wild and free spirited; they meet in their bluegrass band, singing oldfashioned songs about this world and the next to the accompaniment of violins, banjo and slide guitar.
Director: Felix van Groeningen
Writers: Johan Heldenbergh, Mieke Dobbels, Carl Joos, Felix van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch
Stars: Veerle Baetens, Johan Heldenbergh, Nell Cattrysse
Based on Lawrence Wright’s eye-opening book, and directed by Oscar winner Alex Gibney (Taxi To The Dark Side), Going Clear charts the Church of Scientology’s growth, its marketing campaigns, and its myriad abuses of power, which didn’t stop when leadership passed from founder L. Ron Hubbard to new leader David Miscavige after Hubbard’s death in 1986.
The film builds upon Wright’s biggest allegations: that Scientology facilitated Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman’s kids turning against their mother, that it vetted and groomed the actress Nazanin Boniadi (‘Homeland’) to be Cruise’s wife, that it helped squash rumors about John Travolta’s sexuality. Gibney even scores one scoop that Wright didn’t know about. But it’s the rare archival footage from Scientology’s inner sanctum that makes the film stand apart from the book.
Among the clips are L. Ron Hubbard admitting in a 1968 interview that he sometimes questions his own sanity, and Scientology leaders high-fiving the same IRS executives they just strong-armed into giving the church tax-exempt status. The scenes of Tom Cruise laughing maniacally in a Scientology video have leaked online before, but that doesn’t make it any less weird to watch him salute a giant portrait of Hubbard, shouting ‘To L.R.H.!’ while fireworks explode in the background.
Even if Cruise were cut out of Going Clear, the personal stories make it riveting, especially when ex-Scientologists reveal what finally made them leave, decades after being lured into the church with self-help philosophy, instructed to pay thousands of dollars in order to advance to a higher consciousness, and convinced to ‘disconnect’ from their families. Only when they’re alone do they learn Scientology’s full credo, and by then, it’s too late to get out.
If Going Clear were a Hollywood thriller, I’d complain that it’s too over-the-top. But this is real life, which is hard to believe. And it’s disturbingly good.
The vehicle provides us with a way to experience consciousness. Once the mind is freed from decision-making, the passenger consciousness can observe what is happening in the world around it without the need to interfere. The passenger, with its gift of outer authority, can then share with others its perspective and unique view. This is a post-Kiron flowering period of seeing, not doing. Ra likes to remind us of the aphorism “Do without doing and everything gets done.” Read more
At approximately 30 years of age, you have the opportunity to “plant” your incarnation cross. This is where you begin your true journey as yourself, and is the point where environment becomes a key in your life. Join Ra as he explains how the correct environment nourishes you from the outside and eliminates resistance in your life. Discussion of the Nodes of the Moon is also included in this lecture about trajectory. Read more
One of the most important questions when it comes to transformation is “Who’s in charge?” Ra discusses how we are conditioned from birth to think that our mind is in charge; but in fact, most of the time the mind is making not-self decisions based on the openness and conditioning in our Design. Read more
A gangster family epic set in 1919 Birmingham, England and centered on a gang who sew razor blades in the peaks of their caps, and their fierce boss Tommy Shelby, who means to move up in the world.
Creator: Steven Knight
Stars: Cillian Murphy, Sam Neill, Paul Anderson, Helen McCrory, Sophie Rundle, Annabelle Wallis, Iddo Goldberg, Joe Cole
The post-Kironian phase is about the fulfillment of life as a passenger. We are passengers in a vehicle, and if we honor the form, the passenger inside the vehicle is liberated. The post-Kironian phase, as the result of Strategy and Authority, allows for the differentiation of the passenger consciousness and through this, our awareness and outer Authority will be demonstrated. Read more
A documentary that celebrates Rick Hall, the founder of FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and the signature sound he developed in songs such as “I’ll Take You There”, “Brown Sugar”, and “When a Man Loves a Woman”. Located alongside the Tennessee River, Muscle Shoals, Alabama is the unlikely breeding ground for some of America’s most creative and defiant music. Under the spiritual influence of the ‘Singing River’ as Native Americans called it, the music of Muscle Shoals changed the world and sold millions upon millions of copies. At its heart is Rick Hall who founded FAME Studios. Overcoming crushing poverty and staggering tragedies, he brought black and white together in Alabama’s cauldron of racial hostility to create music for the generations while giving birth to the ‘Muscle Shoals Sound’ and ‘The Swampers’. Others bear witness to Muscle Shoals’ magnetism, mystery, and why it remains influential today.
Director: Greg ‘Freddy’ Camalier
Stars: Rick Hall, Barry Beckett, Roger Hawkins, David Hood, Jimmy Johnson, Pete Carr, Spooner Oldham, Albert S. Lowe Jr., Clayton Ivey, Randy McCormick, and Will McFarlane
Literature student Anastasia Steele’s life changes forever when she meets handsome, yet tormented, billionaire Christian Grey. When Anastasia goes to interview the wealthy Christian Grey as a favor to her roommate Kate Kavanagh, she encounters a beautiful, brilliant and intimidating man. The innocent and naive Ana starts to realize she wants him. Despite his enigmatic reserve and advice, she finds herself desperate to get close to him. Not able to resist Ana’s beauty and independent spirit, Christian Grey admits he wants her too, but on his own terms. Ana hesitates as she discovers the singular tastes of Christian Grey – despite the embellishments of success, his multinational businesses, his vast wealth, and his loving family, Grey is consumed by the need to control everything.
Director: Sam Taylor-Johnson
Writers: Kelly Marcel (screenplay), E.L. James (novel)
Stars: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Jennifer Ehle, Eloise Mumford, Marcia Gay Harden
Ra takes a look at the 20-year period from Saturn to Kiron, the second stage of the tripartite life process of the nine-centered being. If a child has been raised correctly, this 30-year point, called the Saturn return, marks the point where you go out into the world as yourself. This is the time of planting the seeds of the Incarnation Cross you’re born with in order to perform, when correct, your differentiated purpose. Ra discusses the many benefits that the right environment provides for each person, and how it nurtures the development of unique awareness which leads to outer Authority. Everyone is here to see in a certain way that is part of their uniqueness. Read more
