1776, or The Hessian Renegades

Jiang Hu: The Triad Zone

Gang leader Jim Yam has ascended nearly to the pinnacle of power in the underworld, but it brings him few satisfactions. As he watches his peers drop dead around him - many of them amazingly from natural causes - he finds himself more and more soldiering on because that's just what bosses do. Reflecting back on his younger days in London, it is sad to contrast his current lavish - but empty - life as a crime lord in Hong Kong with the joys he experienced as a petty thief in England. These flashbacks and voice overs give us insights not only into Yam himself, but also his closest associates, whom we discover he in truth barely knows.

Schism

Double Feature

Director José Luis Garci has turned his camera inward on filmmakers and screenwriters to portray them as so self-absorbed in the creative process that there is no other world, no other human relationship that can compete. As José (Adolfo Marsillach) and Federico (Jesus Puente) work together on a new screenplay, their interactions with their family (José's teen daughters, Federico's wife) disappear under the all-consuming task of creation. The daughters give up and go off on their own, and the wife joins a convent while Federico barely notices. And when the producer is interrupted by profound grief at the sudden death of his older son, he almost automatically returns to thinking about the film project when the funeral has ended. Garci honors many great directors at the beginning of this film, and the film continues to play out as an elaboration on this homage -- an illustration both of the dedication and the cost of filmmaking, no judgments given.

A Pinky and the Brain Christmas

The Brain designs a mesmerizing doll, Noodle Noggin, and plans to have Santa Claus deliver one to every house so he can make people do his every command through mind control.

Opportunist

10-year old Marko is jealous of his next door neighbour who is the same age as he. What happens when Marko notices that his opportunity has come?

L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui

Regarding Le Corbusier: the man and his architecture

Unfriendly Enemies

Finlayson plays an intrepid army cameraman on the battlefield in the world war, and Rowe plays his hapless assistant. Cranking away in no man's land, they take foolish chances and must dodge flying shells, falling down and losing their film repeatedly.

Discovery: Al Capone's Chicago

Al Capone was born to Italian immigrant parents on January 17, 1899 in New York City. He moved to Chicago in 1919, and there he became a notable criminal figure and gangster. He played large parts in gambling, alcohol, and prostitution rackets. In 1925, after an assassination attempt on former head Johnny Torrio, Capone took control of the Chicago Outfit, of which he had served as the second in command. He was listed on the FBI's "Most Wanted" list, sold alcohol during the Prohibition era, planned the St. Valentine's Day massacre, and was eventually indicted and convicted of income tax evasion in 1931.

The Strait Story

The year is 1943 and Taiwan is under Japanese colonization. After finishing his studies in Japan, famous Taiwanese sculptor and painter Ching-Cheng Huang receives an offer to teach in Beiping Art School. He decides to visit friends and family back home before leaving for China. He boards the passenger liner "Takachiho Maru" in Kobe, Japan, with his girlfriend, a pianist. Tragically, the luxurious liner is torpedoed by an American submarine and sinks off the coast of Keelung, Taiwan. Decades later, Shou-shou, a fine art restorer with a crippling illness, finds one of Huang's paintings in an exhibition. As she restores the painting, Shou-shou learns about the artist, the stories behind his work and his death at sea. She recreates the story of the painting "Woman in Black", and romantically imagines the ways the artist painted his girlfriend. The more she studies, the more she was inspired by Huang's value of art and of life. Restoring Huang's painting thus becomes Shou-shou's way of ...