sneakplaner

In America, we define ourselves in the superlative: we are the biggest, strongest, fastest country in the world. We reward speed, size and above all else: winning - at sport, at business and at war. Metaphorically we are a nation on steroids. Is it any wonder that so many of our heroes are on performance enhancing drugs? From the producers of Bowling For Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 comes a new film that unflinchingly explores our win-at-all-cost culture through the lens of a personal journey. Blending comedy and pathos, BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER* is a collision of pop culture, animated sequences and first-person narrative, with a diverse cast including US Congressmen, professional athletes, medical experts and everyday gym rats. At its heart, this is the story of director Christopher Bell and his two brothers, who grew up idolizing muscular giants like Hulk Hogan, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and who went on to become members of the steroid-subculture in an effort to realize their American dream. When you discover that your heroes have all broken the rules, do you follow the rules, or do you follow your heroes?

TOWELHEAD follows the dark, bold and shockingly funny life of Jasira, a 13-year-old Arab-American girl, as she navigates the confusing and frightening path of adolescence and her own sexual awakening. When Jasira’s mother sends her to Houston to live with her strict Lebanese father, she quickly learns that her new neighbors find her and her father a curiosity. Worse, her budding womanhood makes her traditional and hot-tempered father uncomfortable. Lonely in this new environment, Jasira seeks friendship and acceptance from her neighbors Mr. Vuoso, an Army reservist, and Melina, a meddling but caring expectant mother. Thrown into an unfamiliar suburban world, Jasira must confront racism and hypocrisy at home and at school - and at the same time struggle to make sense of her raging hormones and newfound sexuality. Her boyfriend, Thomas, though a few years older, provides some comfort - but even that relationship causes problems when her father discovers that Thomas is black. Surrounded by adults who are just as lost as she is, Jasira yearns for understanding, even amidst often brutal acts.

ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS, to be fully produced in 3-D, is the latest installment to the hit ICE AGE franchise, which has grossed more than $1.2 billion around the world. ICE AGE 3 will be directed by Oscar-nominated Carlos Saldanha, who directed ICE AGE: THE MELTDOWN and co-directed ICE AGE. The film is being produced by Academy Award-winning Blue Sky Studios, the creative force behind all the ICE AGE films and the upcoming DR. SUESS’ HORTON HEARS A WHO.

What does female desire look like? And how do self-inflicted limitations and social expectations shade and color it? In her tenderly comic, richly textured feature debut, Georgina Garcia Riedel lovingly explores the terrain of longing, loneliness, and self-realization among three generations of single women in a Mexican American family as they grapple with romantic drought. As sweltering summer stretches over a sun-bleached Arizona border town, Doña Genoveva (Lucy Gallardo), the Garcia family matriarch, decides to buy a car. The only catch is that she doesn’t know how to drive. When she enlists Don Pedro’s pedagogical skills, sparks begin to fly—at her house and beyond. Her daughter, Lolita, played with deadpan poignancy by Elizabeth Peña, seems to have hit a dry spell until things start to sizzle at the butcher shop where she works. Meanwhile, Lolita’s teenage daughter, Blanca, a radiant America Ferrera (REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES), engineers an awakening all her own. It’s as if the languid heat wave has thawed everyone’s defenses and jump-started a sexual revolution. Like the folks in the story, Riedel’s camera never hurries, savoring the poetic vistas and lazy rhythms of the rural Southwest without resorting to sentimentality. Her three heroines are utterly human—full of idiosyncrasies and unexpected charms. In each of them is a distinctive, newly discovered sensuality, an engine that drives them forward, kicking up dust as they go.

Elsa &Fred is a story about two people who, at the end of the road, discover that it’s never too late to love. or to dream. Elsa is 82 years-old and for the past 60 years she’s dreamt of a moment that Fellini had already envisaged: the scene of “La Dolce Vita” at the Fontana di Trevi. The same scene without Anita Ekberg in it but Elsa instead. Without Marcello Mastroiani but with that love that took so long to arrive. Alfredo is a bit younger than Elsa and was always a good man who did everything he was supposed to do. After losing his wife, he feels disturbed and confused and his daughter decides that it would be best if he moved into a smaller apartment where he’ll meet Elsa. From that moment on, everything changes. Elsa bursts into his life like a whirlwind, determined to teach him that the time he has left to live - be it more or less - is precious and that he should enjoy it as he pleases. Fred surrenders to Elsa’s frenzy, to her youth, to her boldness, to her beautiful madness. And this is how Alfredo (or Fred, as Elsa calls him), learns how to live.

lay Normalcy, Save the World. MONSTER CAMP is a rare and fascinating glimpse into the world of live-action role playing ("LARPing"), a real-life version of the videogame phenomenon World of Warcraft. In this award-winning doc, gamer stereotypes are simultaneously shattered and confirmed. For 48 consecutive hours-- there are no breaks, not even for sleep -- immerse yourself in a world completely unlike our own. A world built upon fantasy, chivalry, and imagination; a place where you can be anything, dress however, have almost any power. A world where software engineers, department store managers, and high school students live as warriors, sorcerers, and villains. It’s a place that lets you transform yourself, perhaps becoming the person you wish you really were. Welcome to MONSTER CAMP, the true story of NERO Seattle, one of over 60 LARPing franchises with thousands upon thousands of members in North America.

The freewheeling passion of youth and the unpredictable perils of fate are both the subject and the breathtaking form of Joachim Trier’s lean and kinetic journey through friendship, love, madness and creativity: REPRISE. Trier viscerally captures the way life takes off at rocket-speed in the beginning of adulthood – and the what-ifs and why-nots that both drive and haunt us as the unbridled hopes of youth come to a screeching halt. The fast-moving story kicks off just as Phillip (ANDERS DANIELSON LIE) and Erik (ESPEN KLOUMAN-HOINER) stand at the mailbox, two cocky, grinning rebels full of 20 year-old verve and dreams, their whole lives hanging in the balance at this singular moment. Each is about to ship off his first novel to publishers, each is hoping to become a wildly influential "cult author," each has visions of a new life of non-stop intensity, brilliance, romance and nightclubbing. Fast-forward six months. These reveries have crashed, hard, into reality. Phillip, whose novel garnered instant acclaim and turned him into a mini-celebrity, has had a terrifying breakdown and is just about to be released from a psychiatric hospital. Erik, who never sold his novel, is still pecking away, determined to follow in the footsteps of his undying hero, a reclusive but idolized writing genius, no matter what it takes. REPRISE explores not just what happens to Phillip and Erik as they pick up the pieces but what might have happened to them, what they imagine could happen, what they fear will possibly happen and what they can’t see actually happening. Nimbly moving both backwards and forwards in time – via a dazzling mix of flashbacks, rapid-fire editing, philosophical voiceovers and comical flights of fancy — the film traces how Erik and Phillip arrived at this precipice where exuberant youth runs into the harsh light of day … and witnesses the emotionally gripping aftermath.

While the Duplass Brothers were shooting their last feature film The Puffy Chair, a crew member raised the question “what’s the scariest thing you can think of?” Someone immediately said “a guy with a bag on his head staring into your window.” Some agreed, but some thought it was downright ridiculous and, if anything, funny (but definitely not scary). Thus, BAGHEAD was born, an attempt to take the absurdly low-concept idea of a “guy with a bag on his head” and make a funny, truthful, endearing film that, maybe, just maybe, was a little bit scary, too.

It’s the summer of 1994, and the streets of New York are pulsing with hip-hop and wafting with the sweet aroma of marijuana—but change is in the air. The newly-inaugurated mayor, Rudy Giuliani, is beginning to implement his anti-fun initiatives against “crimes” like noisy portable radios, graffiti and public drunkenness. Set against this backdrop, Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) spends his last summer before college selling dope throughout New York City, trading it with his shrink (Ben Kingsley) for therapy, while crushing on his step daughter (Olivia Thirlby). Famke Janssen, Mary Kate Olsen,and Method Man round out the cast in this edgy, bittersweet, and funny coming of age story.

SAVAGE GRACE, based on the award winning book, tells the incredible true story of Barbara Daly, who married above her class to Brooks Baekeland, the dashing heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune. Beautiful, red-headed and charismatic, Barbara is still no match for her well-bred husband. The birth of the couple’s only child, Tony, rocks the uneasy balance in this marriage of extremes. Tony is a failure in his father’s eyes. As he matures and becomes increasingly close to his lonely mother, the seeds for a tragedy of spectacular decadence are sown. Spanning 1946 to 1972, the film unfolds in six acts. The Baekelands’ pursuit of social distinction and the glittering ‘good life’ propels them across the globe. We follow their heady rise and tragic fall against the backdrop of New York, Paris, Cadaques, Mallorca and London.