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Check out the latest exclusive engagements and premieres, including the best in new indies, foreign films, documentaries and restored classics, by downloading a PDF of Landmark’s St. Louis Movie Guide, with all-new programming from December 4 through March 18! |
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Set in Harlem in 1987, Precious is a vibrant, honest and resoundingly
hopeful film about the human capacity to grow and overcome. Claireece "Precious"
Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) is a 16-year-old African-American girl born into a
life no one would want. She's pregnant for the second time by her absent father;
at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother (Mo'Nique), a poisonously
angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is a place of
chaos, and Precious has reached the ninth grade with good marks and an awful
secret: she can neither read nor write. Precious may sometimes be down, but
she is never out. Beneath her impassive expression is a watchful, curious
young woman with an inchoate but unshakeable sense that other possibilities
exist for her. Threatened with expulsion, Precious is offered the chance to
transfer to an alternative school, Each One/Teach One. In the literacy workshop
taught by the patient yet firm Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), Precious begins a
journey that will lead her from darkness, pain and powerlessness to light,
love and self-determination. Winner of three awards at the 2009 Sundance Film
Festival, including the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic
Competition. Co-starring Mariah Carey, Sherri Shepherd and Lenny Kravitz.
Official Web Site Joe Williams's St. Louis Post-Dispatch review... |
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Amreeka chronicles the adventures of Muna (Nisreen Faour), a single
mother who leaves the West Bank with Fadi (Melkar Muallem), her teenage son,
with dreams of an exciting future in the promised land of small-town Illinois.
In America, as her son navigates high school hallways the way he used to move
through military checkpoints, the indomitable Muna scrambles together a new
life cooking up falafel burgers as well as hamburgers at the local White Castle.
Told with heartfelt humor by writer/director Cherien Dabis in her feature
film debut, Amreeka is a universal journey into the lives of a family
of immigrants and first-generation teenagers caught between their heritage
and the new world in which they now live and the bittersweet search for a
place to call home. Co-starring Hiam Abbass (The Visitor, Lemon Tree).
Official Web Site How autobiographical is writer/director Cherien Dabis's debut feature? Calvin Wilson's St. Louis Post-Dispatch review... |
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An Education is the story of a teenage girl's coming-of-age set in
1961 London, a city caught between the drab, post-war 1950s and the glamorous,
more liberated decade to come. Jenny (Carey Mulligan) stands on the brink
of becoming a woman: a brilliantly witty and attractive 16-year-old whose
suburban life is about to be blown apart by the utterly unsuitable 30-something
David (Peter Sarsgaard). Urbane and witty, David manages to charm her conservative
parents Jack (Alfred Molina) and Marjorie (Cara Seymour). David introduces
Jenny to a glittering new world of classical concerts and late-night suppers
with his attractive friend and business partner, Danny (Dominic Cooper) and
Danny's girlfriend, the beautiful but vacuous Helen (Rosamund Pike). Just
as Jenny's family's long-held dream of getting their brilliant daughter into
Oxford seems within reach, Jenny is tempted by another kind of life. Written
by Nick Hornby (About a Boy, High Fidelity) and directed by Lone Scherfig
(Italian for Beginners). Official Web Site Joe Williams's St. Louis Post-Dispatch review... |

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A little girl who is sent with her sister to an orphanage in the heart of
France, who waits in vain every Sunday for her father to come for her…
A cabaret performer with a weak voice who sings to an audience of drunken
soldiers… A humble seamstress, who stitches hems at the back of a provincial
tailor's shop… A young, skinny courtesan, to whom protector Étienne
Balsan (Benoît Poelvoorde) offers a safe haven, amongst the idle and
decadent… A woman in love who knows she will never be anyone’s wife,
refusing marriage even to Arthur 'Boy' Capel (Alessandro Nivola), the man
who returned her love… A rebel who finds the conventions of her time
oppressive, and instead dresses in her lovers' clothes… This is the story
of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (Audrey Tautou, Amélie),
who begins her life as a headstrong orphan, and through an extraordinary journey
becomes the legendary couturier who embodied the modern woman and became a
timeless symbol of success, freedom and style. Official
Web Site Roger Ebert's Chicago Sun-Times review... |
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The new dramatic comedy from the Coen Brothers (Burn After Reading, Fargo)
is the story of an ordinary man's search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson
Airplane is on the radio and "F-Troop" is on TV. It is 1967, and
Larry (Michael Stuhlbarg), a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university,
has just been informed by his wife Judith (Sari Lennick) that she is leaving
him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous colleagues, Sy (Fred
Melamed), who seems to her a more substantial person than the feckless Larry.
Larry's unemployable brother Arthur (Richard Kind) is sleeping on the couch,
his son Danny (Aaron Wolf) is a discipline problem and a shirker at Hebrew
school, and his daughter Sarah (Jessica McManus) is filching money from his
wallet in order to save up for a nose job. While his wife and Sy blithely
make new domestic arrangements, and his brother becomes more and more of a
burden, an anonymous hostile letter-writer is trying to sabotage Larry's chances
for tenure at the university. Also, a graduate student seems to be trying
to bribe him for a passing grade while at the same time threatening to sue
him for defamation. Plus, the beautiful woman next door torments him by sunbathing
nude. Struggling for equilibrium, Larry seeks advice from three different
rabbis. Can anyone help him cope with his afflictions and become a righteous
person—a mensch—a serious man? Official
Web Site Calvin Wilson's St. Louis Post-Dispatch review... |
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| Viggo Mortensen leads a stellar cast (including Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall and Guy Pearce) in the epic, post-apocalyptic tale of the survival of a father (Moretensen) and his young son (newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee) as they journey across a barren America that was destroyed by a mysterious cataclysm. A masterpiece of adventure, The Road is adapted from author Cormac McCarthy's (No Country for Old Men) beloved, best-selling and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, which boldly imagines a future in which men are pushed to the worst and the best that they are capable ofa future in which father and son are sustained by love. Directed by John Hillcoat (The Proposition). Official Web Site |

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How far would you travel to heal someone you love? An intensely personal
yet epic spiritual journey, The Horse Boy follows one Texas couple
and their autistic son as they trek on horseback through Outer Mongolia in
a desperate attempt to treat his condition with shamanic healing. When two-year-old
Rowan was diagnosed with autism, Rupert Isaacson, a writer and former horse
trainer, and his wife Kristin Neff, a psychology professor, sought the best
possible medical care for their son-but traditional therapies had little effect.
Then they discovered that Rowan has a profound affinity for animals—particularly
horses—and the family set off on a quest for a possible cure. The
Horse Boy is part travel adventure, part insight into shamanic tradition
and part intimate look at the autistic mind. In telling one family's extraordinary
story, the film gives voice to the thousands who display amazing courage and
creativity everyday in the battle against this mysterious and heartbreaking
epidemic. Produced by Rupert Isaacson and directed by Michel Orion Scott.
Official Web Site The director and producer/author discuss their spiritual journey |
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In his most powerful performance to date, Ben Foster stars as Will Montgomery,
a U.S. Army officer who has just returned home from a tour in Iraq and is
assigned to the Army's Casualty Notification service. Partnered with fellow
officer Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) to bear the bad news to the loved ones
of fallen soldiers, Will faces the challenge of completing his mission while
seeking to find comfort and healing back on the home front. When he finds
himself drawn to Olivia (Samantha Morton), to whom he has just delivered the
news of her husband's death, Will's emotional detachment begins to dissolve
and the film reveals itself as a surprising, humorous, moving and very human
portrait of grief, friendship and survival. Featuring tour-de-force performances
from Foster, Harrelson and Morton, and a brilliant directorial debut by Oren
Moverman, The Messenger brings us into the inner lives of these outwardly
steely heroes to reveal their fragility with compassion and dignity. Official
Web Site Director Oren Moverman on the need to find optimism in dark times |
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| Set in 1960s and 1970s England, The Damned United tells the confrontational and darkly humorous story of Brian Clough's doomed 44-day tenure as manager of the reigning champions of English football, Leeds United. Previously managed by his bitter rival Don Revie (Colm Meaney), and on the back of their most successful period ever as a football club, Leeds was perceived by many to represent a new aggressive and cynical style of footballan anathema to the principled yet flamboyant Brian Clough (Michael Sheen, Frost/Nixon), who had achieved astonishing success as manager of Hartlepool and Derby County, where he built teams in his own vision with trusty lieutenant Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall). Taking the Leeds job without Taylor by his side, with a changing room full of what in his mind were still Don's boys, would lead to an unheralded examination of Clough's belligerence and brilliance over 44 days. Official Web Site |

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| Raquel (Catalina Saavedra), age 42, has worked over twenty years for the well-to-do and numerous Valdes family, and on the surface seems like the perfect maid, almost part of the family. But she is controlling and territorial, carrying on a private war with the family's headstrong teenage daughter, and suffering frequent headaches and dizziness. The mother cannot bear to fire the woman who helped raise her children, so instead she hires a second maid to help Raquel. This alarms Raquel, who sees the newcomer as a threat and instantly sets out to drive her away. Her childish but ruthless tactics quickly succeed, but the family then hires an older and tougher maid who proves much harder to oust. Raquel meets her match with the third new maid, Lucy (Mariana Loyola), an enthusiastic and self-confident young woman who, attacked by Raquel, retaliates with affection and humor, helping her to find a new outlook on life. Saavedra is magnificent as the grumpy Raquel, seething with loneliness, anger, and jealousy, yet always managing to retain our sympathy. Winner of two prestigious awards at the Sundance Film Festival. Official Web Site |