i Can Only Imagine

Ran is Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's reinterpretation of William Shakespeare's King Lear. The Lear counterpart is an elderly 16th-century warlord (Tatsuya Nakadai), who announces that he's about to divide his kingdom equally among his three sons. In his dotage, he falls prey to the false flattery of his treacherous sons (Akira Terao and Jinpachi Nezu), while banishing his youngest son (Daisuke Ryu), the only member of the family who loves him enough to tell him the unvarnished truth. Thanks to his foolish pride, his domain collapses under its own weight as the sons battle each other over total control. Kurosawa's first film in five years, Ran had been in the planning stages for twice that long; Kurosawa had storyboarded the project with a series of vivid color paintings that have since been published in book form in England. The battle scenes are staged with such brutal vigor that it's hard to imagine that the director was 75 years old at the time. This 160-minute historical epic won several international awards, but it was not a hit in Japan, and it would be five more years before Kurosawa would be able to finance another picture.

Acclaimed director Luis Buuel displays several of his trademark interests in this drama about a priest who leaves his order. The director's disdain for organized religion and the establishment, as well as his tendency to shock through visual imagery, are both apparent. Nazarin (Francisco Rabal) is the priest who leaves his order and decides to go on a pilgrimage. As he goes along subsisting on alms, he shelters a prostitute wanted by the police for murder. He is released from suspicion and she eventually catches up with him when she escapes imprisonment. Another woman joins the duo and soon the ex-priest is learning more about the human heart and suffering than when he wore robes. As for the shocking scenes, suffice to say the ravages of a plague are also shown.

In the lost holy land of Milos, the Elrics search for the truth behind an unknown form of alchemy. What secrets are hidden in Milos? Riddles must be solved and dangers faced before the truth can be found.

Painfully shy Todd Anderson has been sent to the school where his popular older brother was valedictorian. His room-mate, Neil, although exceedingly bright and popular, is very much under the thumb of his overbearing father. The two, along with their other friends, meet Professor Keating, their new English teacher, who tells them of the Dead Poets Society, and encourages them to go against the status quo. Each, in their own way, does this, and are changed for life.

Rocky: Heavyweight Collection is a series of six boxing films. The first film, Rocky (1976), and its five sequels centered on the boxing career of the eponymous fictional character, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone). All of the films were written by Stallone. The original film and the fifth installment were directed by John G. Avildsen. Stallone directed the others.

Explore the world of the seemingly impossible with the all-new series SCI FI SCIENCE. Hosted by internationally-renowned physicist and co-founder of string field theory, Dr. Michio Kaku, this series poses the idea that science fiction may not be so far from science fact. Examine topics that currently seem so far outďż˝ of the realm of possibility, such as invisibility cloaks, teleportation, time travel and more. Kaku uses discussion of speculative technologies to introduce topics of fundamental physics to the reader.

Martin Bells (Ewan McGregor) is approaching a transition in his life, currently in his final semester of law school and involved in a serious relationship with his girlfriend Katherine (Patricia Arquette). Struggling to make ends meet, he accepts a night shift job as a security guard so that he can study and earn some money at the same time. The job itself entails regular rounds of the decrepit city morgue and its many darkly bizarre corridors, not a position flooded with applicants I would imagine. The media at this time is dominated by news of a string of murdered prostitutes, and aside from some DNA the police admit to having no definitive leads. Inspector Cray (Nick Nolte) is in charge of the case and comes into contact with Martin regularly at the morgue, offering him tantalising tit-bits of information about the cases to pass the long dark hours. After settling into the new job, Martin inadvertently finds himself a suspect in the killings when he begins a series of schoolboy-like dares with his mate James (Josh Brolin) to relieve their boredom. He knows he is being framed, but convincing those around him of his innocence proves to be a challenge.

The operative word in Drugstore Cowboy is "drug". Matt Dillon plays the leader of a group of dopeheads who wander around the country robbing pharmacies to feed their habits. Dillon's chums include doltish James Le Gros and teen-age junkie Heather Graham; also along for the ride is Dillon's wife Kelly Lynch. Their nemesis is cop James Remar, whom Dillon takes perverse delight in humiliating. When one of the young addicts dies of an overdose, it promps Dillon to try to go straight, a task complicated by wife Lynch's determination to stay high and by the corrupting presence of an ex-priest, played by Naked Lunch author William Burroughs. Drugstore Cowboy was director Gus Van Sant's breakthrough picture.

Poppy Cross is happy-go-lucky. At 30, she lives in Camden: cheeky, playful, frank while funny, and talkative to strangers. She's a conscientious and exuberant primary-school teacher, flatmates with Zoe, her long-time friend; she's close to one sister, and not so close to another. In this slice of life story, we watch her take driving lessons from Scott, a dour and tightly-wound instructor, take classes in flamenco dance from a fiery Spaniard, encounter a tramp in the night, and sort out a student's aggressive behavior with a social worker's help. Along the way, we wonder if her open attitude puts her at risk of misunderstanding or worse. What is the root of happiness?