Tomas is a doctor and a lady-killer in 1960s Czechoslovakia, an apolitical man who is struck with love for the bookish country girl Tereza; his more sophisticated sometime lover Sabina eventually accepts their relationship and the two women form an electric friendship. The three are caught up in the events of the Prague Spring (1968), until the Soviet tanks crush the non-violent rebels; their illusions are shattered and their lives change forever.

In Writer, Producer, and Director Julie Taymor's version of "The Tempest", the main character is now a woman named Prospera (Dame Helen Mirren). Going back to the sixteenth or seventeenth century, women practicing the magical arts of alchemy were often convicted of witchcraft. In Taymor's version, Prospera is usurped by her brother and sent off with her four-year daughter on a ship. She ends up on an island; it's a tabula rasa: no society, so the mother figure becomes a father figure to Miranda (Felicity Jones). This leads to the power struggle and balance between Caliban (Djimon Hounsou) and Prospera; a struggle not about brawn, but about intellect.

A well-educated psychiatrist leaves an academic career to work at an institution where his father, a novelist, lived before writing a renowned children's book. Acclimating to his position, he encounters a schizophrenic who helps him to discover the book's secrets and his place in the story.

2005 film directed by Joshua Michael Stern

Fletcher Munson is a lethargic, passive worker for a Scientology-like self-help corporation called Eventualism. After the death of a colleague, he is promoted to the job of writing speeches for T. Azimuth Schwitters, the founder and head of the group. He uses this as an excuse to be emotionally and romantically distant from his wife, who, he discovers, is having an affair with his doppelganger, a dentist named Dr. Jeffrey Korchek. As Munson fumbles with the speech and Korchek becomes obsessed with a new patient, a psychotic exterminator named Elmo Oxygen goes around the town seducing lonely wives and taking photographs of his genitals.

This movie is a love story set in a Brave New World-type near-future where cities are heavily controlled and accessible only through checkpoints. People cannot travel unless they have "papeles" (papers in Spanish; words and sentences in many languages, especially Spanish, French, and Chinese are mixed with English in this new world), a special travel permit issued by the totalitarian government, the "Sphinx". Outside these cities, the desert has taken over and shanty towns are jammed with non-citizens, people without IDs forced to live primitive lives. William Geld (

2003 film directed by Michael Winterbottom

Michael Jennings is a reverse engineer and what he does is technical jobs for certain companies and as soon as he is done, his memory of the work he has done is wiped out. Now the longest he has been contracted is 2 months. But now billionaire, James Rethrick offers him a job that would last 2 years, maybe 3, and he promises that he will probably earn 8 figures. Michael agrees. Before beginning he turns in all of his personal effects. And when the job is done, his memory is erased and he learns he made over 90 million dollars over the three years. When he goes to claim it and his personal effects, he discovers that prior to the erasure of his memory he waived his rights to the money he earned and that the items that were given to him were not the ones he gave when he began. Later he is arrested by the FBI who say that he committed some act of treason and murder. It's while he is in custody that he escapes using some the items that he was given. He later meets with a friend who gives him some information that helps him understand what is going on. And at the same time Rethrick for some reason wants him so he is being pursued by Rethrick's people.

2003 science fiction film directed by John Woo

In 2038, Earth's mineral resources are drained, there are space fights for the last deposits on other planets and satellites. This is the situation when one of the bigger mining corporations has lost many mineral moons except one and many of their fully automatic mining robots are disappearing on their flight home. Since nobody else wants the job, they send prisoners as a last resort to defend the mining station. Among them, internal affairs agent Felix Stone, assigned to clear the whereabouts of the expensive robots. In an atmosphere of corruption, fear and hatred, Stone gets between the fronts of rivaling groups and locates the person committing sabotage.

In a dystopian future, an unidentified virus has caused a neurological disease of global proportions, decimating the majority of the earth's population. Little by little, as we observe the lives of a handful of survivors who still remain relatively unharmed by this illness, we understand their struggle to hopelessly attach to their former way of life, where even the simplest of affairs require great effort to be accomplished. Ultimately, as the last remaining souls suffer from varying degrees of memory loss, the urgent and paramount need to move forward with their lives will become an arduous task and a fierce battle with the inevitable.

In a future world, young people are increasingly becoming addicted to an illegal (and potentially deadly) battle simulation game called Avalon. When Ash, a star player, hears of rumors that a more advanced level of the game exists somewhere, she gives up her loner ways and joins a gang of explorers. Even if she finds the gateway to the next level, will she ever be able to come back to reality?

Berkeley record store clerk Nick Brady (Jonathan Scarfe) begins to experience strange visions from an entity he calls VALIS that cause him to uproot his family and move to Los Angeles where he becomes a successful music company executive. With the help of best friend, science fiction writer Philip K. Dick himself (Shea Whigam) and a mysterious woman named Silvia (Alanis Morissette), Nick finds himself drawn into a dangerous political-mystical conspiracy of cosmic proportions. The story is set in an alternate reality America circa 1985 under the authoritarian control of President Fremont, a Nixon-like clone (Scott Wilson).

On the day that Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans, elderly Daisy Williams (nee Fuller) is on her deathbed in a New Orleans hospital. At her side is her adult daughter, Caroline. Daisy asks Caroline to read to her aloud the diary of Daisy's lifelong friend, Benjamin Button. Benjamin's diary recounts his entire extraordinary life, the primary unusual aspect of which was his aging backwards, being diagnosed with several aging diseases at birth and thus given little chance of survival, but who does survive and gets younger with time. Abandoned by his biological father, Thomas Button, after Benjamin's biological mother died in childbirth, Benjamin was raised by Queenie, a black woman and caregiver at a seniors home. Daisy's grandmother was a resident at that home, which is where she first met Benjamin. Although separated through the years, Daisy and Benjamin remain in contact throughout their lives, reconnecting in their forties when in age they finally match up. Some of the revelations in Benjamin's diary are difficult for Caroline to read, especially as it relates to the time past this reconnection between Benjamin and Daisy, when Daisy gets older and Benjamin grows younger into his childhood years.

In this comedy, Lars Lindstrom is an awkwardly shy young man in a small northern town who finally brings home the girl of his dreams to his brother and sister-in-law's home. The only problem is that she's not real - she's a sex doll Lars ordered off the Internet. But sex is not what Lars has in mind, but rather a deep, meaningful relationship. His sister-in-law is worried for him, his brother thinks he's nuts, but eventually the entire town goes along with his delusion in support of this sweet natured boy that they've always loved.

Based on the international best-selling autobiographical books "Papillon" and "Banco", PAPILLON follows the epic story of Henri "Papillon" Charrière (Charlie Hunnam), a safecracker from the Parisian underworld who is framed for murder and condemned to life in the notorious penal colony on Devil's Island. Determined to regain his freedom, Papillon forms an unlikely alliance with quirky convicted counterfeiter Louis Dega (Rami Malek), who in exchange for protection, agrees to finance Papillon's escape.

Keeping at bay his inner demons by devoting himself to art, metal drummer, Ruben, has been living for the moment for the past four years. Then, while on tour with his lead-singer/girlfriend, Lou, Ruben realises that his hearing is rapidly deteriorating. As this sudden hearing loss turns his world upside down, and numbing fear paired with angry denial take over, Ruben reluctantly accepts to join a small deaf community overseen by Joe, a compassionate Vietnam War veteran. Now, Ruben needs to find some solid ground, understand that being deaf is not a handicap and that deafness isn't something to fix. But, is Ruben willing to accept his new life and learn how to be deaf?

A professor enters a cave and goes missing. Some of his students come looking for him and get trapped in the cave as well.

2017 film directed by Ben Foster and Mark Dennis

Camden College. Sean Bateman is the younger brother of depraved Wall Street broker Patrick Bateman. He's also a drug dealer who owes a lot of money to "fellow" dealer Rupert Guest, as well as a well-known womanizer, for he sleeps with nearly half of the female population on campus. Lauren Hynde is, technically, a virgin. She's saving herself for her shallow boyfriend, Victor Johnson, who's left the States to backpack across Europe. Her slutty roommate, Lara, has the hots for Victor as well. Paul Denton, who used to date Lauren, is openly bisexual and attracted to Mitchell Allen, who's dating Candice to prove to Paul that he's not gay. Sean loves Lauren. Paul loves Sean. And Lauren may love Sean.

movies to watch


movie

Matthew Olsen

Comedy Podcasts

Rando artists that don't assimilate to what would be considered "the norm". Spans from hip-hop to punk rock and lots between.

Great Music-multifarious and eclectic yet far out there


Podcasts

Italian composer and violinist (1678-1741)

Bedtime/Relax


best punk rock bands


Everything from punk rock to hip hop to pop. I'd like to think that the list is full of bands/people that do it better than most of their contemporaries. Most of the music has resonated with me at some level or in some time of my life. What would  the soundtrack of your life sound like?

just some great bands I love

British-American author and journalist (1949-2011)

People to read


British television documentary series about the Second World War

Docs/Doc-series


2004 documentary film directed by Adam Curtis