In Leviathan, Kolia [Alexey Serebryakov] lives in a coastal village near the Barents Sea in Northern Russia, running an auto-repair shop from the garage of his childhood home, shared with young wife Lilya [Elena Lyadova] and his teenage son from a previous marriage.
The family’s world is under threat: Vadim Sergeyich [Roman Madyanov], the imperious town Mayor, has slapped a compulsory acquisition order on Kolia’s prime land, earmarking the site for a development of undetermined but dubious funding — and offering risible, token compensation. To Sergeyich’s great surprise, Kolia enlists the help of ex-army friend Dmitri [Vladimir Vdovitchenkov], now a hotshot lawyer from Moscow. Dmitri has uncovered some highly incriminating evidence that he believes will force the Mayor to back down, even if he has secrets of his own. Soon tempers and passions are inflamed, events spiral out of control, and lives are placed at stake.
Rosewater is based on the best-selling memoir by Maziar Bahari. The film is the directorial debut of Jon Stewart, and stars Gael García Bernal. Rosewater follows the Tehran-born Bahari, a journalist with Canadian citizenship. In June 2009, Bahari returned to Iran to interview Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who was the challenger to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As Mousavi’s supporters protested Ahmadinejad’s victory declaration hours before the polls closed, Bahari endured personal risk by sending footage of the street riots to the BBC. Bahari was arrested by police, led by a man identifying himself as “Rosewater,” who tortured and interrogated him over the next 118 days. With Bahari’s wife leading an international campaign to have her husband freed, and media outlets keeping the story alive, Iranian authorities released Bahari on bail and the promise he would act as a spy for the government.
The Nightcrawler film is a pulse-pounding thriller set in the nocturnal underbelly of contemporary Los Angeles. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Lou Bloom, a driven young man desperate for work who discovers the high-speed world of L.A. crime journalism. Finding a group of freelance camera crews who film crashes, fires, murder and other mayhem, Lou muscles into the cut-throat, dangerous realm of nightcrawling — where each police siren wail equals a possible windfall and victims are converted into dollars and cents. Aided by Rene Russo as Nina — a veteran of the blood-sport that is local TV news — Lou thrives. In the breakneck, ceaseless search for footage, he becomes the star of his own story.
Kat Connors [Shailene Woodley] is 17 years old when her perfect homemaker mother — Eve [Eva Green], a beautiful, enigmatic, and haunted woman, disappears – just as Kat is discovering and relishing her newfound sexuality. Having lived for so long in a stifled, emotionally repressed household, she barely registers her mother’s absence and certainly doesn’t blame her doormat of a father — Brock — [Christopher Meloni] for the loss. In fact, it’s almost a relief. But as time passes, Kat begins to come to grips with how deeply Eve’s disappearance has affected her. Returning home on a break from college, she finds herself confronted with the truth about her mother’s departure, and her own denial about the events surrounding it…
The Young Ones film is set in a near future when water has become the most precious and dwindling resource on the planet, one that dictates everything from the macro of political policy to the detailed micro of interpersonal family and romantic relationships. The land has withered into something wretched. The dust has settled on a lonely, barren planet. The hardened survivors of the loss of Earth’s precious resources scrape and struggle. Ernest Holm [Michael Shannon] lives on this harsh frontier with his children, Jerome [Kodi Smit McPhee] and Mary [Elle Fanning]. He defends his farm from bandits, works the supply routes, and hopes to rejuvenate the soil. But Mary’s boyfriend, Flem Lever [Nicholas Hoult], has grander designs. He wants Ernest’s land for himself, and will go to any length to get it.
April, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theatre, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy commands a Sherman tank and her five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Outnumbered and out-gunned, and with a rookie soldier thrust into their platoon, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany.
Eighteen year-old Helen Memel [Carla Juri] likes to skateboard, masturbate with vegetables and thinks that body hygiene is greatly overrated. Struggling with her parents’ divorce, she spends her time experimenting and breaking one social taboo after the other with her best friend, Corinna [Marlen Kruse]. When a shaving accident lands her in the hospital, she sees it as a way to reconcile her parents, but ends up forming an unlikely bond with her male nurse, Robin [Christoph Letkowski] in the process.
Once happily married — Conor [James McAvoy] and Eleanor [Jessica Chastain] suddenly find themselves as strangers longing to understand each other in the wake of tragedy. The film explores the couple’s story as they try to reclaim the life and love they once knew and pick up the pieces of a past that may be too far gone.
The film tells the story of two immigrant brothers Sonny [Justin Chon] and Steven [Kevin Wu] who survive the impoverished despair of New York in the 1980s by joining Chinatown gang The Green Dragons. The brothers quickly rise up the ranks, drawing the unwanted attention of hard-boiled city cops. After an ill-fated love affair pits Sonny against his own brother, he sets out for revenge on the very gang who made him who he is.
Reserve Result. 