MoviesZ

A movie for children and grown-ups of all ages, “Opal Dream” tells the touching story of a young girl, Kellyanne Williamson, whose unshakable faith in her two imaginary friends resonates through her small hometown in the Australian Outback. She lives with her family in a town that is well-known for its reserves of precious stones. Kellyanne is an average little girl, but there’s something odd about her friends, Pobby and Dingan, because apart from Kellyanne herself, nobody can see them.

For the most part, Kellyanne’s fantasy grates on her big brother’s nerves. However, their father insists on indulging his daughter - he even takes these two extra ‘members of the family’ down into the opal mine. One day he unwittingly - or perhaps deliberately - ‘leaves’ them in the mine and Pobby and Dingan go missing. Kellyanne wastes away with grief, and her brother enlists the town to search for the girl’s lost friends. As her brother takes it upon himself to rally the Williamson family and the community around his sister and her missing friends, everyone discovers what Kellyanne has long known; that you don’t necessarily have to see in order to believe.

A selection in the Berlin International Film Festival, 2006.

Watch trailer

“The Fountain” is an odyssey about one man’s thousand-year struggle to save the woman he loves. His epic journey begins in 16th century Spain, where conquistador Tomas Creo (Hugh Jackman) commences his search for the Tree of Life, the legendary entity believed to grant eternal life to those who drink of its sap. As modern-day scientist Tommy Creo, he desperately struggles to find a cure for the cancer that is killing his beloved wife Isabel (Rachel Weisz). Traveling through deep space as a 26th century astronaut, Tom begins to grasp the mysteries of life that have consumed him for more than a century.

Watch trailer

Everyone has experienced the unsettling mystery of déjà vu – that flash of memory when you meet someone new you feel you’ve known all your life or recognize a place even though you’ve never been there before. But what if the feelings were actually warnings sent from the past or clues to the future? In the captivating new action-thriller from producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Tony Scott, written by Terry Rossio & Bill Marsilii, it is déjà vu that unexpectedly guides ATF agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) through an investigation into a shattering crime. Called in to recover evidence after a bomb sets off a cataclysmic explosion on a New Orleans Ferry, Carlin is about to discover that what most people believe is only in their heads is actually something far more powerful – and will lead him on a mind-bending race to save hundreds of innocent people.

Watch trailer

Daniel Craig stars as “007″ James Bond, the smoothest, sexiest, most lethal agent on Her Majesty’s Secret Service in “Casino Royale.” Based on the first Bond book written by Ian Fleming, the story, which has never been told on film until now, recounts the making of the world’s greatest secret agent.

James Bond’s first “007″ mission leads him to Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), banker to the world’s terrorists. In order to stop him, and bring down the terrorist network, Bond must beat Le Chiffre in a high-stakes poker game at Casino Royale. Bond is initially annoyed when a beautiful British Treasury official, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), is assigned to deliver his stake for the game and watch over the government’s money. But, as Bond and Vesper survive a series of lethal attacks by Le Chiffre and his henchmen, a mutual attraction develops leading them both into further danger and events that will shape Bond’s life forever.

Watch trailer

“Candy,” which is the feature helming debut of noted Australian stage director Neil Armfield, is based on the prize-winning novel by Luke Davies and was adapted for the screen by Davies and Armfield. In the film, recent Oscar-nominee Ledger stars as Dan, a charming but reckless young poet who has fallen in love with Candy (Cornish), a beautiful young art student from a comfortable middle-class family who is attracted to the bohemian lifestyle that Dan has long since embraced. In order to get closer to Dan, Candy, whose previous drug use has been casually experimental, starts shooting up. Their passionate relationship then alternates between bursts of ecstatic oblivion and bouts of despair and self-destruction. Hooked as much on heroin as one another, their story becomes a love triangle – a boy, a girl, and a drug.

Watch trailer

“Bobby,” written and directed by Emilio Estevez, revisits the night Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down at the Ambassador Hotel in 1968. With an incredible ensemble cast portraying fictionalized characters from a cross-section of America, the film follows 22 individuals who are all at the hotel for different purposes but share the common thread of anticipating Kennedy’s arrival at the primary election night party, which would change their lives forever. This historic night is set against the backdrop of the cultural issues gripping the country at the time, including racism, sexual inequality and class differences.

Watch trailer

Oscar-winner Russell Crowe reunites with “Gladiator” director Ridley Scott in “A Good Year.” London-based investment expert Max Skinner (Crowe) moves to Provence to sell a small vineyard he has inherited from his late uncle. As Max reluctantly settles into what ultimately becomes an intoxicating new chapter in his life, he encounters a beautiful California woman who also lays claim to the property.

Watch trailer

Kidman stars as legendary photographer Diane Arbus. Set in New York in the late 1950s, the film explores an unlikely romance that leads Arbus into a strange new world, sparking her evolution into one of the most provocative and visionary photographers of all time.

Watch trailer

A definitive look at the infamous expletive, “F*ck” explores how this oft-used word, still widely seen as obscene, somehow permeates every aspect of our culture - from Hollywood, to the schoolyard, to the Senate floor in Washington D.C., where it is at the very center of the ongoing debate on Free Speech. “F*ck” examines the word’s impact through various interviews, film and television clips, and original animation by Oscar-nominee Bill Plympton.

Scholars and linguists examine its long and colorful history; comedians, actors, and writers who have charted and popularized the word defend their Constitutional right to use it. Even people who do “it” for a living are interviewed, all in an effort to discover what it is about this one syllable that both unites and polarizes people.

Watch trailer

Classical music aficionado or no, it’s tough not to be moved by the soaring notes of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The work stands as both a defining highpoint in the composer’s career and a dynamic and beguiling legacy of its era. An imaginative exploration of Beethoven’s life in his final days working on the Ninth, “Copying Beethoven” draws inspiration from the music itself. Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, the film is both thrilling and romantic.

It is 1824. The composer, played brilliantly by Ed Harris, is racing to finish his new symphony. However, it has been years since his last success and he is plagued by deafness, loneliness and personal trauma. A copyist is urgently needed to help the composer finish in time for the scheduled first performance - otherwise the orchestra will have no music to play. Insightful young conservatory student and aspiring composer Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger) is recommended for the position. The mercurial Beethoven is skeptical that a woman might become involved in his masterpiece but slowly comes to trust in Anna’s assistance and in the end becomes quite fond of her.

By the time the piece is performed - a moment in history captured in an exquisitely moving shot from Anna’s perspective, as she sits on the orchestra floor helping the deaf Beethoven to keep time - her presence in his life is an absolute necessity. Her deep understanding of his work is such that she even corrects mistakes he has made, while her passionate personality opens a door into his proud, private world.

Harris is no stranger to bringing iconic, larger-than-life figures to the screen; his lead performance in “Pollock” was a masterful exploration of a tormented but talented artist. He channels a similar esprit here: his Beethoven is ribald and volatile, vulnerable and, ultimately, endearing. He is matched in intensity and skill by Kruger, who makes the young Anna both an enraptured apprentice and a paragon of willful female independence and ambition. These two characters break down barrier after barrier, and the result is a harmonious wonder.

Watch trailer