they killed sister dorothy Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox run for their lives as Michael Bay's giant robots trample onto the home video scene on DVD (single-disc or two-disc special edition) and Blu-ray (two-disc special edition). The special editions includes audio commentary by Bay and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, deleted / alternate scenes, a music video, and additional features, such as "A Day With Bay: Tokyo," "Giant Effing Movie," and "The Matrix of Marketing." To approximate the theatrical experience, play really, really loud, and sit as far back from the screen as you possibly can. Resistance is futile. Rent it.

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Blood: The Last Vampire
Chris Nahon's live-action adaptation of an anime series features a half-human, half-vampire samurai battling an infestation of demons. "the result is so laughably awful that it easily qualifies for so-bad-it's-good status," wrote Jeffrey M. Anderson. "As you may expect, the English-language dialogue is ultra-serious and absurd, the action is inept and shaky, and the visual effects look like they might have been generated on an old Atari video game." Also on Blu-ray. Skip it.

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Chéri
Michelle Pfeiffer's reunites with her Dangerous Liaisons director (Stephen Frears) and scripter (Christopher Hampton) for a movie based on a novel by French writer Colette about a passionate affair. "For some reason," Jeffrey M. Anderson wrote, "Chéri is dead on arrival, a cold fish. It just lies there, too lethargic to be funny and too timid to be sexy, but not deep enough for any real drama." Skip it.

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After the jump: Indies on DVD, Blu-ray Picks, and Collector's Corner!

One of SXSW's prize winning documentaries is finally coming to the masses. This Wednesday (March 25), HBO2 will be premiering Daniel Junge's documentary They Killed Sister Dorothy at 8:00/9:30 p.m ET/PT. It will get a handful of replays, so check HBO's schedule and your local listings if you miss it on the first try.

Junge's documentary examines the life and brutal murder of Sister Dorothy Stang, a 73-year-old nun from Ohio who was shot to death in an Amazon jungle. Three men were eventually convicted of killing her, and the Brazilian government stepped up to continue her work in preserving the Amazon rainforest.

Kim Voynar reviewed the documentary at SXSW last year, and was full of praise for its tight style and clear narrative: "They Killed Sister Dorothy isn't just a film about a nun thwarting the attempts of honest ranchers to simply make a living; at its heart, this is really a story about the wealthy versus the poor, and about an activist trying to protect a natural resource from those who would destroy it for profit."

The other five reviewers collected by Rotten Tomatoes all found it equally riveting, which suggests we should all check it out. Sister Dorothy Stang was willing to die for her cause and no matter what your feelings on environmental issues might be, her story is worth knowing and remembering.

For a lot of movie geeks, it's unnerving when the Oscar nominations are announced and there are films on the list that we haven't seen. (Except for the short-film categories, because no one's seen those.) This happens most regularly with documentaries, which often play only for a week or two at the local art house, if they play there at all.

On Jan. 8-10, Tribeca Cinemas in Manhattan will do its part to help this problem by screening six of the 15 docs that are on the shortlist for the Oscar nomination. The filmmakers, all of whom are alumni of the Tribeca Film Festival, will be on hand to present their work and participate in Q-and-A's. The event is sponsored by the Tribeca Film Institute and Gucci (because when you think of high-quality documentary filmmaking, you think of Gucci).

The films on the schedule are: At the Death House Door (about a prison chaplain who ministers to Death Row inmates), The Garden (about a community garden in South Central L.A.), I.O.U.S.A. (about America's debt problem), Man on Wire (about the crazy French guy who walked a tightrope between the Twin Towers in 1974 -- this will probably win the Oscar), Pray the Devil Back to Hell (about Liberian women bringing peace to their country after years of warlords), and They Killed Sister Dorothy (about the murder of a Catholic nun and social activist in Brazil).

Full details on the screenings are here. If you're in the NYC area, this is a great opportunity not just to see the films (Man on Wire is out on DVD anyway), but to meet the filmmakers. Every now and then, the rest of us get envious of you NYC dwellers. Every now and then.

It was tough work, but we did it: we managed to drag ourselves to over 50 films, sit in the velvet-draped seats of roughly six different darkened theaters, and absorb all that celluloid. Thereafter, we discussed what we watched, ranked, sorted, argued, re-ranked, and discussed some more. Finally, we were able to come up with this list of the 10 best films from SXSW 2008. If you weren't able to come to SXSW this year, it's ok. We've got the lowdown for you. Here we go...

(For the full review of each film, click the image.)

Natural Causes is a modern romantic comedy. While not perfect, it is composed of so many identifiably true moments that you'll fall in love with the movie ... The performances by Jerzy Gwiazdowski and Leah Goldstein help seal the deal. It wasn't until after the movie that I learned they're a real-life couple, which surprised me because most real-life couples have little chemistry on screen. Yet they convinced me they were, at various stages, a flirting couple getting to know one another, a comfortable pair of lovers playing video games naked, and a bickering twosome.

On February 12, 2005, Sister Dorothy Stang, a Catholic nun and environmental and social activist, was gunned down in the Brazilian rainforest in which she had lived and worked for over 30 years. The trials of the gunmen and the rancher accused of arranging for her murder sent shockwaves through the environmental community, exposing the politics surrouding the battle over the future of the rain forest and the plight of the peasant farmers who live there. Stang, who was born in Dayton, Ohio, but became a naturalized Brazilian citizen, had fought and worked on behalf of the farmers of the region for decades, working with the Brazilian government to establish sustainable living communities that would allow poor farmers to survive while preserving the natural habitat from excessive deforestation.

Filmmaker Daniel Junge followed Stang's brother David to Brazil, to make They Killed Sister Dorothy, a documentary about Stang's lifework and the effort to bring her killers to justice. The filmmakers also had unprecedented access to the defendants and the defense team, allowing them to show both sides of the story. Sister Dorothy's perspective is told largely through interviews with those who knew her best: the peasant farmers among whom she lived and work, her fellow Sisters of Notre Dame, who lived and worked with her in Brazil, the federal prosecutor who was her friend and ally, and Sister Dorothy herself, through archival footage.