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Americano, directed by Mathieu Demy
 
After receiving news of his mother's death, Martin leaves his girlfriend (Chiara Mastroianni) and home in Paris and sets off for Los Angeles to tie up the loose ends of his rocky maternal relationship. Arriving in the United States, Martin is greeted by his mother's best friend Linda who agrees to help him settle his late mother's affairs. As Martin digs deeper into his mother's past, he discovers she had a hidden relationship with a beautiful woman named Lola ), who he finds at a seedy strip club in Tijuana called the Americano. As Lola recounts her affair with his mother, Martin discovers there may have been more than he ever hoped to know about his mother's sordid past and his own problems with commitment. New York Times film critic A.O. Scott says the film "demonstrates unassuming self-assurance and an admirable willingness to take formal and emotional risks in pursuit of a complicated and elusive truth." You can read the rest of the review here.

Black Butterflies, directed by Paula van der Oest
 
Poetry, politics, madness, and desire collide in the true story of the woman hailed as South Africa's finest poet. In 1960s Cape Town, as Apartheid steals the expressive rights of blacks and whites alike, young Ingrid Jonker finds her freedom scrawling verse while frittering through a series of stormy affairs. Amid escalating quarrels with her lovers and her rigid father, a parliament censorship minister, the poet witnesses an unconscionable event that will alter the course of both her artistic and personal lives.

Comes a Bright Day, directed by Simon Aboud
 
Sam is a bright, ambitious, and handsome bellboy at a five-star hotel who has big dreams of one day running his own restaurant. On a seemingly ordinary day, he suddenly finds himself in a life-or-death hostage situation with the radiantly beautiful Mary and her elderly boss. Against the backdrop of an armed jewel robbery that goes badly wrong, hostages Sam and Mary, flung together, discover their true feelings for each other. 

Eating Raoul, directed by Paul Bartel
 
A prudish married couple are feeling put upon by the swingers who live in their apartment building; one night, by accident, they discover a way to simultaneously realize their dream of opening a little restaurant and rid themselves of the "perverts" down the hall. A mix of hilarious, anything-goes slapstick and biting satire of me-generation self-indulgence, Eating Raoul marks the end of the sexual revolution with a thwack. Reissue of the early '80's cult classic. 

Enlightened: The complete season 1 , creators, Laura Dern & Mike White
 
Enlightened centers on Amy Jellicoe (Laura Dern), a 40-year-old woman who returns home to California after a month's stay at a holistic treatment facility, a result of having a mental breakdown at work triggered by her self-destructive ways. Amy returns to her old life with a new cultivated approach and perspective, which includes daily meditation and exhorting the power of self-help and inner healing. Though Amy wants to be an "agent of change" in the world, the people who know her best are skeptical of her latest intentions. This subtle comedy is also notable for its take on office and family dynamics. Stick with it, it takes some getting used to but well worth your time.

La Terra Trema , directed by Luchino Visconti
 
Italian neo-realism at it's most epic. Originally released in 1948. Sicilian fishermen exploited for their cheap labor vainly strike out on their own. Everything goes well until a storm ruins the family's boat, leaving them with nothing to keep the new business going. Following this disaster, the family experiences several unfortunate events that tests their bonds. For more details, read this excellent overview from the The Movie Projector blog. 

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, directed by Hayao Miyazaki
 
From the maker of Ponyo and Spirited Away, this amazing animated films takes place after a global war, and tells the story of the seaside kingdom known as the Valley Of The Wind, which remains one of the last strongholds on Earth untouched by a poisonous jungle and the powerful insects that guard it. Led by the courageous Princess Nausicaa, the people of the Valley engage in an epic struggle to restore the bond between humanity and Earth. 

Ruby Sparks, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
 
Struggling with writer's block and a lackluster love life, once-famous novelist Calvin creates a beautiful fictitious character named Ruby who inspires him. But not only does this bring his work to life, it also brings Ruby to life, literally. Face-to-face with an actual relationship with his once virtual girlfriend, Calvin must now decide whether to pen this love story or let it write itself. 

The Trench, directed by William Boyd
 
A group of young British soldiers are on the eve of the Battle of the Somme, the worst defeat in British military history. At the center of the troops is 17-year-old Billy Macfarlane with his older brother Eddie who have volunteered for service. Like their fellow squad members, they are boys dressed as men. Their survival is in the hands of war-hardened Sergeant Winter and bookish Lieutenant Harte. When word comes the squad will join the first wave of attacks, they all face an equal fate. 

The Wise Kids, directed by Stephen Cone
 
Three members of a church youth group struggle to find their identities in their senior year of high school. Well reviewed and highly regarded. Read Roger Ebert's review here.

Ballplayer: Pelotero, produced & directed by Ross Finkel, Trevor Martin, Jonathan Paley & Isaac Solotaroff
 
This compelling documentary narrated by John Leguizamo is a gritty and rare look inside Major League Baseball's recruitment of top talent in the Dominican Republic. Miguel Angel Sano and Jean Carlos Batista are among 100,000 teenagers vying for a handful of coveted contracts with MLB teams. As they turn 16 years old and become eligible to sign, each must navigate the fiercely competitive and frequently corrupt system if they are to lift their families out of poverty and achieve their dream: to one day play in the Major Leagues.

The Code, directed and produced by Stephen Cooter, Michael Lachmann, and Dan Child
 
What makes the world operate the way it does? Are there patterns to what happens or do we live in a universe of random events that cannot be predicted or explained? Author and Oxford University professor Marcus du Sautoy sets out to answer these and other questions in this engaging and entertaining three-part documentary series about the power of numbers. Convinced there is a mathematical formula that can identify patterns and connect everything we see around us, Du Sautoy goes in search of a mysterious hidden code that can unlock the very laws of the universe. 

The Flaw: markets, money, mortgages and the great American meltdown, directed by David Sington
 
The Flaw tells the story of the credit bubble that caused the financial crash through interviews with some of the world's leading economists as well as Wall Street insiders and victims of the crash. The film presents an original and compelling account of the toxic combination of forces that nearly destroyed the world economy, demonstrating how excessive income inequality leads to economic instability.

Foreign Parts, directed by Verena Paravel
 
Foreign Parts is an exemplary social record of Willets Point, an industrial graveyard of scrap heaps and auto shops in Queens, New York, that is scheduled to be demolished and redeveloped. Filled with scrapyards and auto salvage shops, lacking sidewalks or sewage lines, the area seems ripe for urban development. But Foreign Parts discovers a strange community where wrecks, refuse and recycling form a thriving commerce. Meet the folks who are about to be displaced. They are an interesting bunch. The film observes and captures the struggle of a contested eminent domain neighborhood before its disappearance under the capitalization of New York s urban ecology. 

Garbo the Spy, directed by Edmon Roch
 
The story of Juan Pujol Garcia, World War II double agent. He was known by the allies simply as "Garbo." He fed false information to the Nazis and fabricated a network of phantom agents across Europe. Although he never fired a single shot, Garbo helped to save thousands of lives, most notably by misinforming the Germans about the timing and location of D-Day. This documentary thriller, interweaves propaganda footage, interviews with intelligence experts and key players in Garbo's life (as well as with Garbo himself), and clips from Hollywood films to conjure forgotten and living memories, heroes and spies, secrets and lies.

LennoNYC, directed by Michael Epstein
 
On the the 30th anniversary of his death, a new film takes an intimate look at the time Lennon, Yoko Ono, and their son, Sean, spent living in New York City during the 1970s. Featuring never-before-heard studio recordings and never-before-seen outtakes from Lennon in concert and home movies.

Marina Abramovic: the artist is present, directed by Matthew Akers
 
A journey into the world of radical performance and an intimate portrait of an astonishingly magnetic, endlessly intriguing woman who draws no distinction between life and art. Serbian performance artist Marina Abramovic has been redefining art for nearly forty years. Using her body as a vehicle, she creates performances that challenges, shocks and moves us.

Semper Fi: always faithful, produced and directed by Rachel Libert & Tony Hardmon
 
Marine Corps Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger was a devoted Marine for nearly twenty-five years... As a drill instructor he lived and breathed the 'Corps' and was responsible for indoctrinating thousands of new recruits with its motto Semper Fidelis or "Always Faithful." When Jerry's nine-year old daughter Janey died of a rare type of leukemia, his world collapsed. As a grief-stricken father, he struggled for years to make sense of what happened. His search for answers led to a shocking discovery of Marine Corps cover-up of one of the largest water contamination incidents in U.S. history. Semper Fi: Always Faithful follows Jerry's mission to expose the Marine Corps and force them to live up to their motto to the thousands of soldiers and their families exposed to toxic chemicals. His fight reveals a grave injustice at North Carolina's Camp Lejeune and a looming environmental crisis at military sites across the country.

Something Ventured, directed by Dan Geller & Dayna Goldfine
 
Something Ventured maps the creation of an industry that went on to become the single greatest engine of innovation and economic growth in the 20th century. The story is told through the visionary risk-takers who dared to make it happen: Tom Perkins, Don Valentine, Arthur Rock, Dick Kramlich and others. The film also features some of the country s finest entrepreneurs and their stories with the venture capitalists to grow world-class companies like Intel, Apple, Cisco, Atari, Genentech, Tandem and others. 

Surviving Progress, directed by Mathieu Roy & Harold Crooks
 
Technological advancement, economic development, population increase - are they signs of a thriving society? Or too much of a good thing? This documentary explores the concept of progress in our modern world, guiding us through the major progress traps facing our civilization in the arenas of technology, economics, consumption, and the environment. Featuring arguments from, among others, Jane Goodall, Margaret Atwood and Stephen Hawking, this film invites the viewer to contemplate the progress traps that destroyed past civilizations and that lie treacherously embedded in our own.

'Tis Autumn: the search for Jackie Paris, directed by Raymond De Felitta
 
In 1991 filmmaker Raymond De Felitta heard a singer named Jackie Paris on a Los Angeles radio station and began a search that first yielded the fact that Paris had died in 1977. In 2004 De Felitta discovered Paris was alive and making a comeback in a New York City nightclub. This film explores the life of the jazz singer along with an exploration into what it is to live the life of an artist in its least glamorous aspects.

Pearls of the Czech New Wave, Criterion Collection
 
Of all the cinematic New Waves that broke over the world in the 1960s, the one in Czechoslovakia was among the most fruitful, fascinating, and radical. With a wicked sense of humor and a healthy streak of surrealism, a group of fearless directors--including eventual Oscar winners Miloš Forman and Ján Kadár--began to use film to speak out about the hypocrisy and absurdity of the Communist state. A defining work was the 1966 omnibus film Pearls of the Deep, which introduced five of the movement's essential voices: Věra Chytilová, Jaromil Jireš, Jiří Menzel, Jan Němec, and Evald Schorm. This series presents that title, along with five other crucial works that followed close on its heels, one from each of those filmmakers--some dazzlingly experimental, some arrestingly realistic, all singular expressions from a remarkable time and place.

Boardwalk Empire: the complete Season 2
 
Season 2 of the acclaimed HBO series. Set in Atlantic City, New Jersey, follows the story of Enoch "Nucky" Thompson who controlled the city during the Prohibition period of the 1920s and 1930s.Starring Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Michael Shannon and Kelly MacDonald.

Assault on Precinct 13, restored Collectors edition, by John Carpenter
 
Not the goofy remake but the 1976 John Carpenter original. Cops and gangsters band together in a remote LA police station to fend off an even tougher band of thugs. You may have seen this at the drive-in when you were a kid. This cult masterpiece gets a facelift. 

Bonsai, directed by Cristián Jiménez
 
Julio tells his girlfriend he has a job transcribing a novel, when he's actually writing his own work. Looking for inspiration, he revisits an old romance and gets involved again. Based on an internationally acclaimed novella, Bonsai is a study of the lies we tell ourselves. A Cannes Film Festival official selection.

Out, directed by Jim Goddard
 
After an eight-year prison stint for a failed bank heist, Frank Ross returns to his old gangland haunts to find the snitch who sent him to jail. The smooth, streetwise ex-con quickly adjusts to the new attitudes of the disco-tinged '70s but discovers that although neighborhoods change, old grudges never go out of style.Filmed on location in South London, this series, which originally aired in 1978, depicts a world where gritty pubs and dingy pubs teem with high-living mobsters and corrupt cops. 6 episodes on 2 discs.

Women on the 6th Floor, directed by Phillipe Le Guay
 
Paris, 1960. Jean-Louis lives a bourgeois existence with his neurotic socialite wife Suzanne while their children are away at boarding school. The couple's world is turned upside-down when they hire María, a Spanish maid who introduces Jean-Louis to an alternative reality a few stories up on the sixth floor servants' quarters. Befriending a group of sassy Spanish maids, the women teach him there's more to life than stocks and bonds, and their influence on the house ultimately transforms everyone's life.