A weather man is reluctantly sent to cover a story about a weather forecasting "rat" (as he calls it). This is his fourth year on the story, and he makes no effort to hide his frustration. On awaking the 'following' day he discovers that it's Groundhog Day again, and again, and again. First he uses this to his advantage, then comes the realisation that he is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the same place, seeing the same people do the same thing EVERY day.

Plot Summary:

A young boy lives in a small floating temple on a beautiful lake, together with an elderly master who teaches him the ways of the Buddha. Years later the boy, now a young man, experiences his sexual awakening with a girl who has come to the temple to be healed by the master. The youth runs away to the outside world but his lust turns his life into hell, so he returns to the lake temple to find spiritual enlightenment.

A stream-of-consciousness dialogue between playwright/actor Wallace Shawn and director/actor Andre Gregory, as it unfolds over dinner in a posh NYC restaurant. The two basically play themselves, and Andre does most of the talking. Wallace Shawn functions as a sort of audience-surrogate, grounding Gregory's philosophical speculations with his own occasional wisecracks.

French director Robert Enrico directed this devastating short masterpiece covering the final moments of a man about to be hung for sabotage during the Civil War who is suddenly saved when the rope breaks. He then makes his way through hazardous country, trying to finally reach home. The somber mood is emphasized by the sparse movements of the soldiers, the extreme close-ups of the man about to be hung, and the black-and-white camerawork that moves almost painfully slowly between the noose, the water, the trees. Based on a story by Ambrose Bierce, the film won the short film Palme D'Or at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival and a 1964 Academy Award for Best Short Subject, Live Action, and was featured as a special episode of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone.

• This film was the last episode ever shown of the original "Twlight Zone" TV series. Rod Serling bought the rights because the show was over budget and it was cheaper than filming a new episode. It won an Emmy Award - making this the only film ever to win both an Oscar and an Emmy.
• The US title "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge" is misspelled.
• Aside from the shouts of the soldiers and the song that plays as the prisoner floats to safety, there is no dialogue (not counting the edited Twilight Zone version's narration by Rod Serling). This is significant because the original episode of The Twilight Zone was also almost completely devoid of dialogue.

Adrian Lyne's JACOB'S LADDER moves in time and space between Vietnam and New York with hallucinatory force. Something bad happened on the Mekong Delta, on October 6, 1971, and it is still affecting war veteran Jacob (Tim Robbins) in Brooklyn as he attempts to live a normal life with coworker and girlfriend Jezzie (Elizabeth Peña). Louis (Danny Aiello), an understanding chiropractor, tries to help him cope with his nightmarish visions--some of which occur at night, while others intrude into his daily life. When Jacob gets a call from Paul (Pruitt Taylor Vince), who was with him in Vietnam, it seems that Jacob is not alone in his visions. The film offers impressive and compelling performances by Peña, Aiello (no ordinary chiropractor), and Ving Rhames and Eriq La Salle (the latter of ER) as Jacob's comrades from Vietnam. Macaulay Culkin appears uncredited as Jacob's young son, Gabe. Director Lyne also guides an unerring interpretation of Bruce Joel Rubin's screenplay in Robbins's powerfully restless, searingly searching performance as Jacob; brilliant editing additionally rounds out this engrossing, disturbing film. JACOB'S LADDER is a jolting experience that is not easily forgotten.

Based on William Somerset Maugham's novel, THE RAZOR'S EDGE follows a young man's search for identity. After experiencing WWI, veteran Larry Darrell (Bill Murray) seeks spiritual peace and recovery. After leaving his fiancee (Catherine Hicks), he travels to war-torn Europe and finally to the mystic Himalayas, and eventually finds what he's looking for in manual labor and the wisdom of an Indian guru. However, Larry realizes that he can no longer resume the life he left behind, and that he must end his relationship with his fiancee if he is to reach his goal. But he finds love with another woman (Theresa Russell), an she causes new trouble for Larry. A labor of love for Murray, he wrote the script with director John Byrum and demonstrates previously unseen dramatic strength.

I have not read Maugham's original story, so I feel somewhat like a translator of poetry who cannot speak the original language, but.. This is the far better version in that it portrays Larry's agony and struggles far more vividly, shows why the subsistence life appealed to him, and shows the relationship with Sophie developing. The Tyrone Power 1946 version is way overloaded with love story trivia, upper-class glamour and glossing over the major conflict (for me) of the illusion of control. The Bill Murray film helped change my life, empowering me to quit a bad job. The 1946 film would never have done that.

Based on W. Somerset Maugham's highly acclaimed 1944 novel, this is a sprawling, ambitious account of one man's quest for spiritual identity. Over a number of years and continents, we watch as Chicago scion Larry Darrell (Tyrone Power), newly returned from World War I, breaks off his engagement to the lovely but shallow Isabel (Gene Tierney) in order to run off to Paris, and then India, in search of enlightenment. Years pass, the stock market crashes, and the former lovers are reunited. Larry has found the peace he seeks, but the now-married Isabel is still obsessed with him, resulting in great tragedy.

Power and Tierney both excel in their leading roles, but the real kudos belong to the supporting players: Clifton Webb, who is excellent as Isabel's fussy uncle, and Anne Baxter, harrowingly raw as the woman Larry tries to rescue from alcoholic ruin. Herbert Marshall plays Maugham, the author and witness to this strange saga of truth, love, and delusion. Director Edmund Goulding (GRAND HOTEL) sets up a luxurious and spacious atmosphere, adorning the lavish sets with bouquets and champagne, while giving the actors plenty of room to move and emote.

A pair of religious sisters, carrying out their late father's work, give shelter to a refugee, Babette, a victim of the 1871 brutal repression after The Commune of Paris. When Babette comes into some unexpected money, she rewards the sisters' kindness by preparing a memorial dinner for the dwindling religious community to celebrate the late vicar's 100th birthday.

Gabrielle Van Der Mal gave up everything to become a nun. But her faith and her vows are forever being tested: first in the missionary Congo hospital where she assists the brilliant and handsome Dr. Fortunati and then at the mother house in France when World War II has broken out and the nuns are forbidden by the order to take sides.

A better description of the last scene comes from a user-submitted comment on imDB. Spoiler - don't read until you've watched the movie:

The final scene, which accurately recreates the process by which a nun leaves the order - alone, with no handshakes or embraces or farewells, in a bare room with a door that opens to an outside street - is one of the most powerful I have ever seen. The overwhelming sadness that Sister Luke must have experienced as she walks out that door and down the street, her abandoned habit blowing gently in the breeze as it hangs on a clothes rack, is palapable, and is a testament to how powerfully the film has portrayed her struggle. We know that she has, in a very real sense, destroyed the most important part of her life as a result of her unremitting honesty. It is understandable why the director chose not to underline this scene with music; the meaning is too powerful to be accented with music, and to do so would actually undercut the scene's power. Watching it, an analagous scene that came to my mind - looking out a door, watching a conflicted figure walk away - was the closing of John Ford's 'The Searchers.' There are strong emotional analogies, but I find the scene from the Nun's Story to be the more powerful - it is the climax to which the entire movie leads, and is truly one of the rare moments where the cinematic art becomes transcendant.

In the near future, a computer hacker named Neo (Keanu Reeves) discovers that all life on Earth may be nothing more than an elaborate facade created by a malevolent cyber-intelligence, for the purpose of placating us while our life essence is "farmed" to fuel the Matrix's campaign of domination in the "real" world. He joins like-minded Rebel warriors Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie Ann Moss) in their struggle to overthrow the Matrix.

While the soccer World Cup is being played in France, two young Tibetan refugees arrive at a monastery/boarding school in exile in India. Its atmosphere of serene contemplation is somewhat disrupted by soccer fever, the chief instigator being a young student, the soccer enthusiast Orgyen. Prevented by various circumstances from seeing the Cup finals on television in a nearby village, Orgyen sets out to organize the rental of a TV set for the monastery. The enterprise becomes a test of solidarity, resourcefulness and friendship for the students, while the Lama, head of the monastery, contemplates the challenges of teaching the word of Buddha in a rapidly changing world.

Child psychiatrist Malcolm Crowe is confronted one night by his former patient Vincent Gray who he failed to help. After Vincent shoots Crowe in the stomach and kills himself, Crowe can't stop thinking about it. A few months later he is hired to help a troubled boy named Cole Sear, who has many of the same problems Vincent had. Crowe sees a chance to redeem himself, but doubts his ability to reach the boy, particularly when Cole claims to see ghosts who don't know they're dead.

Heinrich Harrer is an Austrian mountaineer who is forced to be a hero for the Nazi propaganda. He leaves Austria in 1939 to climb a mountain in the Himalayas. Through a series of circumstances (including POW camp), he and fellow climber Peter Aufschnaiter become the only two foreigners in the Tibetan Holy City of Lhasa. There, Heinrich's life changes forever as he becomes a close confidant to the Dalai Lama.

Amanda, a divorced photographer, finds herself in a fantastic Alice-in-Wonderland experience when her daily, uninspired life literally begins to unravel, revealing the cellular, molecular and even quantum worlds which lie beneath. Guided by a Greek Chorus of leading scientists and mystics, she finds that if reality itself is not questionable, her notion of it certainly is. Stunning special effects plunge you into a world where quantum uncertainty is demonstrated - where Amanda's neurological processes, and perceptual shifts are engaged and lived - where everything is alive, and reality is changed by every thought. This film gives voice to the modern day radical souls of science, making them the true heroes of our day as they conquer and map the greatest uncharted territory yet - man's consciousness itself.

Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman), head of the Open Spaces Coalition, has been experiencing an alarming series of coincidences the meaning of which escapes him. With the help of two Existential Detectives, Bernard and Vivian Jaffe (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin), Albert examines his life, his relationships, and his conflict with Brad Stand (Jude Law), an executive climbing the corporate ladder at Huckabees, a popular chain of retail superstores. When Brad also hires the detectives, they dig deep into his seemingly perfect life and his relationship with his spokesmodel girlfriend, the voice of Huckabees, Dawn Campbell (Naomi Watts). Albert pairs up with rebel firefighter Tommy Corn (Mark Wahlberg) to take matters into their own hands under the guidance of the Jaffes’ nemesis, the French radical Caterine Vauban (Isabelle Huppert).

In 1937, in a remote area of Tibet close to the Chinese border, a two year old child is identified as the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, the compassionate Buddha. Two years later, the child is brought to Lhasa where he is schooled as a monk and as head of state amidst the color and pageantry of Tibetan culture. The film follows him into adulthood: when he is 14, the Chinese invade Tibet and he is forced into a shaky coalition government; he travels to China to meet with a cynical Mao; and finally, in 1959, ill and under siege, he flees to India. Throughout, he has visions of his people's slaughter under Chinese rule.

Lama Norbu comes to Seattle in search of the reincarnation of his dead teacher, Lama Dorje. His search leads him to young Jesse Conrad, Raju, a waif from Kathmandu, and an upper class Indian girl. Together, they journey to Bhutan where the three children must undergo a test to prove which is the true reincarnation. Interspersed with this, is the story of Siddharta, later known as the Buddha. It traces his spiritual journey from ignorance to true enlightenment.

Doctor Chris Nielson (Robin Williams) meets his true soul mate Annie (Annabella Sciorra), marries her and has two children. The children die in a car accident, and Chris dies four years after that. Ending up in heaven, he is guided by friendly guardian angel Albert (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) through the afterlife, and he is reunited with his dog and children. But when he finds out his wife had committed suicide, he desperately searches for her spirit, journeying through Heaven and Hell along the way.

Three Tibetan children witness Chinese oppression and grow up in very different ways: as a pop star, a vagrant, and a Buddhist nun. A gripping drama partially filmed in Tibet and based on true events.

In Doris Dörrie's ENLIGHTENMENT GUARANTEED, two brothers, Uwe (Uwe Ochsenknecht) and Gustav (Gustav-Peter Wöhler), set off from Munich for Japan. Gustav has been planning the trip for some time--he is going to a retreat in a Buddhist monastery. But Uwe is undertaking the trip on a whim at the spur of the moment. Unexpectedly, Uwe's wife and children walked out on him, so he is going on the trip because he needs to be with his brother. On their first night in Tokyo, the brothers go out for dinner but then suffer a cascading series of disasters as they manage to lose their way, their money, their bank cards, and then, in the organized chaos of a massive Tokyo interchange, each other. Gustav is desperate and, hilariously, finds himself singing for money in the subway. Magically, it works.

Gustav and Uwe's picaresque adventures include meeting a fairy godmother, Anica (Anica Dobra), and working as waiters in a German restaurant in Tokyo before they finally arrive at the monastery. There, among the Buddhist monks, each in his own way and in his own time finds himself. ENLIGHTENMENT GUARANTEED, entertainingly filled with unforced humor, was shot spontaneously with a digital video camera. Director Doris Dörrie is a master at telling stories of ordinary people caught in odd situations, and in this film she sees the humor while honoring their humanity.

This unique Korean film explores the relationship between an elderly Zen master, an orphaned boy, and a young monk named Ki Bong. With little time left before his impending death, Master Hyegok teaches his two students all he knows about Zen Buddhism, which he has devoted his life to. In order to learn, both Ki Bong and the orphan Hae Jin must face and overcome their feelings of guilt for past deeds. Ki Bong left behind his blind mother and family when he came to the monastery; Hae Jin accidentally caused the death of a bird.

After the old man's death, the monk and the orphan attempt to use their master's teachings to achieve spiritual enlightenment.

The title of the film is a Zen Buddhist koan (riddle). Bodhi-Dharma is the name of the fifth-century monk who introduced Zen Buddhism to east Asia.

The entire film took director Bae Yong-kyun seven years to plan, two years to shoot, and one year to edit. The film maker used non-actors.

Shown at the Cannes Film Festival in May of 1989.

The movie was awarded the Golden Leopard at the 1990 Locarno Film Festival.

Released theatrically in New York City on September 25, 1993.

This was the first Korean film to ever receive a theatrical release in the United States.

An ICA production.

Additional cast: Ko Su Yong (Superior) and Kim Hae Yong (Fellow Disciple).

The movie was chosen as "One of the Ten Best Films of All Time" by three international film critics in the 1993 "Sight & Sound" Critics' Poll.

Kevin Costner plays a former Sixties idealist who runs a farm in Iowa with his wife and young daughter. After hearing a mysterious, heavenly voice one day, Costner turns one of his cornfields into a baseball diamond. Of course, everyone thinks he's crazy, but in time "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and other ghostly outcasts, who had previously languished in a sort of baseball purgatory, show up to play the game they still love. Soon men from all over the country join them at this baseball shrine, some just to play with the greats, others to mend the broken relationships they had with their fathers -- But all are trying to get back in touch with simpler times through the purity of America's grandest game.

The movie details the experiences of 'Peter Pan' author J.M. Barrie, which lead him to write the children's classic. He got to know four children who have no fathers. Drawing from his time with the kids, he writes a story about children who don't want to grow up.

George Bailey has so many problems he is thinking about ending it all - and it's Christmas! As the angels discuss George, we see his life in flashback. As George is about to jump from a bridge, he ends up rescuing his guardian angel, Clarence. Clarence then shows George what his town would have looked like if it hadn't been for all his good deeds over the years. Will Clarence be able to convince George to return to his family and forget about suicide?

On the east coast of New Zealand, the Whangara people believe their presence there dates back a thousand years or more to a single ancestor, Paikea, who escaped death when his canoe capsized by riding to shore on the back of a whale. From then on, Whangara chiefs, always the first-born, always male, have been considered Paikea's direct descendants. Pai, an 11-year-old girl in a patriarchal New Zealand tribe, believes she is destined to be the new chief. But her grandfather Koro is bound by tradition to pick a male leader. Pai loves Koro more than anyone in the world, but she must fight him and a thousand years of tradition to fulfill her destiny.

RIVERS AND TIDES, Thomas Riedelsheimer's mind-blowing new film which won the Golden Gate Award Grand Prize for Best Documentary at this year's San Francisco Int Film Fest follows renowned sculptor Andy Goldsworthy as he creates with ice, driftwood, bracken, leaves, stone, dirt, and snow in open fields, beaches, rivers, creeks and forests.

Andy Goldsworthy knows that most of his pieces will not last long because of where he makes them. Some of his works stand and remain in the landscape; others decay, melt or are blown away. His work's transitory nature, in fact, is a central part of the sculptor's creative efforts to understand the energy that flows through him and through the natural landscape that nourishes his vision. In this contemplative and beautifully insightful film, we see Goldsworthy as he works to understand that energetic flow, represented often by water, by wind or simply the passage of seasons. Both carefully composed and fluid, RIVERS AND TIDES keeps its focus on the artist's vision and work, giving us room to ponder our own relationship to the energy coursing through the natural world.

The director worked with Andy Goldsworthy for over a year to shoot this remarkable film. What he found was a profound sense of breathless discovery and uncertainty in Goldsworthy's work, in contrast to the stability of conventional sculpture. There is risk in everything Goldsworthy does. He takes his fragile work right to the edge of its collapse, a very beautiful balance and a very dramatic edge within the film. RIVERS AND TIDES captures the essential unpredictability of working with nature and, like Goldsworthy's suclpture, grows into something beyond the simple making of an object. It touches the heart of what Goldsworthy does and who he is. It is a film that allows "you to see something you never saw before, that was always there but you were blind to."

— © Roxie Releasing    

Khyentse Norbu’s follow-up to his audience favorite THE CUP is the first feature film ever shot in the tiny kingdom of Bhutan. One of Himalayan Buddhism’s most revered lamas, Khyentse (aka Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche) weaves parallel fable-like tales about two men who seek to escape their mundane lives in TRAVELLERS & MAGICIANS.

Young government official Dondup dreams of escaping to America while stuck in a ravishingly beautiful but isolated village. When the first chance arrives, he immediately heads for town and an awaiting visa, but things don’t go quite as planned. Missing the bus, he hitchhikes with an elderly apple seller, a sage young monk, and an old man travelling with his beautiful daughter Sonam.

Along the way, the perceptive yet mischievous monk tells Dondup a story of another young man who sought a land far away: a tale of lust, jealousy and murder that holds up a mirror to the restless Dondup and his blossoming attraction to the innocent Sonam.

TRAVELLERS & MAGICIANS is a magical mixture of rustic road movie and mystical fable...a potpourri of desire and its consequences, set in a breathtaking landscape.

— © Zeitgeist Films    

This Wim Wenders film centers around the story of two angels wandering post-war Berlin. Invisible to humans, they nevertheless give their help and comfort to all the lonely and depressed souls they meet. Finally, after many centuries, one of the angels becomes unhappy with his immortal state and wishes to become human in order to experience the joys of everyday life. He meets a circus acrobat and finds in her the fufillment of all his mortal desires. He also discovers that he is not alone in making this cross over, and that a purely spiritual experience is not enough to satisfy anyone.

There is a tendency afoot today to blame the epidemic sweep of clinical depression in the US on bad genes or screwy brain chemistry. But what if the causes of depression, suicide, or other mental illnesses, do not emanate from the individual?

This artful documentary film brings six people together for three days of emotional, and at times heated, discussion about the sources of their despair. Intermixed are hard-to-find facts which challenge the psychiatric industry's claims that depression is a biological disorder.

Fundamentally about empowerment and the resilience of the human spirit, this surprisingly inspirational new movie will change the way you think about "normal."

This is the story of a strong woman named Kiran Bedi, the former inspector General of Prisons in New Delhi. It tells how she strove to transfrom the notorious Tihar Prison, once a hellhole of crime, and turn it into an oasis of peace. It is the story of an ancient meditation technique called Vipassana which helps people to take control of their lives and channel them towards their own good and the good of others. But most of all, it is a story of the prison inmates who underwent profound change, and who realized that incarceration is not the end but possibly the beginning of a new life.

Life story of Spaniard Ramón Sampedro, who fought a 30-year campaign to win the right to end his life with dignity. Film explores Ramón's relationships with two women: Julia, a lawyer who supports his cause, and Rosa, a local woman who wants to convince him that life is worth living. Through the gift of his love, these two women are inspired to accomplish things they never previously thought possible. Despite his wish to die, Ramón taught everyone he encountered the meaning, value and preciousness of life. Though he could not move himself, he had an uncanny ability to move others.

Shenzhen businessman, Da Ming, goes home to Beijing when he thinks his father has died. He finds his father hard at work at the family's bathhouse (the false message was a ruse of Da's mentally-handicapped, exuberant brother, Er Ming, to get Da home). Da stays a couple days, observing his father being social director, marriage counselor, and dispute mediator for his customers and a boon companion to Er. Da is caught between worlds: the decaying district of his childhood and the booming south where he now lives with a wife who's not met his family. When Da realizes his father's health is failing and the district is slated for razing, he must take stock of family and future.

Any movie by either Akira Kurosawa or Ingmar Bergman is well worth the viewing for their exquisite humanity and cinematic skill. The movie that first started me on my "spiritual" journey was Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood", his thoroughly Japanese version of Shakespeare's "Macbeth". I was in college at the time and the movie led me to start to research Eastern philosophies.

The movie opens and closes with Buddhist chanting of the ephemeral nature and suffering attendent to ambition which can pursue a person through their life... and beyond the grave. The great actor Toshiro Mifune gives his greatest performance that is like a character in a Noh drama, taut like a tight wire caught up in a nightmare from which he can no longer awaken. The final scenes are almost too difficult to watch but they have the quality of a person's awakening at the last possible moment to the emptiness of their ambitions and how all their little choices had led them to this catastrophic outcome.

The movie is in Black & White, but I remember it as being in color. - Ken

This Tony Award-winning musical tells the story of a childless couple who embark on a fairy tale romp in search of relief from a curse which has kept the stork from visiting them. Starring Bernadette Peters and Joanna Gleason (both of whom have also been awarded the coveted "Best Actress" Tony,) INTO THE WOODS is appealing to people of all ages and interests with its witty catchy music, and dramatic fairy tale narrative.

Based on Puccini's 'La Boheme', 'Rent' tells the story of one year in the life of friends living the Bohemian life in modern day East Village, New York City, 1989-1990. Among the group are our narrator, nerdy love-struck filmmaker Mark Cohen (Anthony Rapp); the object of Mark's affection, his former girlfriend, Maureen Johnson (Idina Menzel); Maureen's Harvard-educated public interest lawyer and lesbian lover Joanne Jefferson (Traci Thoms); Mark's roommate, HIV-positive musician and former junkie, Roger Davis (Adam Pascal); Roger's new girlfriend, the HIV-positive drug addicted S&M dancer, Mimi Marquez (Rosario Dawson); their former roommate, HIV-positive computer genius Tom Collins (Jesse L. Martin); Collins' HIV-positive drag queen street musician/lover Angel (Wilson Jermain Heredia); and Benjamin Coffin III (Taye Diggs) a former member of the group who married for money and has since become their landlord and the opposite of everything they stand for. Shows how much changes or doesn't change in the 525,600 minutes that make up a year.