In a village in China mired in poverty, Gao (Gao Enman) is the lone teacher in a school so threadbare he must ration chalk to make sure he has enough for the day. The destitution of the village is not limited to the school; some of the children sleep in the schoolhouse because they have nowhere else to go, and many students have dropped out to go to work to help feed their families. Gao is forced to leave town for a month, and no one in the village is able to take over for him except a 13-year-old girl, Wei Minzhi (Wei Minzhi), who possesses only the most rudimentary education herself. What she lacks in educational credentials, she makes up for in determination -- she needs money and since she'll get a 10 yuan bonus if all 28 students are still there when Gao gets back, she is determined that no one will drop out on her watch. So when one student turns up missing, and word has it he's been sent to the city by his mother to work, she goes to look for him. In a place where thousands of children are working in the underground labor force or begging on the street, one boy hardly stands out from the crowd, and she has little luck. However, she's able to persuade a sympathetic TV station manager to let her make an announcement in hopes someone knows where he has gone. Despite its serious and often grim theme, Yi Ge Dou Bu Neng Shao is often light in tone and draws on the strength and humor of its characters; the film won the Golden Lion at the 1999 Venice Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

2012

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a charming fish-out-of-water yarn. The Brits, who include Evelyn (Judi Dench), Muriel (Maggie Smith), Douglas (Bill Nighy), and Graham (Tom Wilkinson), are planning retirement in a less expensive country. After "thorough research on the Internet," the group chooses what looks to be a grand, peaceful retreat, the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It turns out that the bloom is off this marigold -- it's shabby, antiquated, and as chaotic as the city in India, Jaipur, where it is set. Who can adapt to this very different retirement experience, and who founders? That question lies at the heart of the plot of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. The retirees bond and bicker and fall out and then try to encourage one another. Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) and Tena Desae, who plays Sunaina, his girlfriend, are charming yet face adaptation struggles of their own, in a modern-day India still tied strongly to its traditions but rapidly charging into the future. And the young Indians also seem to represent the energetic future, as the Brits represent the old world that's fast falling. At its heart, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is an uplifting journey, allowing the viewer to feel what the retirees are discovering on the screen. When Evelyn sighs, "Nothing here has worked out quite as I expected," Muriel crisply replies, "Most things don't. But sometimes what happens instead is the good stuff." -- A.T. Hurley

This Oscar winning film tells the story of the man who became King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. After his brother abdicates, George ('Bertie'), played by Colin Firth; reluctantly assumes the throne. Plagued by a dreaded stammer and considered unfit to be king, Bertie engages the help of an unorthodox speech therapist named Lionel Logue. Through a set of unexpected techniques, and as a result of an unlikely friendship, Bertie is able to find his voice and boldly lead the country through war.

Liz Gilbert (Roberts) had everything a modern woman is supposed to dream of having - a husband, a house, a successful career - yet like so many others, she found herself lost, confused, and searching for what she really wanted in life. Newly divorced and at a crossroads, Gilbert steps out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life, embarking on a journey around the world that becomes a quest for self-discovery. In her travels, she discovers the true pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy; the power of prayer in India, and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of true love in Bali. Written by Sony Pictures

Nine-year-old Carlos aka Carlitos is one of the countless children left behind by parents who come to the U.S. seeking a way to provide for their families. His mother, Rosario, has worked illegally as a domestic in Los Angeles for four years, sending money home to her son and mother to give them a chance at a better life. When the death of his grandmother leaves young Carlitos alone, he takes his fate into his own hands and heads north across the border to find his mother. As he journeys from his rural Mexican village to the L.A. barrio, Carlitos faces seemingly insurmountable obstacles with a steely determination and unfettered optimism that earn him the grudging respect and affection of a reluctant protector, a middle-aged migrant worker named Enrique. The unlikely pair finds its way from Tucson to East L.A., but the only clue Carlitos has to his mother's whereabouts is her description of the street corner from which she has called him each Sunday for the last four years. Unaware that Rosario is only hours away from returning to Mexico to be with her son, Carlitos and Enrique desperately comb the vast unfamiliar city for a place he has seen only in his imagination.

Set in Mississippi during the 1960's, a southern society girl returns from college determined to become a writer, but turns her friends' lives - and a small Mississippi town - upside down when she decides to interview the black women who have spent their lives taking care of a prominent southern families. Aibileen, Skeeter's best friend's house keeper is the first to open up - to the dismay of her friends in the tight-knit black community. Despite Skeeter's life-long friendships hanging in the balance, she and Aibileen continue their collaboration and soon more women come forward to tell their stories - and as it turns out, they have a lot to say.

This award winning 2011 comedy-drama film is an adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's novel of the same name. In February 2012, the film received four Academy Awards nominations including Best Picture and acting nods for Davis, Chastain, and a win for Supporting Actress for Spencer.[3] On January 29, 2012, The Help won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

Laramie, WY, is a small town which became infamous overnight in the fall of 1998, when Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was found tied to a fence after being brutally beaten and left to die, setting off a nationwide debate about hate crimes and homophobia. A month after the crime, Moises Kaufman, a writer and director with the New York City theater troupe the Tectonic Theater Project, traveled to Laramie with a handful of actors to interview people who lived in and around Laramie in preparation for an upcoming production; Kaufman's goal was to create a play that focused not on the assault on Matthew Shepard, but on the community where such an attack could happen, and how many of the citizens reacted to the crime. The result was The Laramie Project, which was first performed in early 2000, and was performed in Laramie in the fall of that year, two years after Kaufman and his associates first arrived in the city. The Laramie Project is a film adaptation of Kaufman's play, in which the thoughts and opinions of Laramie residents from all points of the political spectrum are presented alongside re-enacted excerpts from the trials of the two men who attacked Matthew Shepard. Produced for the premium cable network HBO, The Laramie Project was adapted for the screen by Moises Kaufman, who served as both writer and director. The distinguished cast includes Dylan Baker, Steve Buscemi, Peter Fonda, Janeane Garofolo, Laura Linney, Amy Madigan, Camryn Manheim, Christina Ricci, and Frances Sternhagen. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This is a film adaptation of Amy Tan's bestselling novel. It focuses on four Chinese American immigrant families in San Francisco, California who start a club known as "the Joy Luck Club," playing the Chinese game of mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods. The book is structured somewhat like a mahjong game, with four parts divided into four sections to create sixteen chapters. Each part is preceded by a parable relating to the game. The three mothers and four daughters (one mother, Suyuan Woo, dies before the novel opens) share stories about their lives in the form of vignettes. The life histories of the four Asian women and their daughters reflect and guide each other.

This beautifully shot movie is a touching story of caring and family loyalty. It is set in a small, fictional, working class town, Endora, and centers around the Grape family, Ellen and Amy and their brothers Arnie (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Gilbert (Johnny Depp). They, along with their morbidly obese, widowed mother, Bonnie Grape, struggle to survive and coexist midst absence of a father, low wage jobs and seventeen-year-old Arnie's autism. Gilbert cares for his younger brother while working for the town's dying convenience store. Gilbert realizes he is not going anywhere. He loves Arnie deeply, but he's frustrated, resentful and without hope. That is, until free spirit Becky arrives. She and her grandmother are stranded in town while waiting for parts for their vehicle. This leads to new feelings, new thoughts and new hope for Gilbert, something new is eating Gilbert Grape.

In this documentary, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock unravels the American obesity epidemic by interviewing experts nationwide, and by subjecting himself to a "McDonald's only" diet for thirty days straight. His Sundance award-winning feature is as entertaining as it is horrifying, as it dives into corporate responsibility, nutritional education, school lunch programs, and how we as a nation are eating ourselves to death.

Kenya McQueen is a successful African-American CPA, working her way to the top of the corporate ladder - but her life has become all work and no play. Urged on by her friends to try something new and to let go of her dream of the "ideal black man", she accepts a blind date with an architectural landscaper named Brian, only to cut the date short upon first sight, because Brian is white. The two meet again at a party, and Kenya hires Brian to landscape her new home. Over time, the hit it off, but Kenya's reservations about the acceptance their romance will find among her friends and family threatens everything. An intelligent romantic comedy that chooses to deal with issues of race and perception in a straight-forward way, from a point of view not often seen: that of a successful, upper-class black woman.

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