CinemaFunk

Sisyphus in America

Taking ques from The Bicycle Thieves and most Italian Neo-realism, Man Push Cart is a hidden gem that explores the paradigm shift that immigrants experience once moving to America. Using pure cinema (the idea of using visual imagery only) to describe many of the events, back-story and struggles the main character is subjected to, provides a captivating way to show an objective view of the harsh realities of being an immigrant in America.

Ahmad (Ahmad Razvi) is a Pakistani immigrant who was a rock star in his native country, yet on the streets of New York City he is a street vendor. At 3 AM in the morning Ahmad must physically push, more like pull his cart to his spot daily. The first several minutes we are subjected solely to this image of Ahmad pulling his cart foot by foot, often hidden by the trucks and vehicles that pass by. When not serving bagels and coffee, he is swapping pornography DVDs for extra cash or cigarettes.

Is Marriage Necessary?

Sam Mendes entered the world of cinema from the stages of Broadway with the critical and box-office success with American Beauty, the 1999 Academy Award Winner for Best Picture. Since then, he has continued to direct spectacular films such as Revolutionary Road and Jarhead. His 2009 subtle comedy Away We Go allowed Mendes to take a challenging step back into more a dialogue-centric plot filled with hope, a drastic change from the darker earlier films of his career.

Soon-to-be parents, if ever to be married, Verona De Tessant (Maya Rudolph) and Burt Farlander (John Krasinski) set out to visit friends and family around the country to find the right place to raise their child. Both begin the trip with specific internal struggles that deal with how they feel about the future of their child. Verona is worried that the two have not properly prepared for their child, while Burt begins to theorize on what type of father he wishes to be.

Each visit to a friend or family member allows Verona and Burt to take a deep look into the dichotomy of American lives, allowing them to discover the flaws in nearly all families. After a long, tedious trip, the find the home they have been looking for in the most unlikeliest of places.

An Effective Mystery Thriller.

The 2009 Academy Award Winner for Best Foreign Picture, The Secret in Their Eyes (El secreto de sus ojos) matches the expectations of such a win, besting many other great foreign films for the year such as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The White Ribbon and A Prophet. Featuring a great team up between the writing and direction, this film is an excellent mystery thriller from Argentina that remains riveting and unpredictable up to the last minute.

Set in mostly as a flashback to 1974, Liliana Colotto is brutally raped and murdered and the case is assigned to Benjamín Espósito (Ricardo Darín), his quippy assistant Pablo Sandoval (Guillermo Francella), and high-class lawyer Irene (Soledad Villamil). Esposito vows to find the murder after seeing how Liliana's rape and murder has affected the widower, Ricardo Morales (Pablo Rago), who waits at the train station each day to search for Liliana's killer. After Esposito's rival assumes to have solved the crime, Esposito continues his search and picks up a suspect, Isidoro Gómez (Javier Godino) from some older photographs.