The documentary Bush Family Fortunes is based on the book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: An Investigative Reporter Exposes the Truth About Globalization, Corporate Cons, and High-Finance Fraudsters (2004) by Greg Palast, an American who lives in London because he can report the truth about the failure of American democracy to the BBC and elsewhere in the world […]

The Iranian film Boutique, directed by Hamid Nematoolah, appears to be a nonpolitical story about the owner of a shopping mall clothing store, Shapouri (played by Reza Rooygari), and one particular lovesick employee, Jahan (played by Mohammad-Reza Golzar). Jahan lives with four men, who are not particularly pleasant companions, and he envies a friend who is

The Aryan Couple, directed by John Daly, is a fictional account of an episode that might have happened in the 1944 occupied Hungary where the film takes place, presumably near the town of Györ. Josef Krauzenberg (played by Martin Landau) has agreed to sign over the assets of his industrial-financial empire and personal property, including

Connie and Carla, as more than a cult classic, may have displaced La cage aux folles and its sequels (1978, 1980, 1985, 1996). Whereas La cage depicts the frustrations and joys of the life of gays who work for a living by performing as women, Connie and Carla is entirely upbeat. Even gays who dislike men who crossdress will find Connie

In Carrie (1976) and The Rage: Carrie II (1999), high school students pick on a girl whose revenge comes when she unleashes telekenetic powers. The current Mean Girls, directed by Mark S. Waters, is based on an opposite premise, a “queen bee” girl who picks on others and controls her friends who gets her comeuppance. Regina (played by Rachel McAdams)

When The Machinist begins, Trevor Reznik (played by Christian Bale) is, late a night, dumping into the ocean what appears to be a body wrapped in a carpet. He is spotted by someone with a flashlight, who approaches and asks him, “Who are you?” Then the scene changes to an earlier time, but the mood has been established: The

The Last Shot, directed and written by Jeff Nathanson, is very loosely based on a true story–an FBI sting operation of the Cosa Nostra. When the film begins, December 1985, kingpins of the Castellano family are gunned down at night on a street in New York. In Houston, three months later, ambitious FBI agent Joe Devine

Some two million students take the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) each year, hoping for a perfect score of 1,600. So much emphasis is placed on the SAT that a prosperous tutoring industry has arisen to prepare students to improve their SAT scores. In The Perfect Score, directed by Brian Robbins, several students aiming for a score

Finding Neverland, directed by Marc Forster, is a biopic about a critical period in the life of J. M. Barrie (played by Johnny Depp). When the film begins, forty-three-year-old Barrie is nervous about the fate of an opening night performance of his latest play in London during 1903. The play turns out to be a

Mysterious Skin, directed by Gregg Araki, is an intense, nearly X-rated coming-of-age gay story, based on the novel by Scott Heim. The film begins with two Little Leaguers in Hutchinson, Kansas. At the age of eight, Neil McCormick (played by Chase Ellison) is the best player on a baseball team, impressing the coach (played by