Eye of the Astronomer (2012)
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A chronicle of the life of Yasui Santetsu, a 17th century master of go who turned his attention to astronomy and created a new calendar for Japan. Based on the life of Santetsu Yasui (December 27, 1639-November 1, 1715), appointed as the first official astronomer in the Edo Period and would go on to create the Jokyo calendar at the imperial request.
Nova Zembla tells the gripping true story of the legendary failed mission of the late sixteenth century Dutch flotilla trying to find a trading route to Asia across the North Pole. The ship crew, who got stuck in the ice of Nova Zembla and had to survive the dark coldness of winter in the most gruesome of circumstances. An incredibly powerful story of determination, hardship and a triumph of the human spirit. The sixteenth century Dutch ship crew is leaving the port of Amsterdam and sailing to the northern arctic, where they get stuck in the ice. Two ships take part at the mission and captain De Rijp decides to return while he still can, while the other ship helmed by Willem Barentsz, stubbornly proceeds.
Documentary-drama recounting the Martian War of 1913 - 1917. Europe was on tenterhooks in the 2nd decade of the 20th century, everyone was expecting a Great War between the major European powers. But then, in 1913, something crashed into the forests of SW Germany. Troops were sent to investigate but were wiped out. Martian fighting machines began making their way across Western Europe and the countries of Europe combined forces to resist them. With aspects taken from "The War of the Worlds" by H.G. Wells and from WWI itself, this dramatisation presents a documentary style look at events as they unfolded and the effect they had of our world today. Lots of references to real events including the mass attacks and defeats as men were thrown against machines on the Western front, the Christmas truce and the Angel of Mons, America's isolationism and late entry into the conflict, the worldwide "Spanish" flu epidemic that killed more people than the war, and many other things.
A look at the evolution of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, and Einstein's relationship with British scientist Sir Arthur Eddington, the first physicist to understand his ideas.
A portrait of the brilliant, extravagant Kristina of Sweden, queen from age six, who fights the conservative forces that are against her ideas to modernize Sweden and who have no tolerance for her awakening sexuality.
Perhaps the most notorious concubine in Chinese history, Yang Guifei set a pudgy standard of beauty in her days of glory during the Tang dynasty. The Emperor Minghuang was so besotted with the woman that when An Lushan stages his rebellion against the empire, the ruler takes Yang Guifei along with his imperial entourage in an escape to the mountainous area of modern-day Sichuan, and sanctuary of sorts. But the concubine had roused the jealousy of the court and unfortunately for her and to the great sorrow of the king, her brother and others among the king's retainers demanded she be strangled to death while they were still in the mountains. This is the story told in this interesting Taiwanese adaptation by director Li Han-hsiang (Li Hanxiang).
The true story of a part aboriginal man who finds the pressure of adapting to white culture intolerable, and as a result snaps in a violent and horrific manner.
The Dish is a 2000 Australian film that tells the story of how the Parkes Observatory was used to relay the live television of man's first steps on the moon, during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. It was the top grossing film in Australia in 2000.
During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, surgeon Dr. Franticek Svoboda (Brian Donlevy), a Czech patriot, assassinates the brutal "Hangman of Europe", Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski), and is wounded in the process. In his attempt to escape, he is helped by history professor Stephen Novotny (Walter Brennan) and his daughter Mascha (Anna Lee).
City of Life and Death takes place in 1937, during the height of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Imperial Japanese Army has just captured the then-capital of the Republic of China, Nanjing. What followed was known as the Nanking Massacre, or the Rape of Nanking, a period of several weeks wherein tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed.
In autumn of 1526, the Emperor, Charles V, sends his German landsknechts led by Georg von Frundsberg to march towards Rome. The inferior papal armies, commanded by Giovanni de'Medici, try to chase them in the midst of a harsh winter. Nevertheless, the Imperial armies manage to cross the rivers along their march and get cannons thanks to the maneuvers of its Lords. In a skirmish, Giovanni de'Medici is wounded in the leg by a falconet shot. The attempts to cure him fail and he dies. The Imperial armies assault Rome. The film is beautifully but unassumingly set, and shows the hard conditions in which war is waged and its lack of glory. It ends straightforwardly with the declaration made after the death of Giovanni de'Medici by the commanders of the armies in Europe of not using again fire weapons because of their cruelty.
In July 1945, during the end of World War II, Japan is forced to accept the Potsdam Declaration. A cabinet meeting has continued through days and nights, but a decision cannot be made. The U.S. drops atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. General Korechika Anami is torn over making the proper decision and the Emperor of Japan worries about his people. Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki leads the cabinet meeting, while Chief Secretary Hisatsune Sakomizu can't do anything, but watch the meeting. At this time, Major Kenji Hatanaka and other young commissioned officers, who are against Japan surrendering, move to occupy the palace and a radio broadcasting station. The radio station is set to broadcast Emperor Hirohito reading out the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War.
A former Imperial Russian general and cousin of the Czar ends up in Hollywood as an extra in a movie directed by a former revolutionary.
The perversion behind imperial Rome, the epic story of Rome's mad Emporer. All the details of his cruel, bizarre reign are revealed right here: His unholy sexual passion for his sister, his marriage to Rome's most infamous prostitute, his fiendishly inventive means of disposing those who would oppose him, and more.
At the end of 1918 while civil war is raging on in Russia, antagonism is slowly spreading to the East, between the Oural mountains and Shanghai. Stuck between a desire to save what's left of the great Imperial Russia, and starting from a clean slate, old generals, secret organizations, and mercenaries attracted by gold, struggle to take advantage of the events. As Corto Maltese returns to Shanghai, he barely gets time to cross paths with his old friend/nemesis Raspoutine, and escape a murder attempt before being contacted by members of a Chinese secret organization called "The Red Lanterns". In the heart of violent Mandchourian horizons, Corto and Raspoutine launch themselves into a fabulous treasure hunt, following the tracks of the mysterious armor-plated train of Koltchak. A steel monster spiked with canons and machine guns, this trains protects the counter-revolutionaries gold...
7 Assassins is a new martial arts movie which delivers a great cast which see Shaw Brothers legends Kara Hui and Ti Lung back on screen... When social unrest plagues a Kingdom in ancient China, the Imperial Court collects stockpiles of gold from local governments to expand the royal army. However, the gold is robbed while in transport. In a desperate move to retrieve the stolen treasure, elite royal guards are sent on a mission to go after the gold but soon find out they are not the only ones in pursuit of it.
Izo is an assassin in the service of a Tosa lord and Imperial supporter. After killing dozens of the Shogun's men, Izo is captured and crucified. Instead of being extinguished, his rage propels him through the space-time continuum to present-day Tokyo. Here Izo transforms himself into a new, improved killing machine.
England is torn in civil strife as the Royalists battle the Parliamentary Party for control. This conflict distracts people from rational thought and allows unscrupulous men to gain local power by exploiting village superstitions. One of these men is Matthew Hopkins, who tours the land offering his services as a persecutor of witches.
The true story of the "Flying Sikh" world champion runner and Olympian Milkha Singh who overcame the massacre of his family, civil war during the India-Pakistan partition, and homelessness to become one of India's most iconic athletes.
In the year 198 BC, Cao Cao (Chow Yun Fat), Prime Minister of the Han Dynasty, ventured to the east and defeated China's greatest warrior Lu Bu, terrifying every ambitious warlord across the country. Several years later, after taking the Han Emperor under his wing, Cao crowns himself King of Wei. He built a magnificent Bronze Sparrow Island to symbolize his power and rumors spread that he would replace the Emperor. Meanwhile, young lovers Mu Shun (Hiroshi Tamaki) and Ling Ju (Liu Yi-Fei) are taken from a prison camp to a hidden tomb, where they spend five cruel years together, training as assassins for a secret mission. In the year 220 BC astronomical signs predict dramatic change. As a result, Cao's son Cao Pi (Yau Sam-Chi) and Cao's followers urge Cao to become the new Emperor - but unknown opposing forces plot against him.
A dramatization of the American court case that destroyed the legal validity of racial segregation. One of the most pivotal moments in 20th century American history is bracingly dramatized in Separate but Equal. In telling the detailed story of the Supreme Court's 1953 decision to abolish racial segregation in schools, this superb 1991 TV movie covers a broad spectrum of issues, never taking its "eyes off the prize" while its first-rate cast conveys the importance of the Supreme Court's ultimately unanimous decision.
The Best Years of Our Lives is a classic film from director Williams Wyler about three war veterans. The film earned seven Oscars in 1946.
Inspired by real-life events, this film explores the experiences of Capt. Ernest Gordon (Ciaran McMenamin) and other Japanese prisoners of war who were enlisted for the grueling task of building the Railroad of Death. As the men struggle to maintain their sanity and will, they begin to drift apart while Major Campbell (Robert Carlyle) plans his escape, Lt. Rigden (Kiefer Sutherland) watches his back, and Gordon attempts to keep his dignity.
Through a hidden path a lone rider reaches a little town high up in the Alpes. Nobody knows where the stranger comes from, nor what he wants there. But everyone knows that they don't want him to stay.
A young woman's desperate search for her abducted boyfriend that draws her into the infamous Colonia Dignidad, a sect nobody ever escaped from.
The movie begins as an old English woman Amy Wilkinson (Carole Trungmar) almost at her death bed in London, wants to come down to Chennai in search of a young man Parithi (Arya) whom she last saw on 15 August, 1947 to return Thali necklace (sacred thread tied around the neck of the bride by her groom) of his mother, which he gives as a sign of stating that she belongs to India and nobody can separate them. She wants to return that back to him, as she gets married to other man in her home town and it no more belongs to her.
A seven-mile-wide space rock is hurtling toward Earth, threatening to obliterate the planet. Now, it's up to the president of the United States to save the world. He appoints a tough-as-nails veteran astronaut to lead a joint American-Russian crew into space to destroy the comet before impact. Meanwhile, an enterprising reporter uses her smarts to uncover the scoop of the century.
Four 1950's cultural icons (Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio and Senator Joseph MacCarthy) who conceivably could have met and probably didn't, fictionally do in this modern fable of post-WWII America. Visually intriguing, the film has a fluid progression of flash-backs and flash-forwards centering on the fictional Einstein's current observations, childhood memories and apprehensions for the future.
In Chile's Atacama Desert, astronomers peer deep into the cosmos in search for answers concerning the origins of life. Nearby, a group of women sift through the sand searching for body parts of loved ones, dumped unceremoniously by Pinochet's regime.
The movie is set at the beginning of the NEP (New Economic Policy) in December, 1921. A mysterious radio message is beamed around the world, and among the engineers who receive it are Los, the hero, and his colleague Spiridonov. Los is an individualist dreamer. Aelita is the daughter of Tuskub, the ruler of a totalitarian state on Mars in which the working classe are put into cold storage when they are not needed. With a telescope, Aelita is able to watch Los. As if by telepathy, Los obsesses about being watched by her. After some hugger-mugger involving the murder of his wife and a pursuing detective, Los takes the identity of Spiridonov and builds a spaceship. With the revolutionary Gusev, he travels to Mars, but the Earthlings and Aelita are thrown into prison by the dictator. Gusev and Los begin a proletarian uprising, and Aelita offers to lead.
The Annunciation (in Hungarian: Angyali üdvözlet) is a Hungarian film directed by András Jeles in 1984, based on The Tragedy of Man (1861) by Imre Madách. When Adam (Péter Bocsor) and Eve (Júlia MérÅ), having succumbed to Lucifer's temptation, are cast out of the Garden of Eden, Adam holds Lucifer (Eszter Gyalog) to his promise, reminding him that "You said I would know everything!". So Lucifer grants Adam a dream of the world to come. And what a bizarre dream: Adam becomes Miltiades in Athens; a knight called Tancred in Byzantium; Kepler in Prague; Danton in revolutionary Paris; and a nameless suitor in Victorian London. Guided by a deceptively sweet but ultimately contemptuous Lucifer, Adam confronts an endless procession of the horror of the human story ... rapists and concubines, betrayal and savagery, mindless cruelty and fanaticism.
On the night of the discovery of a duplicate Earth in the Solar system, an ambitious young student and an accomplished composer cross paths in a tragic accident.
An alien narrates the story of his dying planet, his and his people's visitations to Earth and Earth's self-made demise, while human astronauts in space are attempting to find an alternate planet for surviving humans to live on.
Challenged by a new student, tutor and theorist Galileo co-opts emerging telescope technology and discovers irrefutable proof of the heretical notion that the earth is not the center of the universe. But in a rigid society ruled by an uneasy alliance of aristocracy and clergy already undermined by the Plague and the Reformation, science is a threat and enlightenment is a luxury. Faced with either death at the hands of the Inquisition or recantation to a hypocritical but all-powerful Papacy, Galileo must choose between his own life and the restless scientific curiosity that he has spurned family, friends, and wealth to pursue.
The story of Professor Stephen Hawking's early years is told for the first time in a major drama for BBC Two.It is 1963, and our young cosmologist celebrates his 21st birthday. At the party is a new friend, Jane Wilde - there is a strong attraction between the two. Jane is intrigued by Stephen's talk of stars and the Universe. But she realises that there is something very wrong when Stephen suddenly finds that he is unable to stand up.
Jonas Nightengale is a fraudulent Christian faith healer who makes a living travelling around America holding revival meetings and conducting 'miracles' with the help of his friend and manager, Jane, and their entourage. One of their trucks breaks down in Rustwater, a town in desperate need of rain to save their crops. While waiting for spare parts, Jonas decides to hold a revival meeting in the town. The local sheriff, Will Braverman, is skeptical and tries to prevent his town and its people from being conned. However a local disabled boy, Boyd, believes Jonas could make him walk again. Events in Rustwater make Jonas examine his own faith and doubts.
Expecting the usual tedium that accompanies a summer in the Catskills with her family, 17-year-old Frances "Baby" Houseman is surprised to find herself stepping into the shoes of a professional hoofer -- and unexpectedly falling in love. The object of her affection? The resort's free-spirited dance instructor.
Swedish efficiency researchers come to Norway for a study of Norwegian men, to optimize their use of their kitchen. Folke Nilsson (Tomas Norström) is assigned to study the habits of Isak Bjørvik (Joachim Calmeyer). By the rules of the research institute, Folke has to sit on an umpire's chair in Isak's kitchen and observe him from there, but never talk to him. Isak stops using his kitchen and observes Folke through a hole in the ceiling instead. However, the two lonely men slowly overcome the initial post-war Norwegian-Swede distrust and become friends.
Waking Life is about a young man in a persistent lucid dream-like state. The film follows its protagonist as he initially observes and later participates in philosophical discussions that weave together issues like reality, free will, our relationships with others, and the meaning of life.
A man wakes up deep inside a cave. Suffering amnesia, he has no recollection of how he came to be here or of what happened to the man whose body he finds beside him. Tailed by a mysterious creature, he must continue through this strange and fantastic world. Enclosed, Tolbiac has no other option to reach the surface than to use REZO ZERO, secret observing cells in this cemetery-like abandoned mine.
The film opens with the angel Cassiel (Otto Sander) standing on the statue of the Angel of Victory overlooking post-Cold War Berlin. Growing ever more despondent over his fate as a mere observer of human life, rather than a vital part of it, Cassiel dreams of "crossing over" to the human world.And he does, as Karl Engel, a man who perhaps knows too much, perhaps like in many of Hitchcock's films, some harmless citizen who gets involved in an affair to which he is not up to. In fact, there is no one as kind and harmless as this newborn citizen of the Earth.We will follow Cassiels's adventures into a "thriller." This story which gets mangled with his own life is about weapons, more precisely about a weapon deal where the weapons - or INSTRUMENTS of violence -- are traded for IMAGES of violence.(Text from Wim Wenders site)
A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.
A test pilot and his weather observer develop a "robot" control so airplanes can be flown without pilots, but enemy agents get wind of it and try to steal it or destroy it.
The story is set in 1962 Louisiana. The big Batiste family is headed by charming doctor Louis. Though he is married to beautiful Roz, he has a weakness for attractive women patients. One day Louis is flirting with married and sexy Metty Mereaux, not knowing that he is observed by his youngest idealistic daughter Eve, who is there by accident. Eve can not forget the incident which is traumatic for her naivete and shares a secret with older sister Cisely. Lies start to roll...
A young Chinese boy and girl are sent on a mission to retrieve the 'Glorious 100' - agents who were sent to this planet millennia ago to study and observe.
During the campaign for reelection, the crooked politician Paul Madvig decides to clean up his past, refusing the support of the gangster Nick Varna and associating to the respectable reformist politician Ralph Henry. When Ralph's son, Taylor Henry, a gambler and the lover of Paul's sister Opal, is murdered, Paul's right arm, Ed Beaumont, finds his body on the street. Nick uses the financial situation of The Observer to force the publisher Clyde Matthews to use the newspaper to raise the suspicion that Paul Madvig might have killed Taylor.
Bi-polar mall security guard Ronnie Barnhardt is called into action to stop a flasher from turning shopper's paradise into his personal peep show. But when Barnhardt can't bring the culprit to justice, a surly police detective, is recruited to close the case.
Germany in the early 1930s. Against the backdrop of the Nazis' rise, Hermann Hermann, a Russian émigré and chocolate magnate, goes slowly mad. It begins with his seating himself in a chair to observe himself making love to his wife, Lydia, a zaftig empty-headed siren who is also sleeping with her cousin. Hermann is soon given to intemperate outbursts at his workers, other businessmen, and strangers. Then, he meets Felix, an itinerant laborer, whom he delusionally believes looks exactly like himself. Armed with a new life insurance policy, he hatches an elaborate plot in the belief it will free him of all his worries.
After being brutally murdered, 14-year-old Susie Salmon watches from heaven over her grief-stricken family -- and her killer. As she observes their daily lives, she must balance her thirst for revenge with her desire for her family to heal.
"My Father My Lord" is an intimate and deeply disturbing story of the conflict between a father's love and his deep devotion to religion. A respected Orthodox Rabbi dotes on his only son but his religious strictures leave an emotional gap between the impish child and the stern father. When the father's all-consuming obsession with observing religious ritual inadvertently leads to tragedy, his previously subservient wife rages against both her husband and God. A dramatic retelling of the story of Abraham.
While escaping from Nazis during the WWII, a Jewish man dug suitcases full of things dear to his heart in the ground two. The war deprived him of his family, and afterwards he endlessly turns over the soil of Antwerp to find the suitcases, which makes him look obsessed. He keeps checking old maps and keeps digging, trying to find, in fact, those he lost. His daughter Chaya is a beautiful modern girl looking for a part-time job. She finds a place as a nanny in the strictly observant Chassidic family with many children, although her secular manners clearly fly in the face of many commandments. One of the reasons she is accepted is that mother of the family is absolutely overburdened by the household, so she stays despite the resistance of the father, normally - an indisputable authority in the family. She develops a special bond with the youngest of the boys, four-year old Simcha, so far incapable of speaking.
While giving a private performance for a visiting monarch, concert pianist Montgomery Royale is deafened when a bomb is detonated in an attempt to assassinate the foreign ruler. With his career over as a result of his injury, Royale returns to New York City with his sister Florence, close friend Mildred Miller, and considerably younger fiancée Grace Blair. After abandoning thoughts of suicide, Montgomery discovers he can lip read, and he spends his days observing people in Central Park from his apartment window. As he learns of people's problems, he tries to help them anonymously. He becomes absorbed in his game of "playing God" but his actions are without sincerity.
A representative of an alien race that went through drastic evolution to survive its own climate change, Klaatu comes to Earth to assess whether humanity can prevent the environmental damage they have inflicted on their own planet. When barred from speaking to the United Nations, he decides humankind shall be exterminated so the planet can survive.
British reporters suspect an international cover-up of a global disaster in progress... and they're right. Hysterical panic has engulfed the world after the United States and the Soviet Union simultaneously detonate nuclear devices and have caused the orbit of the Earth to alter, sending it hurtling towards the sun.
Tired of the noise and madness of New York and the crushing conventions of late Eisenhower-era America, itinerant journalist Paul Kemp travels to the pristine island of Puerto Rico to write for a local San Juan newspaper run by the downtrodden editor Lotterman. Adopting the rum-soaked lifestyle of the late â50s version of Hemingwayâs âThe Lost Generation,â Paul soon becomes entangled with a very attractive American woman, Chenaults and her fiancée Sanderson, a businessman involved in shady property development deals. It is within this world that Kemp ultimately discovers his true voice as a writer and integrity as a man.
Astronomers discover a comet that they believe will crash into Phoenix, Arizona. They attempt to warn officials, but no one believes them.
14 year old Sven is a technical genius, who has rebuilt an old caravan into a radio communication center. Via radio he is in contact with his father, who works at a big ship at the other side of the globe. One day the radio communication is suddenly interrupted by something which sounds like a Latin mass. In school Sven attends a lesson about radio-astronomy. The teacher explains that astronomers can receive radio waves that are thousand years old. Sven understands that the Latin mass he heard was transmitted to him from another age. He gets curious and starts making experiments by connecting his radio kit to bigger aerials. When he sits in the caravan together with his friends Bo and Petra, they not only hear the Latin mass on his radio, but the whole caravan is turned into a time-machine that brings them to the Middle Ages. They get in trouble with some warriors, who capture Petra, while Sven and Bo escape with the help of their time-machine...
An Irish immigrant family adjusts to life in the United States.
A hypnotic play going inside the mind of a mental astronomer
A television program is interupted by a news network announcing that three meteors have hit the United States, France and China. At first it seems natural but after interviews by scientists and eyewitness seems to suggest that it is not. Three more meteors are coming and the various Earth governments combine forces to stop them.
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