IFC Films
Camp X-Ray
A Harry Potter book draws Amy (Kristen Stewart), an MP at Guantanamo, into a conversation with a detainee, Ali (Peyman Moaadi). Funny thing: Amy is the one who never read Harry Potter. Camp X-Ray explores their fractured friendship along with Amy’s difficulties with machismo army culture and the peculiar chauvinism of many of their Islamist prisoners. She arrives at Gitmo seeing the world in black and white and departs with a greater appreciation for gray.
The Pope of Greenwich Village/Desperate Hours
Mickey Rourke was one of the brightest stars of the 1980s. A pair of his most popular movies, released together in a Blu-ray package, displays his range. In the light-hearted The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), Rourke plays a sharp-dressing, fast-talking hustler from Little Italy looking for his next break. In Desperate Hours (1990), he plays an incorrigible killer with a charming smile who takes a wealthy, imploding family hostage in their home. Anthony Hopkins co-stars.
Killer Cop
The paperback Moby-Dick at his bedside is a signal: Rolandi is a cool and reflective detective in this ’70s Italian socio-crime thriller, out on DVD. He’s also an angry cop as he’s drawn into a conspiracy concerning a terrorist cell that blows up an international conference on naïve art. Politicians try to assign blame; an unidentified cabal manipulates the scenario; corruption is endemic; justice is elusive. Killer Cop’s shootouts could give Quentin Tarantino inspiration.
The Invisible Front
Lithuania’s history involved annexation by the Soviet Union, conquest by the Nazis and reoccupation by the Soviets as World War II ended. The Invisible Front documents Lithuanian resistance through guerilla fighters, underground newspapers and CIA-equipped teams that parachuted into the forests. Employing military force, informants and mass arrests, the Soviets stamped out the resistance movement by 1950 without extinguishing Lithuania’s will to independence. The Invisible Front makes good use of archival footage and interviews with survivors.
