In the age of social media, nearly every day brings a new eruption of outrage. While people have always found something to be offended by, their ability to organize a groundswell of opposition to – and public censure of – their offender has never been more powerful. Today we're all one clumsy joke away from public ruin. Can We Take A Joke? offers a thought-provoking and wry exploration of outrage culture through the lens of stand-up comedy, with notables like Gilbert Gottfried, Penn Jillette, Lisa Lampanelli, and Adam Carolla detailing its stifling impact on comedy and the exchange of ideas. What will the future will be like if we can't learn how to take a joke?
Sarah Sparks is pregnant and feeling wholly ambivalent, despite her boyfriend's pure enthusiasm. A committed tech-geek, she fears she is more interested in ultrasound technology than in what's being ultra-sounded. When her sister lures her to L.A. for what ends up being a terrorizing baby shower, Sarah keeps her rental van and hits the road in search of the source of her anxiety: her estranged mother, now living off the grid. Small, Beautifully Moving Parts takes a comical, yet poignant look at one woman's coming-of-parenthood in the age of technology.
A young couple decide to marry under the condition that they agree never to disagree. That agreement is soon put to the test when the husband finds himself attracted to a beautiful young woman.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was the author of Werther, the romantic novel that was transformed into a play during Goethe's lifetime and which initiated the whole German romantic movement. The book's story tells of young love and suicide. In this East German film, based on a book by Thomas Mann, Lotte (Lilli Palmer) was the woman who served as the model for the heroine in the novel Werther. She comes to Goethe's hometown for a visit, and her experiences there eerily re-create episodes from the book. Goethe comes across as a pompous old bore, and his friends as pandering sycophants, in this very proper communist party-sponsored, anti-heroic movie.
Marisa feels that she is the supporting actress of her own life. She has no job, no projects, no prospects for the future. She looks away from her own life's downfall to become the rescuer of her best friend Mina, who is immersed in a desperate crisis after the break-up of her relationship with Salvador. When she tries to get help from other friends, she only finds more lives adrift. Then, some unexpected news breaks the difficult balance of her life, and Marisa can only find comfort in the city nightlife. She is ready to disappear, silent and quietly, like fading into black.
Excited about their grandson's visit, an elderly couple plan to cook chicken curry for dinner. But, things begin to fall apart when the chicken goes missing.
A hybrid doc/narrative following Tony winning performer and comedian Sarah Jones. As a mixed-race Black woman in America, Sarah, alongside the multicultural characters she's known for, explores her own personal relationship to one of the most relevant issues in our current cultural climate: the sex industry, and the surprisingly diverse range of people whose lives it touches. Through interviews and monologues, this film poses the question: how can we as a society have a healthy relationship to sex, power, race and our economy, without exploitation or stigma? The goal is not to prescribe solutions, but to highlight the human faces and voices at the center of this subject.
It is a Saturday in autumn, and Karin and Simon are visiting their parents and youngest sister Clara. This family gathering provides the occasion for a dinner together, at which other relatives appear over the course of the day. While the family members animate the apartment’s space with their conversations, everyday activities and cooking preparations, the cat and dog range through the various rooms. they too become a central element in this quotidian familial dance that repeatedly manifests stylized elements, disrupting any naturalistic mode of presentation. In this way, adjoining spaces open up between family drama, fairy tale and the psychological study of a mother.
Love & Taxes is a riveting comic tale of seven years of tax avoidance. Following the possibly real-life exploits of Josh Kornbluth, an autobiographical monologist, Love & Taxes is a comedy that blends solo performance and scripted scenes to bring the subjective reality of the storyteller hilariously to life. A tale of procrastination, making movies and growing up, Love & Taxes is a middle-aged coming-of-age story that is also, quite possibly, the first ever pro-tax romantic comedy.
This comedic musical tells the story of Gabi, a young hairdresser from the Baltic coast who desperately wants to be a jockey. One day, she packs her bags, drives to Hoppegarten, and is soundly rejected by the head coach. Gabi doesn't want to give up, and in order to at least have a roof over her head, she rushes into a marriage with the seemingly nice Freddie. However, this marriage soon proves to be her second rejection, as Freddie openly dislikes the fact that she wants to be a jockey.
Silje wants to leave her boyfriend, but when she finds him in a half-hearted attempt to hang himself she has to reconsider, in fear of acting reckless.
Princess Betty sleeps in a narcoleptic stupor. The king appeals to his subjects to wake her, and several respond: Uncle Henry VIII, Aunt Victoria, an emotional alien, a cool witch and a handsome prince. This worthy Prince Charles lookalike has to leave his royal suburb to save the princess, but will Betty be wakened with just a kiss?
The story centers on a devout Muslim, Faco, who tries to run his two-wife household in the traditional way. The trouble begins when his ambitious younger son, Kalifa lapses and gets involved with his older brother's hoodlum friends. Kalifa then gives them his money and soon loses his job. The city has a curfew at night and only those with a highly-prized identity card are allowed out. Police rigorously patrol the streets in search of whores and people without cards. One homeless, unemployed man, Oussou, decides to earn the card by becoming a stoolie for the cops, and snitches on Kalifa's older brother, precipitating a police raid of Faco's home that results in their finding a cache of illegal drugs. Faco and the older son are both stripped naked and thrown in jail. Suddenly Faco finds himself brutalized and humiliated by his Muslim brothers. Meanwhile, the dark-skinned daughter of a white storekeeper, with a lust for black hookers, sets off to find her real mother.
In the late 1950s, the collectivization of agriculture is in full swing in the East German village of Willshagen on the German-German border. Those in charge have to face many obstacles, especially from a large-scale farmer who is unwilling to join the co-op. All of a sudden, mysterious men in a fancy car appear in the village and show an interest in the rundown manor house. Gossip spreads quickly, and some villagers think there will be a re-parceling of properties and a land swap with West Germany. They assume everything will go back to how it used to be and even expect the count to return to his manor. In preparation, the situation in the village escalates at a fevered pitch.
Aboard a cruise ship out at sea, a young sailor discovers a door mysteriously leading to an apartment in Montevideo. Meanwhile, a group of Asian farmers find an abandoned shed in the valley, attributing it supernatural powers.
Jasmine and Penn, a new couple with an uncertain future, struggle through a lunch party after they stumble upon an anonymous suicide note in the home of the hosts.