Joe Bini Movies

The first collaboration between legendary filmmakers David Lynch and Werner Herzog, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is loosely based on the true story of a San Diego man whose mystifying experiences lead him to commit a shocking act of matricide. Michael Shannon, Chloe Sevigny, and William Dafoe headline this psychological thriller written and directed by Herzog, produced by Lynch, and featuring Grace Zabriskie, Udo Kier, and Brad Dourif. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The events of 1977 and 1978 permanently marred director Roman Polanski's life. Accused of unlawful sexual assault on minor Samantha Geimer during his stay at actor Jack Nicholson's house in March of 1977, Polanski wound up in the midst of controversial judicial proceedings that many read as supremely unfair. After being temporarily sprung on 2,500 dollars bail, Polanski then fled the United States for Europe in 1978, with the threat of incarceration hanging over him should he ever return. With her documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, filmmaker Marina Zenovich revisits this difficult case via extensive interviews with Geimer, defense attorney Douglas Dalton, Assistant DA Roger Gunson, and others. In the process, she raises pivotal questions about the U.S. legal system and the fairness of the judge, Laurence J. Rittenband (who was reportedly extremely vocal about his desire to topple Polanski) and encounters many recollections of judicial malfeasance from those who were involved. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Acclaimed filmmaker Werner Herzog returns to direct his first feature since 2001's Invincible with this dramatic action film inspired by his own 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly and detailing the escape efforts of a German-American pilot who was taken as a prisoner-of-war after being shot down over Laos during the Vietnam War. When U.S. fighter pilot Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale) escaped death after being shot down over one of the most intense front lines in the Vietnam War, his troubles were only beginning. Subsequently taken captive by the enemy and forced to endure a harrowing stint in a Vietnamese prison camp, Dengler and his fellow captives stage a death-defying escape that would later inspire one of Germany's most accomplished directors to capture the remarkable tale on camera. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Planet Earth has been decimated, and as mankind searches space for a new planet to inhabit, a race of aliens attempt to make a new home on the now-inhospitable planet abandoned by the human race in director Werner Herzog's strange sci-fi saga. Filmed in collaboration with NASA musician/photographer Henry Kaiser, The Wild Blue Yonder travels light years into the stars, and fathoms deep into the Antarctic Ocean, and speaks with noted scientists to offer a unique view of the universe and a cautionary tale which stresses the importance of preserving our natural resources for future generations. Oscar-nominated actor Brad Dourif plays the role of the alien who arrives on Earth only to discover that the planet hasn't fared much better than the dying world that he once called home. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

If you've ever flipped through a supermarket tabloid, vintage comic book, or various sorts of pulp magazines, it's not unlikely you've seen ads in which a "record company" or "song publisher" claims to be looking for new, fresh material. This is the most public face of what is known to music buffs as "the song-poem industry," in which small companies will take the lyrics of amateurs of all stripes, set them to music, and produce rudimentary recordings of the results -- all for a price to the novice writer, of course. While literally hundreds of thousands of songs have been recorded and released in some form through the song-poem business, only a tiny handful have reached any sort of audience beyond the lyricist himself (and perhaps their family and friends), and most of those people who follow the work of the song-poets view them as folk art at best, and examples of the outer limits of low-grade musicianship at worst. Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story is a documentary which looks at this curious sidestreet of the music business, examining its history, the musicians who set the work of rank amateurs to music, and the lyricists who are willing to pay to have tunes like "Non-Violent Tae Kwon do Troopers," "Rip Off Fear," "Chicken Insurrection," and "The Human Breakdown of Absurdity" committed to plastic. Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story was produced and aired by PBS as part of the documentary series Independent Lens. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Seven internationally respected filmmakers offer different perspectives on time and fate -- some witty, some somber -- in this omnibus film, with the stories linked by performances from jazz great Hugh Masekela. Dogs Have No Hell by Aki Kaurismaki follows one man's unusual journey as he celebrates getting out of jail by travelling to Siberia in search of a wife. Victor Erice directed the impressionistic Lifeline, in which a family of Spanish farmers try to help an infant who has fallen ill. Werner Herzog visits the Uru Eus tribe of South America -- believed to have been the last unknown indigenous people on earth prior to their discover in 1981 -- and explores the often sad toll their discovery has taken upon them in Ten Thousand Years Older. Chloe Sevigny plays an film actress waiting out a ten-minute break in her trailer in Int. Trailer. Night, directed by Jim Jarmusch. Wim Wedners contributes Twelve Miles to Trona, in which a young man, dazed and ill, tries to drive himself to a doctor through a barren desert. Spike Lee looks into the Florida vote-counting scandal, and how Al Gore's assistants and supporters reacted to it, in the short documentary We Wuz Robbed. And in 100 Flowers Hidden Deep, directed by Chen Kaige, a delusional elderly man is convinced his furniture still stands in the vacant lot where his home used to be, and he persuades workers to help him move it away to safety. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A woman looking for answers in her life may have found them in a mysterious northern California town in this drama. Katherine (Irene Bedard) is a theatrical designer who has grown tired of her life in Reno, NV, and decides to pull up stakes and move to California, hoping that a change of scenery will help her sort out her sense of ennui. Katherine ends up in a city called Princeton, where the entire town appears to be owned by one woman, Tanna (Leann Hunley). Tanna seems to like Katherine and gives her a job coordinating the town's annual fair. As Katherine gets to know the city and tries to get the fair up and running, she makes the acquaintance of some of the locals, including Parker (Chad Lowe), a good-looking ladies' man; Michael (Stephen Heath), a childlike innocent; and Lilian (Jeannetta Arnette), Michael's mother, who has a drinking problem. Katherine soon discovers that practically everyone in Princeton seems to have some sort of personal problem, and she comes to understand other people's troubles as she tries to resolve her own. Your Guardian was the opening night feature at the 2001 Cinequest San Jose Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

While growing up in desolated post-WW II Germany, all Dieter Dengler, the son of a Nazi slain during the war, dreamed about was becoming a pilot. At age 18, he left his country with only a few cents to his name and emigrated to the U.S. Landing in San Francisco, he worked odd jobs until he was accepted into the Navy and began pilot training. He was sent to Vietnam around 1966 and on his first mission was shot down and taken prisoner. There, the Vietcong tortured and starved him until Dengler engineered a hair-raising escape and eventually returned to the U.S. where his heroic life story has been forgotten until now. Sometimes blurring the lines between fact and fiction with his trademark recurrent themes, this documentary from Werner Herzog remembers the times of the heroic Dengler. The film is divided into four chapters, each representing a period from Dengler's life; the story is recounted via interviews with the Navy pilot, archival footage and new footage seamlessly spliced together. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide