Lori Cheatle Movies

If one believes that dreams can come true, what does that mean if our dreams bring bad news? Filmmaker Amy Hardie found herself pondering this question when she awoke one night from a powerful and vivid dream in which her horse had died. Hardie went out to her stable to see how her horse was doing, only to find that it had died just as it had in her dream. While Hardie rarely remembered her dreams and cast a skeptical eye on the notion of psychic prognostication, the incident had a profound impact on her, and she became more than a bit worried when shortly before her 48th birthday she had similarly realistic dream in which she died shortly before turning 49. Hardie chose to chronicle the next year of her life, as she discussed her suddenly active dream life with neurologists, psychiatrists, a variety of spiritual thinkers, and of course, her family. The film that resulted, The Edge of Dreaming, is a meditation on mortality, the unconscious, and the state of the world in a time when the environment is in an increasingly precarious state. The Edge of Dreaming was an official selection at the 2009 Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

When documentary filmmaker Doug Block's mother dies unexpectedly and his 83-year-old father reveals plans to move to Florida with his onetime secretary shortly thereafter, the confused son travels to his childhood time to seek out the secrets of his parent's presumably happy 55-year marriage in a film that explores just what happens when everything you think you knew about your family is suddenly thrown into question. As a child Block always assumed that his parents were content in their relationship, but as close as he was to his mother growing up, his father remained a constant mystery. Now the home he grew up in is suddenly on the market, and in order to seek out the secrets of his family history Block will travel to Long Island, camera in hand, to peel away decades of secrecy. As 60 years and three generations of carefully guarded secrets finally come into focus with the discovery of his mother's detailed diary, Block's fundamental assumptions about the lives of his parents gradually give way to a poignant meditation on the themes of fidelity, love, and marriage while revealing that the relationship shared between his mother and father was much more complicated than he ever imagined. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

One of the great 20th Century American literary icons, Dashiell Hammett invented the hard-boiled detective novel and, in the process, elevated the mystery novel to high art. This PBS documentary charts Hammett from his inauspicious beginning as a high school drop-out private detective to his career pinnacle, hobnobbing with movie stars and the cultural elite, to his demise resulting from alcohol in 1961. The film also delves into Hammett's works using ample clips from his most renowned work, The Maltese Falcon. Kathleen Turner narrates. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi