Sunday Night Film Club – Boston

Set in the year 2154, where the very wealthy live on a man-made space station while the rest of the population resides on a ruined Earth, a man takes on a mission that could bring equality to the polarized worlds.

In this chilling and inventive documentary, executive produced by Errol Morris (The Fog of War) and Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man), filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer examines a country where death squad leaders are celebrated as heroes. When the Indonesian government was overthrown in 1965, small-time gangster Anwar Congo and his friends led anti-communist death squads in the mass murder of over a million people. Anwar boasts of killing hundreds with his own hands, but he’s lived in his country with impunity ever since. When approached to make a film about their role in the genocide, Anwar and his friends eagerly complybut their idea of being in a movie is not to provide reflective testimony, but to dance their way through musical numbers, twist arms in film noir gangster scenes, and gallop across the prairies as yodeling cowboys. The hallucinatory result is a cinematic fever dream, and a gripping conflict between moral imagination and moral catastrophe. Co-directed by Christine Cynn and Anonymous.

As a war between humankind and monstrous sea creatures wages on, a former pilot and a trainee are paired up to drive a seemingly obsolete special weapon in a desperate effort to save the world from the apocalypse.

Backup singers live in a world that lies just beyond the spotlight. Their voices bring harmony to the biggest bands in popular music, but we’ve had no idea these singers are or what lives they lead, until now.

United Nations employee Gerry Lane traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments, and threatening to destroy humanity itself.

Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel star as themselves along with Danny McBride, Jonah Hill, and Craig Robinson in this end-of-days comedy that finds the actors hiding out with James Franco in his house as the apocalypse decimates L.A. outside. Featuring cameos by Jason Segel and Emma Watson, the Sony Pictures film features the directing debuts of Rogen and frequent collaborator Evan Goldberg.

The quintessential WWII men-on-a-mission film, THE DIRTY DOZEN features Lee Marvin as a no-nonsense commander who must lead a bunch of military convicts on what is essentially a suicide mission. Their goal is to parachute behind enemy lines and cause chaos amongst the Nazi high-command by murdering as many of them as possible.

Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay is a mesmerizing journey into the world of modern magic and the small circle of eccentric geniuses who mastered it. At its center is the multitalented Ricky Jay, a best-selling author and historian, an acclaimed actor (House of Games), a leading collector of antiquarian books and artifacts, but above all a conjurer capable of creating a profound sense of wonder and disbelief. Deceptive Practice traces the story of Ricky’s achievement, from his precocious apprenticeship in Brooklyn, beginning at age 4, with his grandfather Max Katz, as well as Al Flosso, Slydini, and Cardini (all among the best magicians of the 20th century), to his extraordinary one-man shows on Broadway. Friends and collaborators appear, such as David Mamet and Steve Martin (who joins Jay in a hilarious turn on a vintage ’70s “Dinah Shore” TV show). Throughout, Jay demonstrates live on camera his mastery of sleight of hand. Viewers will gain not only a deep appreciation for the arduous and arcane demands of the magician’s craft, but also for the colorful use of language and storytelling central to the art.