Take a peek inside the teachers’ lounge in this hilarious glimpse into the awkward lives of high school teachers. Drawing from the mock-reality show style of “The Office” or “Arrested Development,” writer/director Mike Akel and writer/co-star Chris Mass, both actual teachers, mix comedy with a bittersweet commentary on the obstacles facing our public school teachers. Surrounded by wonderfully deadpan, real life students, the cast delivers ingeniously subtle performances as teachers struggling to win “Teacher of the Year,” decipher school policy, or just make it until the bell rings.  More...

While working on music for Fatih Akin’s Head On, Alexander Hacke, a member of the seminal German band Einstürzende Neubaten, first came in contact with the lively music scene in Istanbul, which blends traditional and modern sounds. Returning with Akin to further explore the city’s exciting mix of styles, Hacke finds the vibrant music and extraordinary personalities who create it know no bounds. Together they create a rich and entertaining look at one of the world’s cultural and musical crossroads.  More...

Writer Harry Block’s personal life is in a perpetual shambles, but at least he can funnel that mess into his art. The people closest to Harry, however, aren’t so happy about being fodder for his acid imagination. Will a disastrous trip to upstate New York force Harry to reconsider his ways? Featuring an all-star cast as Harry’s “real” and “fictional” friends, paramours and ex-wives, Woody Allen’s pitch-black comedy was hailed as an unusually candid piece of self-analysis and a creative step forward for the prolific auteur.  More...

Mystery is suspended, and perhaps even cancelled out, in Lisandro Alonso’s astonishing second feature, which follows a man released from prison who treks to his daughter’s home. It’s a journey forward yet also a return back in time, revealing the root of basic human needs and wants, primordial, yet never completely explicable. Among the challenging young Argentine cineastes, none is more startling or original than Alonso (La Libertad), whose openness to real time and a character’s inner world as revealed through nature continues here, but with far more unsettling implications.  More...

Barry Goldwater was a rare breed of politician — one who stuck to his ideals and refused to pander to special interest groups, including his own party. Tracing Goldwater from his earthy Senatorial beginnings to his notorious presidential loss to LBJ to his outspoken later years, filmmaker Julie Anderson assembles a marvelous ensemble to dissect the singular Renaissance man, from Hillary Clinton and Al Franken to George Will and John McCain. What emerges is a compelling homage to a self-reliant giant and a bygone era in American politics.  More...