The volume on everything is too high. Not one thing -- all of it. These films turn the dial down. Steady pacing, contained worlds, nothing that is going to pile onto what is already there.
Based on the true life experiences of poet Jimmy Santiago Baca, the film focuses on half-brothers Paco and Cruz, and their bi-racial cousin Miklo. It opens in 1972, as the three are members of an East L.A. gang known as the "Vatos Locos", and the story focuses on how a violent crime and the influence of narcotics alter their lives. Miklo is incarcerated and sent to San Quentin, where he makes a "home" for himself. Cruz becomes an exceptional artist, but a heroin addiction overcomes him with tragic results. Paco becomes a cop and an enemy to his "carnal", Miklo.
The tone is deliberately contained. It does not add to the volume.
Contained and calm
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
Watches like a lowering of the dial. Calm and absorbing without being empty.
Turns the dial down
A tramp cares for a boy after he's abandoned as a newborn by his mother. Later the mother has a change of heart and aches to be reunited with her son.
The tone is deliberately contained. It does not add to the volume.
Contained and calm
Suffering from insomnia, disturbed loner Travis Bickle takes a job as a New York City cabbie, haunting the streets nightly, growing increasingly detached from reality as he dreams of cleaning up the filthy city.
The tone is deliberately contained. It does not add to the volume.
Turns the dial down
During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.
Watches like a lowering of the dial. Calm and absorbing without being empty.
Turns the dial down
Turns the dial down
Works with someone who does not need to talk through it with you.
A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.
The tone is deliberately contained. It does not add to the volume.
Contained and calm
After 12 years in prison, former high school football star Eddie Palmer returns home to put his life back together—and forms an unlikely bond with Sam, an outcast boy from a troubled home. But Eddie's past threatens to ruin his new life and family.
Watches like a lowering of the dial. Calm and absorbing without being empty.
Contained and calm
After hundreds of years doing what he was built for, WALL•E— a robot designed to clean up the earth—discovers a new purpose in life when he meets a sleek search robot named EVE. EVE comes to realize that WALL•E has inadvertently stumbled upon the key to the planet's future, and races back to space to report to the humans. Meanwhile, WALL•E chases EVE across the galaxy and sets into motion one of the most imaginative adventures ever brought to the big screen.
The tone is deliberately contained. It does not add to the volume.
Contained and calm
The story of August Pullman – a boy with facial differences – who enters fifth grade, attending a mainstream elementary school for the first time.
Watches like a lowering of the dial. Calm and absorbing without being empty.
Turns the dial down
Keller Dover is facing every parent’s worst nightmare. His six-year-old daughter, Anna, is missing, together with her young friend, Joy, and as minutes turn to hours, panic sets in. The only lead is a dilapidated RV that had earlier been parked on their street.
The tone is deliberately contained. It does not add to the volume.
Turns the dial down
The right film for the right state is a specific thing. These are specific.