Right now, for a limited time, the following Fox Searchlight favorites are on sale for $7.99 each to own in Amazon’s Instant Video Store (all descriptions from IMDB.com):
Juno (PG-13, 4/5 stars, closed captions available)
A tale told over four seasons, starting in autumn when Juno, a 16-year-old high-school junior in Minnesota, discovers she’s pregnant after one event in a chair with her best friend, Bleeker. In the waiting room of an abortion clinic, the quirky and whip-sharp Juno decides to give birth and to place the child with an adoptive couple.
She finds one in the PennySaver personals, contacts them, tells her dad and step-mother, and carries on with school. The chosen parents, upscale yuppies (one of whom is cool and laid back, the other meticulous and uptight), meet Juno, sign papers, and the year unfolds. Will Juno’s plan work, can she improvise, and what about Bleeker?
– Written by jhailey
Once (PG-13, 4.5/5 stars, closed captions available)
An (unnamed) Guy is a Dublin guitarist/singer-songwriter who makes a living by fixing vacuum cleaners in his Dad’s Hoover repair shop by day, and singing and playing for money on the Dublin streets by night. An (unnamed) Girl is a Czech who plays piano when she gets a chance, and does odd jobs by day and takes care of her mom and her daughter by night.
Guy meets Girl, and they get to know each other as the Girl helps the Guy to put together a demo disc that he can take to London in hope of landing a music contract. During the same several day period, the Guy and the Girl work through their past loves, and reveal their budding love for one another, through their songs.
– Written by Charles Delacroix
Black Swan (R, 3.5/5 stars, closed captions available)
Nina (Portman) is a ballerina in a New York City ballet company whose life, like all those in her profession, is completely consumed with dance. She lives with her obsessive former ballerina mother Erica (Hershey) who exerts a suffocating control over her. When artistic director Thomas Leroy (Cassel) decides to replace prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Ryder) for the opening production of their new season, Swan Lake, Nina is his first choice. But Nina has competition: a new dancer, Lily (Kunis), who impresses Leroy as well.
Swan Lake requires a dancer who can play both the White Swan with innocence and grace, and the Black Swan, who represents guile and sensuality. Nina fits the White Swan role perfectly but Lily is the personification of the Black Swan. As the two young dancers expand their rivalry into a twisted friendship, Nina begins to get more in touch with her dark side – a recklessness that threatens to destroy her.
– Written by Fox Searchlight Pictures
(500) Days of Summer (PG-13, 4/5 stars, closed captions available)
After it looks as if she’s left his life for good this time, Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Inception) reflects back on the just over one year that he knew Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel, New Girl). Despite being physically average in almost every respect, Summer had always attracted the attention of men, Tom included. For Tom, it was love at first sight when she walked into the greeting card company where he worked, she the new administrative assistant.
Soon, Tom knew that Summer was the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life. Although Summer did not believe in relationships or boyfriends – in her assertion, real life will always ultimately get in the way – Tom and Summer became more than just friends. Through the trials and tribulations of Tom and Summer’s so-called relationship, Tom could always count on the advice of his two best friends, McKenzie and Paul. However, it is Tom’s adolescent sister, Rachel (Chloe Grace Moretz, Kick Ass), who is his voice of reason. After all is said and done, Tom is the one who ultimately has to make the choice to listen or not.
– Written by Huggo
Little Miss Sunshine (R, 4/5 stars, closed captions available)
Olive is a little girl with a dream: winning the Little Miss Sunshine contest. Her family wants her dream to come true, but they are so burdened with their own quirks, neuroses, and problems that they can barely make it through a day without some disaster befalling them. Olive’s father Richard is a flop as a motivational speaker, and is barely on speaking terms with her mother. Olive’s uncle Frank, a renowned Proust scholar, has attempted suicide following an unsuccessful romance with a male graduate student.
Her brother Dwayne, a fanatical follower of Nietzsche, has taken a vow of silence, which allows him to escape somewhat from the family whose very presence torments him. And Olive’s grandfather is a ne’er-do-well with a drug habit, but at least he enthusiastically coaches Olive in her contest talent routine. Circumstances conspire to put the entire family on the road together with the goal of getting Olive to the Little Miss Sunshine contest in far off California.
– Written by Jim Beaver
Crazy Heart (R, 4/5 stars, closed captions available)
Bad Blake is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who’s had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean, a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician.
– Written by Fox Searchlight Pictures
Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) teaches history in an inner city high school in London. She has contempt for most people in her life, including most of her colleagues and her students. She believes they, in turn, see her as what she calls “the battle-ax”: someone who they don’t much like, but at least respect, especially as an authority figure. She leads a solitary life, her confidantes being her cat Portia and her diary, to which she confesses all. She is keeping what she believes is a secret about her life. Close to retirement, Barbara is re-energized when Sheba Hart is hired as the school’s new art teacher, Sheba (Cate Blanchett) who has only recently returned to the workforce.
Sheba is in many ways the antithesis of Barbara: relatively young, pretty, popular with both the students and her colleagues, but not being able to instill any discipline among her students. On the surface, Sheba has a happy life, which includes an older husband, and two children, her youngest, Ben, who has Down Syndrome. But underlying the surface, Sheba feels unfulfilled, which is fostered in part by an uncaring mother. Unknown to Sheba or anyone else, Barbara has chosen her as her current focus of life. Their relationship, which is initially cordial, changes when Barbara catches Sheba in an illegal indiscretion. Again unknown to Sheba, Barbara decides to use this information to get out of Sheba what she ultimately wants in life.
– Written by Huggo