author intrusion

TRADE: opening this weekend

A movie on human sex trafficking opens this weekend. Please go! It's opening in a limited number of cities. You can find out at their website whether or not you're close by. Unfortunately, we are not. Here's the synopsis:

When 13-year-old Adriana (Paulina Gaitan) is kidnapped by sex traffickers in Mexico City, her 17-year-old brother, Jorge (Cesar Ramos), sets off on a desperate mission to save her.

Trapped by an underground network of international thugs who earn millions exploiting their human cargo, Adriana's only friend throughout her ordeal is Veronica (Alicja Bachleda), a young Polish woman captured by the same criminal gang. As Jorge dodges overwhelming obstacles to track the girl's abductors, he meets Ray (Kevin Kline), a Texas cop whose own family loss leads him to become an ally.

From the barrios of Mexico City and the treacherous Rio Grande border, to a secret internet sex slave auction and a tense confrontation at a stash house in suburban New Jersey, Ray and Jorge forge a close bond as they frantically pursue Adriana's kidnappers before she is sold and disappears into a brutal underworld from which few victims ever return.

Inspired by Peter Landesman's chilling NY Times Magazine story on the U.S. sex trade, "The Girls Next Door," TRADE is a thrilling story of courage and a devastating expose of one of the world's most heinous crimes.
The American debut of Marco Kreuzpaintner, one of Germany's leading young directors, TRADE is produced by Roland Emmerich and Rosilyn Heller from a screenplay by Academy Award(R) nominee Jose Rivera (THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES).

Thanks to Danica for making me aware of this.

a MUST SEE must see!

Get the word out for Bella, the movie. It won the Toronto Film Festival's People's Choice Award. (This is a big deal. Other films that have won the award? Shine, Life is Beautiful, and Chariots of Fire are a few.) This movie celebrates life! Born and unborn. It is wonderful. Filled with faith and hope and love in heaping portions. Tell all your friends. Put the trailer up on your blog and get the word out that this is a movie anybody with faith in God would be happy (and thankful!) to support.

It releases October 7th in theaters. Let's get the buzz going!

the making of Bella video:

lovely . . .

Sunday afternoon we watched one of the best movies I've seen in a long time, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont. This poignant "love story of another kind" centers around an elderly woman who moves into The Claremont, a London hotel inhabited by lonely older people not yet ready for the nursing home. But, as one of the characters says, "Nobody is allowed to die here."

Mrs. Palfrey, played by Joan Plowright, one of my favorite actresses, meets a young writer named Ludovick Meyer (Rupert Friend) when she takes a tumble in front of his basement flat. A relationship ensues, both giving the other emotional support, wisdom and a clearer picture of life. I love to cry when I watch movies and this was so tender, I found myself tearing up several times. I'm so tired of easy sentimentalism in movies, or plots that leave you gasping for air, not because you felt you were running away from the monster or the terrorist, but because you were running away from the film itself!  Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont was gentle, well-written and possessed a depth of character and story movement I found highly refreshing!

Utterly and without reservation recommended!