Smoke Break #755: Server Goes To The Dark Side In “Take Out”

Take Out, a short action film, tells the story of a server who couldn’t take the abuse from her customers any longer and so crossed over to the wilds of Tarantino-land. Warning: violent, vengeful scraps, pizza dough nunchucks and probably bad language.

World Water Day Observed With “Blue Gold” At Rhizome Cafe

You can count on East Broadway’s Rhizome Cafe to always come up with some pretty solid community-oriented events. This week they’re screening the documentary Blue Gold (by the same producers as “The Corporation.”) which will be followed by a discussion on local efforts to conserve and protect water. It’s all going down in anticipatory recognition of World Water Day on March 22.

In honour of World Water Day, we’ll reflect on organizing successes internationally and locally. What can we do nationally and provincially to protect our commons? We’ll screen the film “Blue Gold”. Information on other WWD events will be available. Proceeds will go to Partners in Health for water support in Haiti.

Find the Wiki on WWD here. | March 18 | 7 pm | Rhizome Cafe | Sliding scale $5 – 10

Visual Refresher On The History And Meaning Of Human Rights…

Just in case you needed one. Check after the jump for a visual and musical interpretation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (it’s a gooder…and the subject of one this website’s first posts back in November, 2008). Read more

“Oh, The Temptation” Captures The Innocence Of Desperation…

“Oh, the Temptation” shows what happens when you put a little kid alone in a room with a single marshmallow and tell him that he can have two marshmallows if he can stop himself from eating the first…

Claus Tom Von Cruisenberg?

Tom Cruise stars in Valkyrie as Colonel Claus Von Stauffenberg, the German officer who tried to blow up Hitler at his eastern lair in August, 1944. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work out.

From the trailer notes:

In a country in the grips of evil, in a police state where every move is being watched, in a world where justice and honor have been subverted, a group of men hidden inside the highest reaches of power decide to take action. Tom Cruise stars in the suspense film, VALKYRIE, based on the true story of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (CRUISE) and the daring and ingenious plot to eliminate one of the most evil tyrants the world has ever known. Director Bryan Singer (THE USUAL SUSPECTS, X-MEN, SUPERMAN RETURNS) re-teams with Academy Award®-winning USUAL SUSPECTS screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie to bring to life the story of the men who led the operation to assassinate Hitler. The film also stars an acclaimed cast including Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Carice van Houten, Thomas Kretschmann, Eddie Izzard, Christian Berkel and Terence Stamp. A proud military man, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg is a loyal officer who serves his country all the while hoping that someone will find a way to stop Hitler before Europe and Germany are destroyed. Realizing that time is running out, he decides that he must take action himself and joins the German resistance. Armed with a cunning strategy to use Hitler’s own emergency plan – known as Operation Valkyrie – these men plot to assassinate the dictator and overthrow his Nazi government from the inside. With everything in place, with the future of the world, the fate of millions and the lives of his wife and children hanging in the balance, von Stauffenberg is thrust from being one of many who oppose Hitler to the one who must kill Hitler himself. VALKYRIE is produced by Bryan Singer, Christopher McQuarrie and Gilbert Adler. McQuarrie co-wrote the original screenplay with Nathan Alexander who also serves as co-producer. The executive producers are Chris Lee, Ken Kamins, Daniel M. Snyder, Dwight C. Schar and Mark Shapiro. The film was shot in Germany at various locations where many of the actual events occurred, including the historic Bendlerblock. Recreating the atmosphere of urgency and paranoia inside the German resistance is a team that includes Singer’s frequent collaborators Newton Thomas Sigel (SUPERMAN RETURNS, X2, X-MEN) as director of photography and editor/composer John Ottman (SUPERMAN RETURNS, X2); as well as production designers Lilly Kilvert (two-time Oscar-nominee for THE LAST SAMURAI and LEGENDS OF THE FALL) and Patrick Lumb (THE OMEN) and costume designer Joanna Johnston (MUNICH, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN).

I’ll wait for the DVD.