NOVA - Galileo's Battle for the Heavens

• At a time when heretics were burned alive for dissent, scientist Galileo Galilei risked his life to advance his revolutionary concepts of the universe. British actor Simon Callow (Shakespeare in Love, Four Weddings and a Funeral) brings Galileo to life, humanizing the great thinker s passion, intelligence, and arrogance while depicting his frustrations with fellow philosophers and scientists, and

Marcos (Marcos Hernandez) is the middle-aged chauffeur of Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz), daughter of a Mexican general who amuses herself by working as a prostitute in a high-end brothel. Marcos and his wife (Berta Ruiz) have kidnapped a baby for ransom but it went tragically wrong when the infant died. When he confesses his guilt to Ana, a bond of secrecy consecrated by the flesh unites them. As the police draw closer, she urges him to turn himself in but instead he seeks redemption from a higher power.Battle In Heaven, Carlos Reygadas’ follow-up to Japón, opens with a controversial oral sex scene involving beauty, Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz), and the beast, Marcos (Marcos Hernández). Marcos is Ana’s chauffeur, who has kidnapped and accidentally killed a baby. Ana, a general’s daughter by day and a prostitute by night, confides in Marcos and performs sexual favors for him in order to persuade him to turn himself in. She is too young, however, to understand Marcos’s confused mental state, and her sensitive position with him puts her in peril. Set in Mexico City, this tragic drama is as much about failed intimacy as it is about Mexican class structure, as Ana and Marcos attempt to bridge the class gap. A few explicit sex scenes show Marcos in bed with Ana or his wife (Bertha Ruiz), thus garnering it reviews that compare it to The Brown Bunny. In fact, the slow pacing and artsy, self-consciously composed shots do remind one of The Brown Bunny,! in that both films are initially interesting but grow dull as! their p lots take forever to unfold. An intriguing plot is buried under seemingly eternal panoramic shots of the city, painfully slow conversation between characters, and constant close-ups of Marcos’ face that are meant to capture his angst but only deter narrative. Nevertheless, this film’s merit is based in its experimental energy, and any director who follows up a graphic sex scene with a cut to the waving of the country’s flag (in this case Mexico’s) has my respect. --Trinie DaltonSpain released, PAL/Region 0 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: Spanish ( Dolby Digital 5.1 ), English ( Subtitles ), WIDESCREEN (1.85:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Biographies, Deleted Scenes, Film Credits, Interactive Menu, SYNOPSIS: Marcos and his wife kidnap a baby for ransom money, but it goes tragically wrong when the infant dies. In another world is Ana, the daughter of the general he drives for,! who prostitutes herself for pleasure. Marcos confesses his guilt to her in his troubled search for relief. And then finds himself on his knees amidst the multitude of believers moving slowly towards the Basilica in honor of the Lady of Guadalupe. SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Cannes Film Festival, European Film Awards, ...Battle in Heaven ( Batalla en el cielo )The Brown Bunny is both a love story and a haunting portrait of a lost soul unable to forget his past. After finishing a motorcycle race in New Hampshire, Bud Clay (Vincent Gallo) loads his racing bike into the back of his van and begins a cross-country odyssey to Los Angeles, where he is to compete in another race. During his trip, he meets three very different women: Violet, a wholesome all-American gas station attendant; Lilly (Cheryl Tiegs), a fellow lost soul he connects with at a highway rest stop; and Rose, a Las Vegas prostitute. Throughout his journey, Bud can never escape his intense feelings for the love of his li! fe, Daisy (Chloë Sevigny), so he plans to reconcile with her ! when he reaches Los Angeles. Arriving in Los Angeles, Bud checks into a motel before visiting the abandoned home he once shared with Daisy. He leaves a note, hoping she will turn up at his motel room . . .Building to a notorious climax, the film presents one of the frankest portrayals of male sexuality ever seen in American cinema.After its scandalous screening at the 2004 Cannes film festival, Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny was cut from 118 to 92 minutes, and that made all the difference. The film that critic and long-time Cannes attendee Roger Ebert originally called "the worst film in the history of the festival" was transformed, by Gallo's judicious editing, into a perfectly acceptable if not universally respected art-house curio, widely criticized yet ripe for cult status, able to stand beside Gallo's Buffalo 66 as the work of a genuine artist with a singular vision. Yes, that vision is self-indulgent, narcissistic, and likely to turn off a majority of viewers wi! th its glacial pace and endless shots of Gallo driving, driving, and driving some more. But in portraying a melancholy motorcycle racer who drives cross-country while mourning a private loss that remains secret until the final scenes, Gallo gives us a character, and a film, that feels spiritually akin to such early '70s classics as Five Easy Pieces and Two-Lane Blacktop. It's a flawed yet ultimately moving example of maverick, unconventional cinema, and while Chloe Sevigny's explicit oral sex scene with Gallo is completely unnecessary, it's just one more element that places The Brown Bunny firmly, and refreshingly, out of the mainstream. --Jeff ShannonAt a time when heretics were burned alive for dissent, scientist Galileo Galilei risked his life to advance his revolutionary concepts of the universe. British actor Simon Callow (Shakespeare in Love, Four Weddings and a Funeral) brings Galileo to life, humanizing the great thinker’s passion, int! elligence, and arrogance while depicting his frustrations with! fellow philosophers and scientists, and with Roman Catholic church leaders.

Based on Dava Sobel’s best-selling biography Galileo’s Daughter, this two-hour film offers a vivid re-imagining of Galileo’s incredible achievements that forever changed the way we view our place in the universe. It also investigates the momentous personal and spiritual conflicts Galileo faced- most especially in defending the controversial theory that the earth revolves around the sun.

Join noted Galileo authorities and experience the remarkable life behind the discoveries, and see letters from his illegitimate daughter, Maria Celeste, a cloistered nun, have shed new light on Galileo’s pioneering telescopic observations, his fateful Inquisition trial for heresy, and life in the seventeenth century.