Film Reviews

Hawaii, Oslo is the story of a handful of people who cross each other's path without necessarily knowing each other, during the hottest day of the year, in Oslo. We follow Frode and Milla. They are having their first child, who they are told will not live long. We follow Bobbie-Pop, a faded singer who tries to commit suicide. We follow Leon, an institutionalized kleptomaniac who is loking for Åsa, to whom he has a ten year old deal to get married. We meet Leon's brother, Trygve, who fetches Leon at the institution to celebrate his birthday, but who himself has plans to use his leave from prison to run away. And most of all we meet the angel Vidar, Leon's best buddy at the institution, who sees things no one else can see, and who may be able to save everyone - except himself?

An American spy behind the lines during WWII serves as a Nazi propagandist, a role he cannot escape in his future life as he can never reveal his real role in the war.

In spring 1976, a 19-year-old beauty, her German-born mother, and her crippled father move to the town of a firefighter nicknamed Pin-Pon. Everyone notices the provocative Eliane. She singles out Pin-Pon and soon is crying on his shoulder (she's myopic and hates her reputation as a dunce and as easy); she moves in with him, knits baby clothes, and plans their wedding. Is this love or some kind of plot? She asks Pin-Pon's mother and aunt about the piano in the barn: who delivered it on a November night in 1955? Why does she want to know, and what does it have to do with her mother's sorrows, her father's injury, this quick marriage, and the last name on her birth certificate?

A famed trumpet player is suspected of murdering a blues singer. Using only two minor clues, he narrows the suspects to four people, but only after surviving poison placed on the mouthpiece of his trumpet!

When they can no longer stomach the ever-growing weed of suburban crime, Jay and Silent Bob take on the mantles of costumed avengers Bluntman and Chronic, smashing the super-villains they accidentally create! Can the Doobage Duo save their beloved Jersey 'burbs from their new arch enemies, The League of Shitters? While clearly not the comic book movie the world wants, GROOVY MOVIE is the comic book movie the world needs!

Frenchwoman Michele de la Becque, an opponent of the Nazis in German-occupied Paris, hides a downed American flyer, Pat Talbot, and attempts to get him safely out of the country.

A suburban housewife is forced to fend for herself when she becomes stranded in a desolate forest with four murderous thugs.

A company, where manipulation and harassment is a problem between colleagues, decides to organize a canyoning trip for its employees. The building tensions between co-workers might actually explode during this trip.

Hitler, Nazi propaganda and 1936 Berlin Olympics are put under the microscope to uncover hidden truths and the historical legacy of those games.

A sergeant must deal with his desires to save the lives of young soldiers being sent to Vietnam. Continuously denied the chance to teach the soldiers about his experiences, he settles for trying to help the son of an old army buddy.

Marine officer Alexandra is tough enough to kick any guy's ass in a bar fight, but there's one opponent she can't beat: military policy. When she returns to her conservative hometown from Iraq with a mysterious personal life, she finds herself charged with preparing a tempestuous teenage girl to boot camp.

Warren Oates plays a world-weary gambler trying to make big money cockfighting. Always on the road, he works inside and outside the rules to try to work up to the biggest fight of the year.

A small country on the verge of bankruptcy is persuaded to enter the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics as a means of raising money. Either a masterpiece of absurdity or a triumph of satire, depending on your mood, but it's quite possibly the funniest movie ever made, and becomes even funnier with subsequent viewings.

A young woman experiences the worst life has to over in this depressing but worthwhile Colombian drama tinged with a hint of magical realism. Paola Baldion plays Marina, a withdrawn teenager whose abusive grand-dad houses her in a dilapidated shed. When the old fart pops his clogs, Marina passes into the care of cousin Jairo (Julian Roman), a cheesecake photographer who "hires" her to help him with his gear, and the two end up taking an episodic road trip as they travel to reclaim grandpa's legacy. Unpleasant flashbacks to Marina's tragic childhood ensue. Yep, the good times never end in this one! Known in English as Portraits in a Sea of Lies, this meditation on the 50-year long Colombian civil war - as seen through the grueling experiences of our heroine - won the Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature at the 14th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival.

Jimmy is a mild mannered advertising executive in his twenties. While smoking in an alley packed with booming loudmouth co-workers and sharing explicit gossips and horror stories, he befriends a misfit cosmetics salesgirl Cherie who also likes to light up. An awkward romance soon blossoms amidst the anxiety of their nicotine rush. As they become more attached to each other, they also find themselves moving farther away from their regular hot pot pack into their own private alley, where their conversations suggest more emotional depths, covering the collision of reality and delightfully trivial matters of the bizarre people around them.