Film Reviews

Based on a true story, Mrs. Soffel is set in Pittsburgh near the dawn of the 20th century. Peter Soffel (Edward Herrmann) is the warden of a top security prison, and his wife Kate (Diane Keaton) often comes by to read the Bible aloud to the inmates, despite her fragile health. While making her rounds, she makes the acquaintance of the Biddle Brothers, Ed (Mel Gibson) and Jack (Matthew Modine), who are sentenced to death for murder and robbery. Ed has become something of a celebrity thanks to his letter-writing campaign, in which he appeals in the letter-to-the-editor columns of the popular press to stay the execution of his brother and himself. His good looks, intelligence, and charm make a strong impression on Kate, whose marriage offers her little excitement. In time, Kate finds herself falling in love with Ed, and she discovers that she's unexpectedly receptive to his suggestion that she help him escape.

An intensely sad film about two brothers who cannot overcome their opposite perceptions of life. One brother sees and feels bad in everyone and everything, subsequently he is violent, antisocial and unable to appreciate or enjoy the good things which his brother desperately tries to point out to him.

Johnny Rizzo, is about to trade his dream job in talk radio for some snooze-ville gig that'll pay enough to please his fiance. Enter Uncle Terry, a rascally womanizer set on turning a weekend in the Hamptons into an eye-opening fling for his nephew. Nice guy Johnny's not interested, of course, but then he meets the lovely Brooke, who challenges Johnny to make the toughest decision of is life.

Inspired by a true story. Jun Shik works for Tatsuo's grandfather's farm while Korea is colonized by Japan, but he has a dream to participate in Tokyo Olympics as a marathon runner. Tatsuo also aims to become a marathon runner, so the two are in rivalry. But war breaks out and they both are forced to enlist in the army. Tatsuo becomes the head of defense in Jun Shik's unit and he devises a scheme but fails. Jun Shik and Tatsuo are captured by the Soviets. They run away but soon are captured by Germans and forced to separate. In 1944, they meet again at the shores of Normandy.

A university student and some classmates are recruited to carry out a private experiment -- to create a poltergeist. Their subject: an alluring, but dangerously disturbed young woman. Their quest: to explore the dark energy that her damaged psyche might manifest. As the experiment unravels along with their sanity, the rogue PHD students, led by their determined professor, are soon confronted with a terrifying reality: they have triggered an unspeakable force with a power beyond all explanation.

Supported avidly by his mother and more reluctantly at first by his father, a working-class Austrian boy joins the Vienna Choirboys, where he proves to be unusually talented. The standard initiation ordeals which new boys must endure at the hands of their seniors are intensified in his case because he has aroused the jealousy of Peter, the head chorister, by singing a solo which Peter had long sung himself. The fact is that Peter's voice is breaking, and with a broken voice often comes a broken heart. But, encouraged by the director and all the boys, Peter begins to develop in a new role as composer and conductor.

Radio star Kitty Moran, long married to partner Jack, finds she's pregnant, but miscarries. For a change, the couple turn their act into a series on early TV and try to adopt a baby. Finally they acquiring a girl in a somewhat back alley manner.

Rally Vincent and Minnie May Hopkins are just a pair of gun shop owners who do a bit of bounty hunting to make ends meet when a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms agent comes to them. Using the threat of arresting them for their lack of a retail license for their merchandise and the resulting unpaid taxes, he forces them to agree to cooperate in a sting to break a gun running ring. They have an initial success, but that brings new problems as the ring's leader brings in a merciless assassin to eliminate these new enemies. It will take all their skill, allies and some luck to come out this crisis alive.

This is the true story of five brawling hockey players, who live in the back of a hockey arena and fight their way to heroic status in the most violent league in the world. One by one our heroes begin to crumble against their worst foes - themselves. Les Chiefs is a real-life account of men fighting to remain boys.

In New York, a gambler is challenged to take a cold female missionary to Havana, but they fall for each other, and the bet has a hidden motive to finance a crap game.

Chantal Akerman retraces a journey from the end of summer to deepest winter, from East Germany, across Poland and the Baltics, to Moscow.

L'Alpagueur is a free-lance spy from the French secret agency. He's put on the investigation about L'epervier, a serial-killer who employs young boys to help him robbing banks before killing them.

Rich momma's boy Wade Kingsley Jr. an Eastern dude, tries to follow in his murdered father's footsteps by returning to the West to partner up with Slim Moseley Jr.,the son of his father's former partner. Wade overcomes Slim's initial reluctance to accept him by using his fortune to buy a prize cow and new car to help Slim in his job as foreman on the Kingsley family ranch, currently under siege by a gang of outlaws called "masked raiders." Wade generously tries to pay off the ranch's mortgage with $15,000 of his own money, but unfortunately neither "pardner" realizes that respected banker Dan Hollis, the son of their fathers' murderer, is the leader of the gang.

A couple are given a camera and a set of instructions which they must follow or else someone will die.

A young woman moves into a new apartment that she inherited from her grandmother, who had died there in a bizarre accident. She is immediately confronted by totally bizarre neighbors and someone is obviously out to get her as rats and flies engulf her apartment. But with the array of weirdos around her, who might it be? Everyone warns her to stay away from her upstairs neighbor, but he is the only one who shows any kindness. Supposedly the neighbor below her is an 80 year old woman, but she hammers the floor so hard when the young woman moves furniture that she breaks tiles. Another neighbor seems kind enough to begin with, but later seems more interfering and threatening. Also her weatherman boyfriend can't be ruled out. Contrary to his desire for her to move in with him, she moved into their apartment.