Film Reviews
Abel |
An extremely weird comedy about the life of 31- year-old Abel, who has never left home. After failing with doctors and psychiatrists, Abel's father Victor brings home Christine, a friend, in an attempt to teach Abel basic social skills. After that trouble starts and Abel is thrown out into the street. |
|
Bang Bang |
This endearingly crazy 1971 Brazilian film defies classification: its Portuguese title (Bangue bangue) refers to films we'd probably call "shoot-'em-ups," director Andrea Tonacci called it a "Maoist detective comedy," yet American audiences would probably consider it an experimental film. The anonymous urban protagonist experiences a series of absurd situations--including a crazy cab ride, an encounter with a wacky criminal gang, and lots of gunplay--but they're stripped of any story that might explain them and infused with a unique anarchic energy, eventually suggesting our true animal nature. As with Godard, it's partly an homage to genre filmmaking (there's singing and dancing, a little sex, and lots of violence), but what really powers the film is Tonacci's inventive camera. |
|
Bonnie and Clyde |
Bonnie and Clyde is based on the true stories of the gangster pair Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow who in the 1930s began robbing banks in U.S. cities until they were eventually killed. The film is a major landmark in the aesthetic movement known as the New Hollywood. |
|
The Danish Girl |
When Gerda Wegener asks her husband Einar to fill in as a portrait model, Einar discovers the person she's meant to be and begins living her life as Lili Elbe. Having realized her true self and with Gerda's love and support, Lili embarks on a groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer. |
|
A Star Is Born |
A Star Is Born is a 1976 rock music film telling the story of a young woman, played by Barbra Streisand who enters show business, and meets and falls in love with an established male star, played by Kris Kristofferson, only to find her career ascending while his goes into decline. |
|
Hideaway (Le refuge) |
Mousse and Louis are young, beautiful, rich and in love. But drugs have invaded their lives. One day, they overdose and Louis dies. Mousse survives, but soon learns she's pregnant. Feeling lost, Mousse runs away to a house far from Paris. Several months later, Louis' brother joins her in her refuge. |
|
The Great Invisible |
Penetrating the oil industry's secretive world, The Great Invisible examines the Deepwater Horizon disaster through the eyes of oil executives, explosion survivors and Gulf Coast residents who were left to pick up the pieces when the world moved on |
|
The Conjuring |
Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren work to help a family terrorized by a dark presence in their farmhouse. Forced to confront a powerful entity, the Warrens find themselves caught in the most terrifying case of their lives. |
|
Tribes |
A Marine Corps drill instructor who is disgusted by the fact that the Corps now accepts draftees finds himself pitted against a hippie who has been drafted but refuses to accept the military's way of doing things. |
|
Born into Brothels |
The academy award winning documentary depicting the lives of child prostitutes in the red light district of Songachi, Calcutta. Director Zana Briski went to photograph the prostitutes when she met and became friends with their children. Briski began giving photography lessons to the children and became aware that their photography might be a way for them to lead better lives. |
|
West of the Divide |
Ted Hayden impersonates a wanted man and joins Gentry's gang only to learn later that Gentry was the one who killed his father. |
|
Man for a Day |
Gender activist Diane Torr’s worldwide appearances and workshops are now legendary. For the past thirty years, the main focus of this performance artist’s work has been an exploration of the theoretical, artistic as well as the practical aspects of gender identity. Katarina Peters’ documentary observes a Diane Torr workshop in Berlin in which a group of open-minded women come together to discover the secrets of masculinity. What makes a man a man and a woman a woman? Precisely when and where is gender identity formatted? How much is nature and how much nurture? Each of Torr’s workshops represents an open-ended laboratory experiment in social behaviour in which the question is posed: is it possible to deliberately play out different roles and create a space in which to transgress both masculine and feminine characteristics? |
|
The Border |
The young man must set up a clear border between Finland and Russia, white and red, enemy and friend, us and them. While the task seems clear he finds out the execution of his command in concrete situations is very difficult. Right choices turn out to be wrong ones and correcting them make things worse. |
|
Straightheads |
There is instant chemistry between Alice (Gillian Anderson), a businesswoman, and Adam (Danny Dyer), a younger working-class man who installs a security system in her London apartment. She takes him to a party in the country, and they end up making love. But the night turns horrific when they encounter three thugs who maim Adam and rape Alice. The incident turns them into fearful recluses until Alice spots the leader of their attackers (Anthony Calf) -- and the two victims plot a brutal revenge. |
|
Addams Family Reunion |
The Addams Family goes on a search for their relatives. Gomez and Morticia are horrified to discover that Grandpa and Grandma Addams have a disease that is slowly turning them "normal". The only chance they have of a cure is to find a family member hoping that they know a home remedy. |
|