Film Reviews

Panther is a semi-historic film about the origins of The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The movie spans about 3 years (1966-68) of the Black Panther's history in Oakland. Panther also uses historical footage (B/W) to emphasize some points.

An aging cowboy must choose between his desire to remain free and the responsibilities of maintaining a family.

Jack, a Palm Beach detective, becomes involved in a case of multiple murders. All the women can be linked to Jack in some way. Jack and his partner have no leads, but numerous suspects. The murders continue, along with anonymous letters from the killer.

Deals with the intolerably hard life of a family of four, the only inhabitants of a very small Japanese island in the Setonaikai archipelago. Several times a day they row over to the neighboring island to fetch water for their miserable fields.

A young female FBI agent joins a secret CIA operation to take down a Mexican cartel boss, a job that ends up pushing her ethical and moral values to the limit.

Michel, a psycho-analyst, falls asleep while listening to his patient Olga, a kleptomaniac and a sexual pervert, tell him how she likes her husband beating her. When he wakes up, he finds Olga having been choked to death. He now has to deal with a body, with Olga's rich husband who thinks she stole money from him, and with all his patients' insanity that haunts him.

Ninette Sanchez, daughter of Spanish immigrants in France, is a smart, sexy, funny and spontaneous Parisian girl who works at the Galeries Lafayette. With her natural manners and beauty has won the heart of Andres, a man from the provinces who cannot resist his charms.

In seventeenth century England Lord Whitman wages unending war on what he sees as the ever-present scourge of witchcraft, and many local villagers have suffered at his hands. But one victim uses her occult powers to curse his family, enlisting unknowing help from one of the household.

Akari Yoshiyama is graduating high school soon and is expected to lead new life after she passes the university entrance exam, while her mother is working as a pharmacologist. However, her mother has a car accident and the situation is totally changed. She decides to go to 1972 to fullfil her mother's wish.

In 2710, a boy named Shinichi is on a school field trip to a rebuilt 21st century version of the city Nara. When he wanders from his class, he spots a talking white deer and it steals his bag. Shinichi follows the deer and sees a strange girl named Toto and falls in love with her. She is being pursed by two brothers and they try to get away from them.

In order to finance his law studies, Martin starts as a night watchman in a mortuary. When the victims of a serial killer of prostitutes are deposited there, scary things begin to happen. Therefore and because of a strange bet with his fellow student Jens, the police begins to think he is the murderer. Police detective Wormer wants to help him but Martin is more and more suspected.

With the Griffins stuck at home during a blackout, Peter begins to tell a story, which leads to a Star Wars flashback. Acting out scenes from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

The story takes place in alternative America where the blacks are members of social elite, and whites are inhabitants of inner city ghettos. Louis Pinnock is a white worker in a chocolate factory, loving husband and father of two children. While delivering a package for black CEO Thaddeus Thomas, he is mistaken for a voyeur and, as a result, loses his job, gets beaten by black cops and his family gets evicted from their home. Desperate Pinnock takes a gun and kidnaps Thomas, demanding justice.

Tenacious homicide detective Cassie Mayweather and her still-green partner are working a murder case, attempting to profile two malevolently brilliant young men: cold, calculating killers whose dark secrets might explain their crimes.

Studio Ghibli is Japan's most successful animation studio, with helmers Hayao Miyazaki ("Spirited Away," "Howl's Moving Castle") and Isao Takahata ("My Neighbours the Yamadas") creating a bonanza for producer/prexy Toshio Suzuki. Generously adorned with clips from their films and their influences, the docu follows Ghibli's arc from a mid-'60s rebellion against working conditions at Toei Co. to its present powerhouse position, complete with public fun park. All interviews are illuminating, but Miyazaki is teasingly confined to pic's tete-a-tete finale with esteemed French comic artist Jean "Moebius" Giraud. Meeting of the wizened European, whose imprint is on films from "Blade Runner" to "The Fifth Element," and the apparently relaxed Nipponese helmer makes an interesting contrast, and will be of special interest to Francophiles. All credits are impeccable