Film Reviews

Sideways A heartwarming tale of two old friends, on a journey to rediscover their friendship, life and themselves. Michio (Fumio Kohinata) a struggling, middleaged scriptwriter, who returns to the US to attend the wedding of his best friend. Daisuke (Katsuhisa Namase), who stayed in the California after college, had a brief stint of fame as Captain Ninja, a childrens action hero now manages a restaurant Together, they venture out on a weeklong road trip, ending up in the Napa Valley, where they serendipitously meet up with an old heart throb Mayuko (Kyoka Suzuki), whom Michio tutored during his exchange student days 20 years past, and her free spirited friend Mina (Rinko Kikuchi) raised in America. Michio under the impression that they were going wine tasting, soon discovers that Daisuke has ulterior motives for this last hurrah as a bachelor.

Kirby Dick's provocative documentary investigates the secretive and inconsistent process by which the Motion Picture Association of America rates films, revealing the organization's underhanded efforts to control culture. Dick questions whether certain studios get preferential treatment and exposes the discrepancies in how the MPAA views sex and violence.

Vladimir is reaching the end of his life and decides to leave his wealth to his only daughter, cutting out his wife and her son from his will.

In 1971, air-conditioner repairman and boat enthusiast Jim McCormick entertains his desire to 'go down' as a legend in the record books when the Gold Cup hydroplane boat race improbably comes to his small town of Madison, Indiana. Immediately, Jim seizes his opportunity to enter the contest. With a motley crew of fellow mechanics and friends at his side, Jim fixes up his old boat and brings hope to the blighted industrial city. Written by Sujit R. Varma

Left behind by a circus, a camel wanders to the house of a simple middle-aged couple in a Polish village. Although the wife is initially bewildered by the strange and unexpected animal, her husband immediately adopts it as a pet.

A fortyish cancer-stricken, emaciated Frank Crosby and his fifteen-year-old son Clay, who is the healthful, youthful image of his father, are spending an afternoon enjoying the atmosphere of Venice Beach. They enter Oddities, a store where the gypsy woman owner gives them a pair of special wingtip shoes. Later that night in the hospital where Frank lay dying, he shares with Clay his memory of a postcard image: a golf course where people are playing and are leisurely sipping tea. Frank dies and leaves behind a distraught family: Clay, his little sister Maggie, and their mother Janice. Clay wistfully goes to his father's closet and finds the wingtips from earlier in the day. Putting them on, he is transported back in time and becomes his father as a child. He discovers he can travel back and forth in time just by putting on or taking off the shoes. Clay learns a great deal about his father's early years and is eager to learn more.

Madame Jouve, the narrator, tells the tragedy of Bernard and Mathilde. Bernard was living happily with his wife Arlette and his son Thomas. One day, a couple, Philippe and Mathilde Bauchard, moves into the next house. This is the accidental reunion of Bernard and Mathilde, who had a passionate love affair years ago. The relationship revives... A somber study of human feelings.

Brick, an alcoholic ex-football player, drinks his days away and resists the affections of his wife, Maggie. His reunion with his father, Big Daddy, who is dying of cancer, jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.

Ada Harris, a London charwoman in the 1950's, sees a Dior dress and decides that she's going to own one. First, she scrimps and saves her money, but when she has enough, and takes a trip to Paris, she learns that buying an original couture creation is a little harder than simply plunking down cash. Along the way to her goal, she manages to befriend a count, unite young lovers, and dodge customs.

The lines between love, sex, and politics become hopelessly blurred in this French drama.

A look at how a painter and a successful actor spend their last day together before the world comes to an end.

A Hollywood actress undergoes a psychic breakdown and recalls the traumatic events which led to her stay at a sanitarium.

This off-beat drama about man's search for meaning amidst the ache of despair chronicles Finn, an introspective English teacher entering a mid-life crisis impelled by a recent tragedy, as he sets afoot selling encyclopedias to the town locals.

'The Midwife' (fin.'Kätilö') is a romance-drama set during WWII in Finland’s Lapland province, a major European battle ground of the war. Based on Katja Kettu’s bestselling novel, 'The Midwife' turns on the love affair between a Lapp midwife and a Nazi SS officer set against the backdrop of the Lapland War, which opposed Finnish and Germany armies in 1944-45. The themes in the story are international. It’s about conquering love and war, and class boundaries that are broken down.

Glamour artist Bob Randolph is world famous for his paintings of a stunning beauty dubbed "The Randolph Girl". What the world doesn't know is that his pin-up creation is really a composite of parts of the anatomy of 12 different models. In an effort to find one girl who possesses all the proper physical attributes, Randolph and PR man Chuck Donovan pursue Ruth Wilson, a beauteous schoolteacher who prefers to be admired for her brain rather than her curves. Ruth changes her tune, however, when a published photo of her in a swimsuit causes her to be fired by the uptight schoolboard. She sues for reinstatement and in the process learns that swimsuits and sex appeal do have a place in her world, after all. Written by Dan Navarro