Film Reviews

At the first news of the disast by cyclone and tidal wave that devastated Galveston on Saturday, September 8th, 1900, we equipped a party of photographers and sent them by special train to the scene of the ruins. Arriving at the scene of desolation shortly after the storm had swept over the city, our party succeeded, at the risk of life and limb, in taking about a thousand feet of motion pictures, although Galveston was under martial law and photographers were shot down at sight by the excited police. The series, taken as a whole, gives a definite idea of the most terrible disaster since the Johnstown flood of 1889.

At the beginning of the 1913 Mexican Revolution, greedy bandit Juan Miranda and idealist John H. Mallory, an Irish Republican Army explosives expert on the lam from the British, fall in with a band of revolutionaries plotting to strike a national bank. When it turns out that the government has been using the bank as a hiding place for illegally detained political prisoners -- who are freed by the blast -- Miranda becomes a revolutionary hero against his will.

Nobody believes teenager Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) when he discovers that his suave new neighbor, Jerry Dandrige (Chris Sarandon), is a vampire. So when the bloodsucker starts stalking Charley, he turns to has-been actor Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall), famed for portraying a ghoul hunter. Unfortunately for the would-be vampire slayers, Dandrige has set his sights on Charley's girlfriend (Amanda Bearse) in this clever spoof of the horror genre.

A Serious Man is the story of an ordinary man's search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV. It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous acquaintances Sy Ableman.

To be or not to be, etc.

Despite being blocked at almost every turn in pursuit of the sport he loved, Seve Ballesteros fought against adversity to become the most spectacular and charismatic golfer to ever play the game.

Isao Yukisada spins this gritty coming-of-age tale about Sugihara, a Japanese-born, third-generation Korean who struggles to find a place in a society that will not accept him. The film begins with Sugihara studying at a Korean junior high school that is dedicated to memory of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. His father is a grizzled ex-boxer who recently changed his citizenship from North to South Korea so he and his wife – Sugihara's mom – could visit Hawaii. Though his father regularly gets drunk and thrashes him, he also taught Sugihara the finer point of the sweet science. At one point in the film, Sugihara takes out an entire basketball team that was bent on taking him out. Upon graduation, Sugihara enters a normal Japanese high school where he meets and soon falls for Sakurai – a loose-sock copper-haired damsel who is attracted to Sugihara's restless spirit. As the film progresses, Sugihara struggles to throw off the stigma of his ethnicity and live a quiet, successful life.

The employees of a big-box discount retail store band together when contract workers are summarily laid off.

An adaptation of Bishop T.D. Jakes' self-help novel, chronciling a woman's struggle to come to terms with her legacy of abuse, addiction and poverty.

Hanoi comes across almost picture-perfect in director Tran Anh Hung's beautiful, elegiac tale about the lives and loves of three Vietnamese sisters. A mood characteristic of Hung's films is set early on with the vivid sounds of birds, insects and water and the way the lighting enhances the subtle use of color. They all combine to gem-like effect here.

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Poking fun at his much-publicized brouhaha with Southwest Airlines, writer, director, actor and ardent podcaster Kevin Smith declares himself too fat for his 40th birthday in a hilarious Q-and-A session with his rabidly loyal fans. Filmed at the Count Basie Theater in Smith's hometown of Red Bank, New Jersey, this two-hour comedy special spotlights not only Smith's self-deprecating sense of humor, but also his fondness (and true gift) for spinning a good yarn.

On the run with the law on their trail, America's most anguished vampire family heads to England to find an ancient vampire clan. What they find instead could tear their family, and their throats, apart forever.

A young girl lives with her mother and grandmother. One day her estranged father returns home with a female companion he introduces as his fiance. Soon the girl finds herself in the midst of strange goings-on, which evolve into a web of crime and murder.

Emiri, a timid high school girl, is bullied mercilessly by her classmates, but when her friend, Asuka, stands up for her, Asuka becomes the target of the bullying instead. Emiri, not wanting to be bullied again, avoids Asuka. Worn down, Asuka attempts to commit suicide, but is saved by the school janitor and remains in a comatose state in the hospital.