Film Reviews
Triangle |
Small-timer Fei (Louis Koo), his harried buddy Sam (Simon Yam), and antique store owner Mok (Sun Hong Lei) are all in desperate need of money. Fei wants his friend to drive a robbery getaway car but Sam backs out, throwing Fei in trouble with the triads. As the three are arguing, a mysterious man leaves them a map, leading them to an unlikely treasure under the Legislative Council building. All their financial woes seem to be solved after a late-night heist, but they are being tracked by shady cop Wen (Lam Ka-Tung), who is carrying on an affair with Sam's emotionally unstable wife, Ling (Kelly Lin), and has connections with Fei. When the twisted relationship tangles come to light, the brotherhood dangerously breaks down and the treasure ends up in the wrong hands. |
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Keeping Up with the Joneses |
An ordinary suburban couple finds it’s not easy keeping up with the Joneses – their impossibly gorgeous and ultra-sophisticated new neighbors – especially when they discover that Mr. and Mrs. “Jones” are covert operatives. |
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Breathing Room |
She's Kathy, a comix cartoonist; he's David, teaching English to new immigrants. It's New York City, with 29 shopping days left until Christmas, and they're in love. Or are they? Their romance has been on-again, off-again because David can't bring himself to say, "I love you." He can say it in French, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, but not English. So, when she learns at an inopportune time that he's applied for a job in Ho Chi Minh City, she asks for breathing room until Christmas; the film chronicles the ensuing days of restless indecision. |
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Do Not Disturb |
Michel, who's crazy about jazz, has just found a rare album that he dreams of quietly listening to in his living room. But the world seems to have conspired against him: his wife chooses this moment to divulge an ill-timed revelation, his adult son makes a surprise visit, one of his friends knocks on the door, while his mother keeps calling him on his smartphone. Not to mention that today the residents in his apartment building are holding their annual House Party. Manipulative and a liar, Michel is ready to do anything to have a moment of peace and quiet. Is it still possible, in this day and age, to just have one hour of peace? |
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The Blue Kite |
On Dry Well Lane in Beijing in 1953, Chen Shujuan and Lin Shaolong marry. A year later their son, nicknamed Tietou (Iron Head), is born. The Party is everywhere: Mao's photograph, loud-speaker announcements, visits from the neighborhood committee. Shaolong dies in a reform camp; a close family friend, who protects Shujuan and her son partly out of guilt for lying to authorities about Shaolong, succumbs to malnutrition; a confrontation with the Red Guard leads to injury, imprisonment and death. Shujuan's love for Tietou sustains her, and the child's blue kite embodies hope: "I can make another for you," says Tietou's dad; by the end, Tietou promises this to a small child. |
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Monk With a Camera |
Nicholas Vreeland walked away from a worldly life of privilege to become a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Grandson of legendary Vogue editor, Diana Vreeland, and trained by Irving Penn to become a photographer, Nicholas' life changed drastically upon meeting a Tibetan master, one of the teachers of the Dalai Lama. Soon thereafter, he gave up his glamorous life to live in a monastery in India, where he studied Buddhism for fourteen years. In an ironic twist of fate, Nicholas went back to photography to help his fellow monks rebuild their monastery. Recently, the Dalai Lama appointed Nicholas as Abbot of the monastery, making him the first Westerner in Tibetan Buddhist history, to attain such a highly regarded position. |
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Warning: This Drug May Kill You |
A harrowing, unflinching look at the devastating effects of opioid addiction in the U.S. told from the perspectives of four families devastated by the deadly epidemic. |
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Hallelujah! |
Following his release from a seven-year stretch in prison, Mario Diccara discovers that his affairs with the underworld aren't completely settled. His brother Patrick, a priest, suggests that he stays with elderly Father Etienne in a small village in Ardeche until the conflict blows over. But their plan takes an unexpected turn when Father Etienne dies. |
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Micmacs |
A man and his friends come up with an intricate and original plan to destroy two big weapons manufacturers. Avid movie-watcher and video store clerk Bazil has had his life all but ruined by weapons of war. His father was killed by a landmine in Morocco and one fateful night a stray bullet from a nearby shootout embeds itself in his skull, leaving him on the verge of instantaneous death. Losing his job and his home, Bazil wanders the streets until he meets Slammer, a pardoned convict who introduces him to a band of eccentric junkyard dealers including Calculator, a math expert and statistician, Buster, a record-holder in human cannonball feats, Tiny Pete, an artistic craftsman of automatons, and Elastic Girl, a sassy contortionist. When chance reveals to Bazil the two weapons manufacturers responsible for building the instruments of his destruction, he constructs a complex scheme for revenge that his newfound family is all too happy to help set in motion. |
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Grayeagle |
A young Cheyenne warrior, who goes by the name Grayeagle, kidnaps the daughter of a grizzled frontier man John Colter who goes on an epic search for his daughter Beth, aided by a friendly native... |
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Race to Space |
In the 1960s a young woman works at NASA as an animal trainer responsible for the chimpanzee who will go into space. |
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Mistletoe Over Manhattan |
Rebecca, Mrs. Claus (Tedde Moore) is worried that her exhausted, workaholic husband (Mairtin O’Carrigan) has lost his holiday spirit. She believes she can help him recapture his bliss and secretly heads to the one place she knows the spirit of Christmas must still exist: New York City, where she first fell in love with Nick. In a crowded New York diner, Rebecca befriends Joe (Greg Bryk), a caring cop who is worried about this kindly grandmother, who’s alone and low on funds. Joe reveals he and his wife Lucy (Tricia Helfer) are in the middle of a divorce. Sensing that Joe is still very much in love with his wife, Rebecca agrees to work temporarily as the family’s nanny until Christmas. To Rebecca’s delight, by healing Joe and Lucy’s family, she shows Santa that Christmas miracles are still possible and his job’s more important than ever! |
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A Family Thing |
Earl Pilcher Jr., runs an equipment rental outfit in Arkansas, lives with his wife and kids and parents, and rarely takes off his gimme cap. His mother dies, leaving a letter explaining he's not her natural son, but the son of a Black woman who died in childbirth; plus, he has a half brother Ray, in Chicago, she wants him to visit. Earl makes the trip, initially receiving a cold welcome from Ray and Ray's son, Virgil. His birth mother's sister, Aunt T., an aged and blind matriarch, takes Earl in tow and insists that the family open up to him. |
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Get Smart, Again! |
KAOS has invented a weather machine so Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 are called back into action to foil this evil plan. |
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The Look of Silence |
A family that survives the genocide in Indonesia confronts the men who killed one of their brothers. |
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