Film Reviews

Garden Lovers is a documentary love story about Finnish couples who have a passion for gardening. The film with comic undertones looks at their stories behind the hedges. The garden provides a framework for tales of relationship conflicts and joys; it depicts the many ways in which life can flourish; it gives strength and unites, but it also becomes a meeting place for farewells. There is an invisible bond that grows between the couples in the film; they comment and comfort each other with their own stories.

From Richard Gale, mad maker of CRITICIZED, comes a film that will never have you looking at cutlery the same way again. Set-up as an epic-length trailer for an upcoming release, HORRIBLY SLOW... depicts a man's endless pursuit by what has got to be one of the most determined and patient murderers the screen has ever seen.

Kenshin has settled into his new life with Kaoru and his other friends when he is approached with a request from the Meiji government. Makoto Shishio, a former assassin like Kenshin, was betrayed, set on fire and left for dead. He survived, and is now in Kyoto, plotting with his gathered warriors to overthrow the new government. Against Kaoru's wishes, Kenshin reluctantly agrees to go to Kyoto and help keep his country from falling back into civil war.

With the disappearance of hack horror writer Sutter Cane, all Hell is breaking loose...literally! Author Cane, it seems, has a knack for description that really brings his evil creepy-crawlies to life. Insurance investigator John Trent is sent to investigate Cane's mysterious vanishing act and ends up in the sleepy little East Coast town of Hobb's End.

Four Women, Four Dreams, Four Realities

A woman's journey of self-discovery and the dynamics of her zany family. Alexis Fish (Gina Rodriguez) is left broke and broken-hearted after the death of her cheating husband, working as a phone sex operator and a walking meatball hero. As she returns to her hometown of Brooklyn for a distant aunt's funeral, she fears to admit to her family and overbearing mother (Priscilla Lopez) that her life is a mess. With help from her quirky sister Kayla (Ana Ortiz) and a new love interest (Steven Strait), Alexis realizes she must let go of her past to define her own future.

A wife and mother is consumed by the thought that her husband's co-worker is trying to win him away from her and their family.

A Sicilian widow earns her living as a clairvoyant, in Milan, but she hasn't got any power at all. Her son instead holds supernatural powers and with the help of his mother he becomes a strong sorcerer. But he fails perhaps to understand the real strength he possesses inside and unbinds uncontrolled forces that lead people that surround him to go mad.

The Square, a new film by Jehane Noujaim (Control Room; Rafea: Solar Mama), looks at the hard realities faced day-to-day by people working to build Egypt’s new democracy. Catapulting us into the action spread across 2011 and 2012, the film provides a kaleidoscopic, visceral experience of the struggle. Cairo’s Tahrir Square is the heart and soul of the film, which follows several young activists. Armed with values, determination, music, humor, an abundance of social media, and sheer obstinacy, they know that the thorny path to democracy only began with Hosni Mubarek’s fall. The life-and-death struggle between the people and the power of the state is still playing out.

Michel Gondry chronicles the life of Gondry family matriarch, his aunt Suzette Gondry, and her relationship with her son, Jean-Yves.

All her life Englishwoman Gladys Aylward knew that China was the place where she belonged. Not qualified to be sent there as a missionary, Gladys works as a domestic to earn the money to send herself to a poor, remote village. There she eventually lives a full and happy life: running the inn, acting as "foot inspector", advising the local Mandarin and even winning the heart of mixed race Captain Lin Nan. But Gladys discovers her real destiny when the country is invaded by Japan and the Chinese children need her to save their lives. Based on a true story.