Film Reviews

Hugo is a brilliant turn-of-the-century scientist, loved and respected by his family and friends, admired by his colleagues. But he is a man quickly becoming obsessed with a curious and frightening question... what is the mysterious apparition found in the photographs of his dying subjects?

The King of the Belgians is on a state visit in Istanbul when his country falls apart. He must return home at once to save his kingdom. But a solar storm causes airspace and communications to shut down. No planes. No phones. With the help of a British filmmaker and a troupe of Bulgarian folk singers, the King and his entourage manage to escape over the border. Incognito. Thus begins an odyssey across the Balkans during which the King discovers the real world - and himself.

In the mid-19th century, Senator William J. Tadlock leads a group of settlers overland in a quest to start a new settlement in the Western US. Tadlock is a highly principled and demanding taskmaster who is as hard on himself as he is on those who have joined his wagon train. He clashes with one of the new settlers, Lije Evans, who doesn't quite appreciate Tadlock's ways. Along the way, the families must face death and heartbreak and a sampling of frontier justice when one of them accidentally kills a young Indian boy.

A former government agent in France, who has failed at an assignment and been disavowed, is deported back to the USA, where can only find work at a low-rent detective agency. He quickly gets involved with a woman with ties to a crooked gambler, who is a client of his agency.

A ruthless philantrophist. A bhangra rapper. An over-protected prodigy. A reckless actress. A lovelorn businessman. An entrepreneurial yogi. And a Loin King. Enter a roller-coaster world of seven strangers whose lives collide during a singing contest in a small New Jersey town.

Emily Lindstrom, 14, is an aspiring concert violinist; she's spending the summer practicing for a big audition while her girlfriends are at camp. She's also got a thriving neighborhood business: for 50 cents, she'll keep your secret. Her mother is very pregnant, and her parents seem more concerned about the new baby than anything Emily cares about. A new family moves in next door; their son, Philip, 12, becomes Emily's friend. Eventually, the weight of Emily's secrets - her own, the ones she's keeping professionally, and a secret Philip tells her, send her life temporarily crashing down.

Lee Shan and Ayo are ex-Interpol agents who are now bounty hunters, chasing fugitives for cash rewards. When the two of them are framed for a hotel-bombing, they join hands with a legendary bounty hunter named Cat, along with her teammates, to find the real bomber.

Asier and I grew up in the Basque Country. But one day he disappeared, later I found out he had joined ETA.

Anna, a French actress, is approached by financial broker Gordon in the Vermeer room of a New York gallery. However, romance does not ensue...

Decorated Vietnam hero Frank Vega returns home only to get shunned by society leaving him without a job or his high school sweetheart. It's not until forty years later when an incident on a commuter bus (where he protects an elderly black man from a pair of skin heads) makes him a local hero where he's suddenly celebrated once again. But his good fortune suddenly turns for the worse when his best friend Klondike is murdered and the police aren't doing anything about it.

“The NFL Today” on CBS was one of the preeminent sports programs on television in the early 1980s. It was a perfect combination of reporting, analysis, predictions, humor and talent. But there was no personality on the show more popular than Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder. Born in Steubenville, Ohio, to Greek immigrants, Jimmy overcame childhood tragedy, moved to Las Vegas, and eventually became the biggest name in the world of sports handicapping. When CBS added him as an “analyst” on “The NFL Today,” “The Greek” not only further increased his stature as a sort of national folk hero, but he also gained an air of respectability never before associated with gamblers. Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Fritz Mitchell, who broke in as an intern on “The NFL Today,” will examine Snyder’s impact on the growth of sports gambling, while also taking a fresh look at The Greek’s tragic downfall.

Called the most accurate adaptation of Anne Frank’s moving diary, the film chronicles the Frank family as they flee from the Nazis in Amsterdam. Hiding behind a bookcase in a secret annex with random bombs exploding, Anne faces friction with her family, a desire for independence and the first stirrings of young love. It’s a remarkable record of a young woman’s first-hand observations of the Holocaust.

Adaptation of the eponymous play of Jardiel Poncela. A husband dominated by his overbearing wife dies victim of a heart attack the day she forces him to shave his beloved beard to go to a costume ball dressed as a bullfighter. Its spectrum then begins to walk around the house and the most unexpected cause tangles. When she finally decides to settle definitely get materialize and get his wife, who has meanwhile become a being sweet and understanding.

Scientist Will Rodman is determined to find a cure for Alzheimer's, the disease which has slowly consumed his father. Will feels certain he is close to a breakthrough and tests his latest serum on apes, noticing dramatic increases in intelligence and brain activity in the primate subjects – especially Caesar, his pet chimpanzee.

There's trouble in Frankie Diomede's criminal empire in Genoa. A French gangster has moved into his territory, so he flies home to take care of business. He promptly has himself arrested so that he'll have the perfect alibi when the bodies start piling up. But it turns out his enemies have enough juice to keep him in prison, his associates start dying and the attempts on his life start. Cue Tony Breda, a wannabe wiseguy, who has a plan to spring Frankie from jail.