Film Reviews

In the final days of Czarist Russia, a peasant is raised from the ranks to Lieutenant. The other officers, aristocrats all, resent him, and make his life difficult. He falls in love with a princess, who spurns him. When he is caught in her room, he is stripped of his rank and thrown into prison. Then comes the Red Terror, and the tables are turned.

It's no exaggeration to say this might be the most intense and groundbreaking 45-minute performance in the history of rock. Jimi Hendrix's debut American set at 1967's Monterey Pop Festival is generally considered one of the most radical and legendary live shows ever. Virtually unknown to American audiences at the time, even though he was already an established entity in the UK, Hendrix and his two-piece Experience explode on stage, ripping through blues classics "Rock Me Baby" and Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor," interpreting and electrifying Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," debuting songs from his yet-to-be-released first album and closing with the now historic sacrificing/burning of his guitar during an unhinged version of "Wild Thing" that even its writer Chip Taylor would never have imagined. Hendrix uses feedback and distortion to enhance the songs in whisper-to-scream intensity, blazing territory that had not been previously explored with as much soul-frazzled power.

In this propaganda film intended to raise money for republicans fighting in the Spanish Civil War, Henri Cartier-Bresson first presents the achievements of the Spanish Republic in the field of public health. He then shows how members of the public and organizations across the world were supporting the fighters.

The story of a young man's decision to leave the home of his parents for the bachelor pad of his older brother who leads a swinging '60s lifestyle.

Rachel, a rookie cop, is about to begin her first night shift in a neglected police station in a Scottish, backwater town. The kind of place where the tide has gone out and stranded a motley bunch of the aimless, the forgotten, the bitter-and-twisted who all think that, really, they deserve to be somewhere else. They all think they're there by accident and that, with a little luck, life is going to get better. Wrong, on both counts. Six is about to arrive - and All Hell Will Break Loose!

Cinta (Dian Sastrowardoyo), a teenager in suburban Jakarta, spends all of her time with her four girlfriends, Maura (Titi Kamal), Alya (Ladya Cheryll), Carmen (Adinia Wirasti) and Milly (Sissy Priscillia) - that is, until she falls for Rangga (Nicholas Saputra), the unassuming winner of the school poetry contest. Rangga's presence triggers the jealousy of Cinta's best friends, and things get more challenging for the couple when the girls pressure Cinta to choose between them and Rangga. A sharply etched yet humorous love story of growing infatuation, ambivalence and near misunderstanding between two idealistic teenagers, Cinta and Rangga, at a high school in Jakarta. This sophisticated and charming film provides an engaging portrait of middle-class teenagers.

Devo captured live in Oakland, performing early experimental tracks. No matter how messy, beginnings are exciting. Especially when what happens next endures the test of time. For Devo the beginning happened in the basements and garages of Akron, Ohio. The songs they wrote were raw and unfiltered with no commercial intent. They called it Hardcore Devo. Performing 21 oddities, intercut with poignant stories told by Mark, Jerry and Bob 1, this program is a tribute to the departed Bob ""Bob 2"" Casale.

Two married couples find only trouble and heartache as their complicated lives unfold. After 40 years of marriage, Alfie leaves his wife to pursue what he thinks is happiness with a call girl. His wife, Helena, reeling from abandonment, decides to follow the advice of a psychic. Sally, the daughter of Alfie and Helena, is unhappy in her marriage and develops a crush on her boss, while her husband, Roy, falls for a woman engaged to be married.

Bud and Doyle are two losers who are doing nothing with their lives. Both of their girlfriends are actively involved in saving the environment, but the two friends couldn't care less about saving the Earth. One day, when a group of scientists begin a mission to live inside a "Bio-Dome" for a year without outside contact, Bud and Doyle mistakenly become part of the project themselves.

Far Out Isn't Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story depicts one man's wild, lifelong adventure of testing societal boundaries through his use of subversive art. This 98-minute film combines traditional documentary storytelling with original animation from over 70 years worth of art from the renegade children's book author and illustrator. Using a historical palette of 20th century events to paint an artist's epic yet controversial life story, this HD documentary film offers a feature-length retrospective of Ungerer's life and art, pondering the complexities and contradictions of a man who, armed with an acerbic wit, an accusing finger and a razor sharp pencil, gave visual representation to the revolutionary voices during one of the most tantalizing and dramatic periods in American history. Far Out Isn't Far Enough explores the circumstances of his meteoric rise and fall on American soil...

A detective investigating kidnapping case discovers the victim, who may be a zombie.

Ambassador Joseph Davies is sent by FDR to Russia to learn about the Soviet system and returns to America as an advocate of Stalinism.

This film records a 12 day ritual performed by Mambudiri Brahmins in Kerala, southwest India, in April 1975. This event was possibly the last performance of the Agnicayana, a Vedic ritual of sacrifice dating back 3,000 years and probably the oldest surviving human ritual. Long considered extinct and never witnessed by outsiders, the ceremonies require the participation of seventeen priests, involve libations of Soma juice and oblations of other substances, all preceded by several months of preparation and rehearsals. They include the construction, from a thousand bricks, of a fire altar in the shape of a bird.

A World War I British Army patrol is crossing the Mesopotamian desert when their commanding officer, the only one who knows their destination is killed by the bullet of unseen bandits. The patrol's sergeant keeps them heading north on the assumption that they will hit their brigade. They stop for the night at an oasis and awake the next morning to find their horses stolen, their sentry dead, the oasis surrounded and survival difficult.

A mysterious series of suicides makes people of a small town is full of anxiety. Shortly before his eighteenth birthday, Kirsten wants to know the mystery surrounding this story.