Film Reviews

Directed by B.S. Johnson.

In a well-acted historical drama about clashes between opposite ends of the economic and cultural spectrum, a literal witch hunt in a Basque village sets orthodox religion against pagan beliefs, feudal lords against the impoverished peasantry, abusive men against defenseless women, and in some ways, Spaniards against Basques. The witches are female and from the lower classes, the persecutors are wealthy white Christians. The story revolves around Garazi (Silvia Munt) whose grandmother is burned at the stake when convicted by the Spanish inquisitor of being a witch, something that brings Garazi under suspicion and eventually into prison. She is tortured in prison and raped by her rejected suitor, the vicious son of a local landlord. While Garazi is suffering her own pain, a struggle on a much broader scale is in the offing.

One day, Koyomi Araragi encounters the horrifying vampire, Kiss-shot Acerola-orion Heart-under-blade A.K.A. the "King of Apparitions." He saves the fatally wounded Kiss-shot by offering his blood at the expense of his own life as a human. Now Koyomi has to face the vampire hunters to retrieve Kiss-shot’s limbs which were taken by these hunters...

A New York City architect becomes a one-man vigilante squad after his wife is murdered by street punks in which he randomly goes out and kills would-be muggers on the mean streets after dark.

A sly riff on the Prodigal Son story, Mika Kaurismaki's latest — about a joyless workaholic concert pianist who ends up on a wild ride with his long-lost rapscallion father — is a funny and cogent analysis of machismo, abandonment issues and the value of reconnecting with one's roots. (TIFF)

A film cataloguing some of the world's largest catastrophes.

This was Jerry Lewis' answer to the classic Cinderella story. When his father dies, poor Fella is left at the mercy of his snobbish stepmother and her two no-good sons, Maximilian and Rupert. As he slaves away for his nasty step-family, Maximilian and Rupert attempt to find a treasure Fella's father has supposedly hidden on the estate. Meanwhile, hoping to restore her dwindling fortunes, the stepmother plans a fancy ball in honor of the visiting Princess Charmein whom she hopes will marry Rupert. Eventually, Fella's Fairy Godfather shows up to convince him that he has a shot at winning the Princess himself.

A piano composer's family moves into a new house; when his pregnant wife collapses from working to support the family, he hires a housemaid to help with housework.

When Honey's uncle gets kidnapped by the evil criminal gang known as "Panther Claw," she must use her magical powers of transformation (fueled by love) to save him. Meanwhile the same crime group has been responsible for a number of other crime sprees across Tokyo. In the process, Honey teams up with the seemingly cold police woman Natsuko Aki and hot shot journalist Seiji Hayami as well as battle the four "claws" of the Panther Claw gang to save her uncle and the rest of the city.

Pepe Le Moko is a gangster from Paris hiding in Algier's Casbah, where he is safe and able to elude police's attempts to capture him. But he misses his freedom, after two years in the Casbah. He meets a gorgeous Parisian tourist, Gaby, and they fall in love. Native Inspector Slimane tries to use her to attract Pepe out of the Casbah in order to catch him...

Bingo leads a carefree city life that revolves around work, friends and dating. Her yuppie life is turned upside down one passionate night when her hot date Dr. V discovers a lump on her left breast.

Three petty thieves who the police believe to be major criminals are chased into a basement bar where they take five hostages including all the bar employees. The rest of the movie deals with the cops lurking outside the bar while the trio try to get hold of the situation inside.

Months after a zombie plague has wiped out 90 percent of the American population, a small group of survivors fight their way cross-country to a rumored refuge on the island of Catalina.

Jason Voorhees, the living, breathing essence of evil, is back for one fierce, final fling! Tracked down and blown to bits by a special FBI task force, everyone now assumes that he's finally dead. But everybody assumes wrong. Jason has been reborn with the bone-chilling ability to assume the identity of anyone he touches. The terrifying truth is that he could be anywhere, or anybody. In this shocking, blood-soaked finale to Jason's carnage-ridden reign of terror, the horrible secret of his unstoppable killing instinct is finally revealed.

Set on the Russian steppes and filmed in black-and-white, it is the story of a group of peasants seeking revenge against the oil company that bought the collective farm from beneath their feet and the return of their land. During the entire film, it does not stop snowing once. As the peasants make their way across the frozen tundra toward the city that houses oil company headquarters, they take vengeance against a series of former Communist bureaucrats who connived with oil company executives. Except for the youth Kolya that they have drafted into their crusade against the protestations of his babushka-wearing mother, they are all grizzled veterans of WWII.