Film Reviews

Koreyoshi Kurahara’s ingeniously plotted, pocket-size noir concerns the intertwined fates of a desperate bank manager, blackmailed for book-cooking, and his resentful but timid underling, passed over for a promotion. The marvelously moody Intimidation (Aru kyouhaku) is an elegantly stripped-down and carefully paced crime drama.

Reporter John Klein is plunged into a world of impossible terror and unthinkable chaos when fate draws him to a sleepy West Virginia town whose residents are being visited by a great winged shape that sows hideous nightmares and fevered visions.

Satan's School for Girls is set within the grim walls of Fallbridge College for Girls. Hoping to learn the truth behind the "suicide" of her younger sister, Beth Hammersmith enrolls in Fallbridge under the assumed name of Karen Oxford. Our heroine soon learns that the school is in the clutches of a coven of witches called "The Five" -- and that she herself has the right satanic qualities to enable The Five to take over the world

Terminal USA is the story of a Japanese-American family with more than their fair share of quirks. Ma (Sharon Omi) is stealing grandpa's morphine, Airhead sister (Jenny Woo) is having sex with the family lawyer, One brother (Jon Moritsugu) gets perfect grades but is hiding a secret gay love of skinheads, and the other brother (also Jon Moritsugu) is a wastoid druggie. The tension leads to an explosion of absurd violence as crazier and crazier things happen to the family.

In 1896, Jeff Webster sees the start of the Klondike gold rush as a golden opportunity to make a fortune in beef...and woe betide anyone standing in his way! He drives a cattle herd from Wyoming to Seattle, by ship to Skagway, and (after a delay caused by larcenous town boss Gannon) through the mountains to Dawson. There, he and his partner Ben Tatum get into the gold business themselves. Two lovely women fall for misanthropic Jeff, but he believes in every-man-for-himself, turning his back on growing lawlessness...until it finally strikes home.

A Thriller set in 1932 about two nurses trapped in a country mansion with their invalid patient whilst a killer is on the loose. A series of unexplainable events start to occur and the nurses begin to wonder if they are no longer alone.

Renee returns home one Saturday after giving an early morning piano lesson. She lives in the provinces with her husband Juan and their five year-old son Santi. Over breakfast, they discuss a possible move to Buenos Aires but rule it out after Juan provides a reasoned argument against it. He suggests a family trip to the beach. Renee proposes for Juan alone to take Santi to the beach while she takes her ailing mother Virginia to the country. The film bifurcates as the narrative alternates between the two excursions. Renee picks up Virginia at an assisted-living facility; they drive to a rustic cabin, sit by the fireplace and later take a walk in the forest. Juan and the inquisitive Santi travel further, to an almost empty beach, walk down a pier, build a castle out of sand, and meet two fishermen who entertain the boy with sea tales and teach him how to gut a fish.

Fox, a former circus performer, wins the lottery of DM 500,000 and can now have the life and things that he has always wanted. While he wants to climb up the social ladder, it isn't without turmoil, and being torn between his old working class roots, and the shiny new facade of middle class consciousness.

In a near future, the world order has changed. With its 10 millions of unemployed citizens, France has now become a poor country. Its people wavers between rebellion and resignation and find an outlet in the shape of TV broadcast ultra brutal fights in which the players are legally doped and unscrupulous.

A woman steals money from her mob boss husband hoping to start a new life with her lover. Meanwhile, a washed-up former child star and his buddies rob a bank with a police detective hot on their trail. Through a twist of fate, these people all find themselves at a remote cabin, unaware that recent construction work has unleashed a ferocious creature which now roams the surrounding area! Who will survive in MEATEATERS!

A sociopathic stranger all but destroys a small hardscrabble town but the 'mayor' convinces its survivors to stay and rebuild.

My American Cousin is a Canadian drama film, released in 1985. Written and directed by Sandy Wilson based on her own childhood, the film stars Margaret Langrick as Sandy Wilcox, a pre-teen girl growing up on a ranch in rural Penticton, British Columbia in the late 1950s. Sandy's longing to be treated as an adult is roused even further when her older American cousin Butch Walker (John Wildman) comes for a visit. The cast also includes Richard Donat, Jane Mortifee, Babz Chula and Camille Henderson.

A group of unlikely travelling companions find themselves on the same stagecoach to Cheyenne. They include a drunken doctor, a bar girl who's been thrown out of town, a professional gambler, a travelling liquor salesman, a banker who has decided to embezzle money, a gun-slinger out for revenge and a young woman going to join her army captain husband. All have secrets but when they are set upon by an Indian war party and then a family of outlaws, they find they must all work together if they are to stay alive.

Nick and Meg Burrows return to Paris, the city where they honeymooned, to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary and rediscover some romance in their long-lived marriage. The film follows the couple as long-established tensions in their marriage break out in humorous and often painful ways.

It's Hogswatch (equivalent to Christmas) on the Discworld and the Hogfather has gone missing, requiring Death to take his place while his granddaughter Susan endeavors to find out what has happened.