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Film Reviews

Underdog

23-year-old "Dino" (Bianca Kronlöf) dreams of a different life. Like an abundance of Swedes her age, she has fled the mass unemployment of her home country in search of a more worthwhile existence in a nouveau-riche Oslo. But her new life is caught in deadlock - Dino finds herself stuck in a destructive loop of temporary jobs, financial trouble and hard partying. A broken arm incidentally leads to a position as a housekeeper in a Norwegian middle-class home. Dino is thrown into a reality very far from her own. During a few sultry summer weeks she ends up the centre of an odd love triangle, an unpredictable struggle for affection as well as dominance. "Underdog" is a tender and raw story of privilege and longing, yet at the same time a humorous and unmerciful observation of the shifted power balance between Sweden and Norway - an actuality where Swedes have become the Norwegians' servants.

Peeping Toms

Gote and Eli are two aging friends who don't want to age. Gote is a lifeguard who's fighting peepers on the Tel-Aviv beach. Eli is a guitar player who dreams of building a night club in altman's restaurant.

Satan's School For Girls

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

Three Coins in the Fountain

American girls dream of finding romance in Rome, but there is none for secretaries, Anita tells her replacement at the USDA. But Maria soon meets Prince Dino de Cessi at a party at her boss's home who invites her to fly to Venice in his private plane. Frances, who has been in Rome for 15 years as the secretary of a successful American writer who talks a lot like George Bernard Shaw and is just as elusive as Professor Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady," tells her at first to say "no" and then decides that together they can handle the man nicknamed the predatory prince. Coins tossed in the Trevi Fountain can indeed work magic.

Catfish in Black Bean Sauce

An African American couple (Winfield and Alice) adopt two orphans from a Vietnamese refugee camp. After twenty-two years, the children are reunited with their birth mother, bringing deeply submerged resentments and misconceptions to the surface and forcing the characters to reexamine their identity and relationships in both comical and poignant situations.

La Morte Rouge

Famed Spanish director Victor Erice narrates this documentary short about the first film he remembers seeing, Roy William Neill's 1944 Sherlock Holmes film "The Scarlet Claw." Erice's memories of this formative cinematic experience lead him to musings on post-Civil War Spain, childhood fears, and the nature of memory itself.

Invasion, U.S.A.

A group of American witness the deadly invasion of the United States by the Soviet Union.

The Magnificent Trio

A wandering swordsman named Lu Fang (Jimmy Wang Yu) who is returning from battle discovers that several farmers have kidnapped the local magistrate’s daughter. He sides with them after learning that this is an act of desperation to improve their low standard of living. The magistrate hires bandits and another fighter named Huang Liang (Cheng Lui) to get his daughter back. Huang recognizes Lu as a comrade in arms and joins him in fending off the bandits. The standoff comes to an abrupt end when the magistrate uses one of the farmer’s daughters as leverage to get his own daughter back. Lu convinces the magistrate to punish him in place of the farmers, but he’s lied to. The magistrate’s daughter (Chin Ping) and a fighter in his employ (Lo Lieh), along with Huang help Lu to escape. Once recovered, our heroes return to see that a petition from the farmers gets to a higher-ranking official.

Twin Falls Idaho

Francis and Blake Falls are Siamese twins who live in a neat little room in a rundown hotel. While sharing some organs, Blake is always fit and Francis is very sickly. Into their world comes a young lady, who turns their world upside down. She gets involved with Blake, and convinces the two to attend a Halloween party, where they can pass themselves off as wearing a costume. Eventually Francis becomes really ill, and they have to be separated. They then face the physical and mental strains that come from their proposed separation.

The Scheming Gambler's Paradise

A combination gambling den and bawdy house is set up so that croupiers, patrons, prostitutes, and the owner can quickly change it all into a mercantile establishment when the cops stage a raid.

Man Facing Southeast

A new patient mysteriously appears in a psychiatric ward. He claims to come from another planet to study humans and their behavior. The alien is gentle but criticizes humans for their harsh treatment of each other. The assigned psychiatrist is himself unhappy, and affected by the patient's insight. But he is ordered to treat the patient according to institutional procedure.

Only Angels Have Wings

Geoff Carter (Cary Grant) is the head of a crumbling air freight service in desperate need of a replacement pilot. He is forced to hire a descredited aviator (Richard Barthelmess) who arrives with his wife (Rita Hayworth), Carter's ex-lover. Meanwhile, traveler Bonnie Lee (Jean Arthur) tries to get close to the emotionally closed-off Carter. The film received two Academy Award nominations.

Gabriel

Gabriel tells the story of an archangel who fights to bring light back to purgatory - a place where darkness rules - and save the souls of the city's inhabitants.

Moulin Rouge

Fictional account of French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

The Grudge

American nurse, Karen Davis moves to Tokyo and encounters a vengeful supernatural spirit known as The Grudge that often possesses its victims. When a series of horrifying and mysterious deaths occur – with the spirit passing its curse onto each victim - Karen must find away to break the spell before she becomes the spirit's next victim.

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