Film Reviews

A disfigured musical genius, hidden away in the Paris Opera House, terrorises the opera company for the unwitting benefit of a young protégée whom he trains and loves. The 25th anniversary of the first public performance of Phantom of the Opera was celebrated with a grand performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Set in pre-WWI Vienna, Mascarade concerns a near-tragic misunderstanding over a nude painting. It is incorrectly assumed that heroine Leopoldine (Paula Wesseley) posed for the painting, when in fact the model was Gerda (Hilde von Stolz), the wife of stuffy Dr. Harrandt (Peter Peterson). The romance between Leopoldine and artist Heidendeck (Adolf Wohlbruck) is threatened when his cast-off mistress shoots him. Dr. Harrandt is summoned to perform an emergency operation on Heidenbeck, but upon discovering that the artist had painted his wife Gerda in the nude, the "good" doctor refuses to minister to Heidenbeck's wound. It is Leopoldine who appeals to the doctor's essential humanity and finally sets things right.

During a commemoration for Japanese soldiers fighting in the US Army during World War II, Mr. Miyagi meets the widow of his commanding officer. He gets to know her granddaughter Julie, an angry teenager who is still feeling the pain of losing both her parents in an accident and is having problems with her grandmother and her fellow pupils. Mr. Miyagi decides to teach her karate to get her through her pain and issues and back on the right path.

A wicked investor wants Werner's residential area razed to the ground in order to build a shopping center. However, building tycoon Günzelsen has not reckoned with Werner. Together with his master Röhrich he's planning to blow away the plumbings with a gigantic obstruction...

Rusty James, an absent-minded street thug struggles to live up to his legendary older brother's reputation, and longs for the days when gang warfare was going on.

The Interrupters tells the moving and surprising stories of three Violence Interrupters — former gang members who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once caused.

At the height of the Vietnam war, Captain Benjamin Willard is sent on a dangerous mission that, officially, "does not exist, nor will it ever exist." His goal is to locate - and eliminate - a mysterious Green Beret Colonel named Walter Kurtz, who has been leading his personal army on illegal guerrilla missions into enemy territory.

Unable, due to the seal of the confessional, to be forthcoming with information that would serve to clear himself during a murder investigation, a priest becomes the prime suspect.

The Seamstress was brought into being by the desperate curse of an innocent woman being tortured to death by a vigilante mob. Voracious for blood, the hideously-mutilated specter hunts a small group of friends who become trapped on the island where she died.

Edgar works as a waiter in 'Het Westen', a restaurant. He is married and has a lover. His neighbors terrorize him with loud music and garbage. One day after he is mistreated by some customers he is sick of it all and goes to talk to his creator, the scenario writer.

A shell-shocked Afghanistan war hero named Ivan Skryabin (Mikhail Skryabin) spends his days stoking the fire in a giant coal furnace. When he isn’t tending the flames, he keeps busy with other activities. He works on a historical novel. His adult daughter Sasha (Aida Tumutova) comes to visit. Local kids come to gaze at the flames. Gangsters, including a former Army sergeant (Aleksandr Mosin) and a sniper known as Bison (Yuri Matveyev), drop by to add special kindling to the fire.

Paranoia sets in as the Black Death strikes European villagers in the 14th century.

Set against the back drop of Rome in crisis, General Marcus Vinicius returns to the city from the battle fields and falls in love with a Christian woman, Lygia. Caught in the grip of insanity, Nero's atrocities become more extreme and he burns Rome, laying the blame on the Christians. Vinicius races to save Lygia from the wrath of Nero as the empire of Rome collapses around them.

In the run-up to the 1972 elections, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward covers what seems to be a minor break-in at the Democratic Party National headquarters. He is surprised to find top lawyers already on the defense case, and the discovery of names and addresses of Republican fund organizers on the accused further arouses his suspicions. The editor of the Post is prepared to run with the story and assigns Woodward and Carl Bernstein to it. They find the trail leading higher and higher in the Republican Party, and eventually into the White House itself.

A decade after the collapse of the western world, Australia has become a lawless wasteland. As desperate outsiders pillage the country's precious mineral resources, taciturn Eric travels from town to town searching for signs of life.