Film Reviews

A wild teenage girl orchestrates a romance between her nanny and her father, who is a recovering addict.

Raul Ruiz's Love Torn in a Dream is introduced with a fake newsreel, taking place in postwar France, in which the cast of the film meet with the producer, who explains the film's complex weave of nine narratives. A diagram in which each story is represented by a letter of the alphabet explicates the intertwining of the nine tales. As the producer explains each actor's role, the film begins. The stories, rooted in folklore, bump up against each other as the film leaps back and forth in time.

After tricking him into marriage, a woman (Ann Harding) tries to win the love of her philandering husband (William Powell).

Straight from the creators of the groundbreaking Matrix trilogy, this collection of short animated films from the world's leading anime directors fuses computer graphics and Japanese anime to provide the background of the Matrix universe and the conflict between man and machines. The shorts include Final Flight of the Osiris, The Second Renaissance, Kid's Story, Program, World Record, Beyond, A Detective Story and Matriculated.

TV producer Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) becomes frustrated when network brass reject his sitcom idea. Hoping to get fired, Delacroix pitches the worst idea he can think of: a minstrel show. The network not only airs it, but it incredibly becomes a smash hit. Michael Rapaport co-stars in this searing satire.

The Coast Guard makes a daring rescue attempt off the coast of Cape Cod after a pair of oil tankers are destroyed during a blizzard in 1952.

When porn director Pablo reluctantly breaks up with his boyfriend, Juan, he encourages him to stay in touch. Juan moves away to live in a lighthouse and eventually writes his ex, but in the interim Pablo has taken up a psychotic new lover, Antonio (Antonio Banderas). Antonio intercepts their correspondence and flies into a towering rage, terrifying Pablo but inspiring him creatively as he works on a play about his transsexual sister.

Present-day Chad. Adam, sixty something, a former swimming champion, is pool attendant at a smart N'Djamena hotel. When the hotel gets taken over by new Chinese owners, he is forced to give up his job to his son Abdel. Terribly resentful, he feels socially humiliated. The country is in the throes of a civil war. Rebel forces are attacking the government. The authorities demand that the population contribute to the "war effort", giving money or volunteers old enough to fight off the assailants. The District Chief constantly harasses Adam for his contribution. But Adam is penniless; he only has his son.

Ten short pieces directed by ten different directors, including Ken Russell, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, and Nicolas Roeg. Each short uses an aria as soundtrack/sound (Vivaldi, Bach, Wagner), and is an interpretation of the particular aria.

A tight-knit team of FBI investigators, along with their District Attorney supervisor, is suddenly torn apart when they discover that one of their own teenage daughters has been brutally murdered.

A New York policeman imprisons and tortures an admitted cop-killer, but finds the tables turned when his victim refuses to break and in fact urges more punishment

A nature documentary centered on a family of chimps living in the Ivory Coast and Ugandan rain forests.

The modern-day descendant of Little Red Riding Hood brings her fiancé home to meet her family and reveal their occupation as werewolf hunters, but after he is bitten by a werewolf, she must protect him from her own family.

The life of a blind photographer who is looked after by a housekeeper is disrupted by the arrival of an agreeable restaurant worker.

Forest City depends entirely on the Aikens Christmas decoration factory. Local economics graduate Judith 'Noelle' Dunn returned there to finish her thesis by analyzing the plant. A freak near-accident matches her with adventurous drifter Justin Allen, whom she gets a menial job in the factory. Alas the late founder discretely footed systematical losses. His haughty granddaughter Ashley Aikens arrives to check if the firm can be made profitable. Noelle is jealous when Ashley keeps contacting Justin, who swears only to have eyes for her. It turns out he is key to more secrets, but will they work for good or bad?