Film Reviews

An elite group of vice cops are fired from the L.A.P.D. for being over-zealous in their war against drugs. It is immediately apparent that some of their superiors are involved in the drug ring. Banded together, four of the banned cops (which quickly becomes three when one is killed early) band together to fight the drug ring undercover. They gain capital for weapons by ripping off minor drug dealers. Then well-armed they go after the kingpin (Boyd).

Jack Cameron is a single dad that decides not to observe Christmas because his wife left him around that time. The ghosts of Christmas past and present try and get Jack to relent, but they screw up their jobs and send themselves on a wild ride through time showing up at various times in Jack's past. As they try and rectify the timeline and get back to the real present, some things are not what they used to be.

Eveready Horton and his behemoth penis venture through the country in search of the penetrable.

In the early part of this century, Maddelena a teenage Italian girl, is attacked whilst walking in the woods. The attack leaves her mentally scarred and our story flashes forward to the 1940s where Maddelena is still troubled. She disappears one day and her daughter vows to find her.

The plot is set in modern Moscow, in the 1990s, with "New Russians", Hummer H1 SUVs, bribery, violence, truck fulls of tinned stew as a dowry, etc.

Ivan is old Russia: thick, dour, hard-working, often brutish; he misses Communism. He drives a taxi and one night meets Alexi, a new Russian, a musician, an alcoholic, irresponsible. Alexi stiffs Ivan for the fare, so Ivan tracks him down and a love-hate relationship ensues. When Alexi lets the bath water run over in Ivan's flat and Ivan must pay 500 rubles for repairs, he tries to force Alexi into day labor to repay him. It's hopeless. Then, suddenly, Alexi is discovered, goes on a jazz tour of America, becomes a celebrity, and returns in triumph. Ivan longs to renew the friendship, and it looks as if he may get what he wants.

An airplane carring coffee beans from South America has some unpleasant stowaways: a hoard of tarantulas which overcome the pilots as the airplane is flying over an orange-producing town in California. The airplane crashes, and the unlucky inhabitants of the town release the poisonous spiders into their midst. Once the town's officials discover that the tarantulas are responsible for several deaths, the tarantulas have already descended upon the town's only orange-processing factory. The town's citizens risk their lives to remove the tarantulas from the factory while the poisonous pests are rendered motionless by the transmitted sound of buzzing bees

For his fourth full feature, Toyoshi Toyoda has abandoned the theme of the angry young man, examined in depth in Pornostar, Blue Spring and 9 Souls. Kuchu Teien is, on the face of it, more a drama, a character study, than a typical Toyoda genre flick. Yet within this beautifully structured and photographed film, there lies a dark soul. Ostensibly the story of a happy family, it becomes increasingly clear as the movie progresses that the Kyobashis are anything but. Despite a family agreement that they are all open with each other, the entire household knows the opposite is true.

Igor is a professional boxer whose world comes to a halt when he learns that his brain has been severely damaged from his many years of fighting. Refusing to undergo surgery, he knows that his days are numbered. Not having much left, his last desire is to leave a child behind as his legacy. A young Vietnamese immigrant, Yen Ha, agrees to have his baby in return for Polish citizenship. Despite the nature of their agreement, they slowly fall in love, but then Igor's health deteriorates...

After serving a 12-year sentence for killing the man that slept with his wife, a man ponders whether he should try and reconcile with his family, or take revenge on those who turned him in.

Roja lives in a Tamil village, and her sister is about to marry a man from the city, who decides to marry Roja instead and gets a job assignment in Kashmir, where some militants decide to kidnap them.

An American tourist (Kimberley Kates) lands in a Slavic prison run by a twisted woman (Brigitte Nielsen) and the U.S. ambassador (Paul Koslo).

A filmmaker is granted unprecedented access to a political candidate and his family as he runs for President.

Esther Robinson's portrait of her uncle Danny Williams, Warhol's onetime lover, collaborator and filmmaker in his own right, offers a exploration of the Factory era, an homage to Williams's talent, a journey of family discovery and a compelling inquiry into Williams's mysterious disappearance at age 27.

A famous artist strives to find the secret of eternal life through the beautiful mannequins he creates.