Film Reviews

Yet another variation on Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee At King Arthur's Court." Here, a computer malfunction causes a science researcher to be sent back in time with her laptop, which she uses to amaze the court.

Men, women, and war. Jelena Panic is a young woman in Belgrade in the early 1990s, during Serbia's war with Croatia; she's making a book of her grandmother's diaries from the end of World War II. She takes up with Bogdan, a young soldier recovering from war wounds. He helps her with her grandmother's story, a tragic triangle involving her effete and well-educated husband and an uneducated major, a Chekist who has, perhaps, the power to save a political prisoner who is the grandmother's friend. As Jelena wonders which man was her grandfather (the Chekist or the husband), Bogdan recovers from his wounds and must decide whether to return to the front. Jelena pleads; duty calls.

A young man and his girlfriend move into the man's old mansion home, where he becomes possessed by a need to control ancient demons.

In this tour de force filmed lecture, Slavoj Žižek lucidly and compellingly reflects on belief - which takes him from Father Christmas to democracy - and on the various forms that belief takes, drawing on Lacanian categories of thought. In a radical dismissal of todays so called post-political era, he mobilizes the paradox of universal truth urging us to dare to enact the impossible. It is a characteristic virtuoso performance, moving promiscuously from subject to subject but keeping the larger argument in view.

A dramatization of the Oct. 30, 1938 mass panic that Orson Welles' radio play, "The War of the Worlds" accidentally provoked.

Vares, a film noir comedy from Finland, is yet another twist on PULP FICTION. And, just in case we miss the similarities of splattered blood mixed with outrageous incidents, the movie explicitly references PULP FICTION and has a comedic scene in which two guys argue about McDonald's hamburgers. Still, VARES - PRIVATE EYE, by director Aleksi Mäkelä, manages to be kind of fun even not especially original. The script has more characters than the screenwriter can handle, leaving the audience frequently confused about who is doing what and why. The two best scenes are one about a wacky wedding and another about a guy who answers a cell phone call while he is busy enjoying the pleasures of a sex parlor.

Voiced by Elijah Wood, Jennifer Love Hewitt and others, this film features Tom Thumb and Thumbelina, the tiny, famed fairy-tale favorites, who are together for the first time in this heartwarming, magical musical story about courage and friendship.After 15 years, the two reunite and remember when their village was destroyed by a giant. Soon, they find out that they have neat powers they can use for good.

Race car driver suffers from visions where he sees people killed. An ESP expert believes that his visions will really happen.

The wife and mistress of a cruel school master collaborate in a carefully planned and executed attempt to murder him. The plan goes well until the body, which has been strategically dumped, disappears. The strain starts to tell on the two women as a retired police investigator who is looking into the disappearance on a whim begins to think that they know more than they are telling, and their mental state is not helped when their victim is seen, apparently alive and well by one of the pupils.

The Impossible Hour is a concentrated study of Ole Ritter's attempt in Mexico City in 1974 to set a new record for the hour - described in the film as "the noblest, most difficult record that can be set on a bicycle". A brief retrospective in black and white sets the historical framework, with shots of Ritter and Eddy Merckx' successful record attempts in 1968 and 1972 respectively, and a few words about former record holders such as Fausto Coppi.The film follows Ritter's three record attempts chronologically, which, accompanied by a Mexican marching band on the bandstand, all fail.

Pulcinella, a foolish servant, is sent to present-day Campania to grant the last wish of Tommaso, a simple shepherd.

The building of a railroad under tough conditions from searing heat to freezing cold in the Sonora desert provokes clashes of passion and struggles between the engineers and the workers at the campsite. The workers also contend with sudden dust storms that are called the 'black wind'.

'Female' is comprised of five short films adapted from five novels by female authors. Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto, Tetsuo Shinohara, Ryuichi Hiroki, Miwa Nishikawa, and Suzuki Matsuo.

Wealthy Mary Haines is unaware her husband is having an affair with shopgirl Crystal Allen. Sylvia Fowler and Edith Potter discover this from a manicurist and arrange for Mary to hear the gossip. On the train taking her to a Reno divorce Mary meets the Countess and Miriam (in an affair with Fowler's husband). While they are at Lucy's dude ranch, Fowler arrives for her own divorce and the Countess meets fifth husband-to-be Buck. Back in New York, Mary's ex is now unhappily married to Crystal who is already in an affair with Buck.

When a recently retired military officer Colonel is tapped by his old friend to take over the military division to help save declining Stone Creek Academy, he immediately clashes with academics dean, a civilian woman whose "touchy-feely" methods are at complete odds with his.