Film Reviews

A young couple gets more than they bargained for when they buy an historic bed and breakfast in New England only to discover that the old house is hiding a dark secret within its walls.

Seven year old Sasha practices violin every day to satisfy the ambition of his parents. Already withdrawn as a result of his routines, Sasha quickly regains confidence when he accidentally meets and befriends worker Sergei, who works on a steamroller in their upscale Moscow neighborhood.

In the bourgeois circles of Europe after the Great War, can anything save the modern man? Harry Haller, a solitary intellectual, has all his life feared his dual nature of being human and being a beast. He's decided to die on his 50th birthday, which is soon. He's rescued from his solipsism by the mysterious Hermine, who takes him dancing, introduces him to jazz and to the beautiful and whimsical Maria, and guides him into the hallucinations of the Magic Theater, which seem to take him into Hell. Can humour, sin, and derision lead to salvation?

The stories of three young men who, in the wake of the ferocious repression by the Bourbon reign in 1828, decide to join Giuseppe Mazzini's Young Italy movement.

An American gets a ticket for an audience participation game in London, then gets involved in a case of mistaken identity. As an international plot unravels around him, he thinks it's all part of the act.

Díaz is a burly seen-it-all cop who's depressed about his marriage. Silverstein is a skinny Jewish shrink who's assigned to help him back to his job. Soon Silverstein is taking advice from Díaz about *his* marriage, and is learning how to handle a gun. Good thing, for they find themselves in a stew of murder, arms dealers and corrupt cops, and only their new friendship will get them out alive.

A decade after the American Civil War, Edward Young returns home from a hunting trip to find a horrific reanimation of his wife and that their son Adam has disappeared. He must battle his way through an unexplainable outbreak of the walking dead.

Undercover agents investigate a murderer in Chicago.

The seven short films making up GENIUS PARTY couldn’t be more diverse, linked only by a high standard of quality and inspiration. Atsuko Fukushima’s intro piece is a fantastic abstraction to soak up with the eyes. Masaaki Yuasa, of MIND GAME and CAT SOUP fame, brings his distinctive and deceptively simple graphic style and dream-state logic to the table with “Happy Machine,” his spin on a child’s earliest year. Shinji Kimura’s spookier “Deathtic 4,” meanwhile, seems to tap into the creepier corners of a child’s imagination and open up a toybox full of dark delights. Hideki Futamura’s “Limit Cycle” conjures up a vision of virtual reality, while Yuji Fukuyama’s "Doorbell" and "Baby Blue" by Shinichiro Watanabe use understated realism for very surreal purposes. And Shoji Kawamori, with “Shanghai Dragon,” takes the tropes and conventions of traditional anime out for very fun joyride.

Two rival gangs fight for control of Frazier Park -- a deadly arena in competitive dance-fight video game "Beat-Beat Revolution."

A young writer brings a collection of short stories to a big Moscow publishing house. The manuscript stays at the office and mysteriously influences the lives of anyone who opens it and reads at least one page. There are four stories in the manuscript, and four readers whose lives are changed after reading them. The situations range from realistic to absurd to thrilling to create a rich portrait of life in contemporary Russia and showcase the thoughts, feelings and ambitions of people who live there.

A group of oddball high school students find themselves trapped in detention with their classmates having turned into a horde of Zombies.

The Great McGonigle and his troupe of third-rate vaudevillians manage to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors and the sheriff.

Jackie Cogan is an enforcer hired to restore order after three dumb guys rob a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse.

After a night of partying, Vicente is involved in a hit-and-run that kills a man. Vicente claims his innocence, but he was drunk and high. A tangled web of lies buries the truth, making a social scandal disappear — exonerating the real culprit, the son of a powerful politician.