Film Reviews

In the opening chase, Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh stumble across a trunk full of Krugerrands. They follow the trail to a South African diplomat who's using his immunity to conceal a smuggling operation. When he plants a bomb under Murtaugh's toilet, the action explodes!

A send-up of the bawdy life of Romantic composer/piano virtuoso Franz Liszt, with ubiquitous phallic imagery and a good portion of the film devoted to Liszt's "friendship" with fellow composer Richard Wagner. The film begins during the time when Franz would give piano performance to a crowd of shrieking teenage fans while maintaining affairs with his (multiple!) mistresses. He eventually seeks Princess Carolyne of St. Petersburg (at her invitation), elopes, and, after their marriage is forbidden by the Pope, he embraces the monastic life as an abbé.

Two people play out a story of love and desperation that's enacted through music in this drama from writer and director Ivan Vyrypaev. Sasha (Alexei Filimonov) is a man in his twenties who lives in the small town of Serpukhov and has fallen in love with a woman who is also named Sasha (Karolina Gruszka).

Jessie is an aging career criminal who has been in more jails, fights, schemes, and lineups than just about anyone else. His son Vito, while currently on the straight and narrow, has had a fairly shady past and is indeed no stranger to illegal activity. They both have great hope for Adam, Vito's son and Jessie's grandson, who is bright, good-looking, and without a criminal past.

Fictional account of what might have happened if Hitler had won the war. It is now the 1960s and Germany's war crimes have so far been kept a secret. Hitler wants to talk peace with the US president. An American journalist and a German homicide cop stumble into a plot to destroy all evidence of the genocide.

In communist Romania in the 1980th the population collectively watches "Dallas", their only window into capitalism. Inspired by the US-TV-Show a young woman decides to immigrate to America. "Hotel Dallas" mixes documentary scenes with staged and experimental sequences.

A rookie cop is assigned to the 118 Precinct in the same district where he grew up. The Precinct Captain starts receiving letters about two unsolved murders that happened many years ago in the housing projects when the rookie cop was just a kid. These letters bring back bad memories and old secrets that begin to threaten his career and break up his family.

This Canadian film presents and old-fashioned war time romance. It is set during 1942 in Manitoba and traces the doomed affair between a young farmer's wife (Christianne Hirt) whose husband is fighting abroad and a dashing Australian pilot (Russell Crowe). The pilot has come to train in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan of Canada. When the pilot, Lachlan, is not training, he is surreptitiously wooing Lill, the farmer's wife. At the other end of town, Betsy (Wanda Cannon) who supports her two kids by bootlegging, charges for her services. She gets involved with Zeek (Scott Kraft), an American flight instructor.

Tells the seemingly random yet vitally connected story of a set of incidents that all converge one evening at 11:14pm. The story follows the chain of events of five different characters and five different storylines that all converge to tell the story of murder and deceit.

Praying with Lior asks whether someone with Down syndrome can be a spiritual genius. Many believe Lior is close to God -- at least that's what his family and community believe -- though he's also a burden, a best friend, an inspiration and an embarrassment, depending on who is asked and when. As this documentary moves to its climax, Lior must pass through the gateway to manhood - his Bar Mitzvah.

An Episcopal Bishop, Henry Brougham, has been working for months on the plans for an elaborate new cathedral which he hopes will be paid for primarily by a wealthy, stubborn widow. He is losing sight of his family and of why he became a churchman in the first place. Enter Dudley, an angel sent to help him. Dudley does help everyone he meets, but not necessarily in the way they would have preferred. With the exception of Henry, everyone loves him, but Henry begins to believe that Dudley is there to replace him, both at work and in his family's affections, as Christmas approaches.

While spending the summer at her grandmother's farm, a girl (Hanna Höppner) discovers a talent for communicating with horses and tries to tame a fierce stallion.

An unattractive 7th grader struggles to cope with suburban life as the middle child with un-attentive parents and bullies at school.

A friendly St. Bernard named "Cujo" contracts rabies and conducts a reign of terror on a small American town.

Surya is away at war as his father, Krisnan dies of lung cancer. As Surya sits on a plane in combat gear heading into battle, he reminisces about his father's influence in his life. The film opens with the father Krishnan's romance with Malini, which in turn is contrasted with the son's aggressive courting of an engineering student Meghana from a train ride in Tamil Nadu to her graduate studies in Berkeley. The romance is swiftly followed by an extended period of professional and personal uncertainty, in which the son turns back to father figures to help him get back on his feet and seek out his true calling. Well made, though overlong film, reportedly autobiographical about the director's own relationship with his father.