Film Reviews

THE BANDIT is a film about 70s superstar Burt Reynolds, his best friend, roommate and stunt-double Hal Needham, and the making of their unlikely smash-hit SMOKEY & THE BANDIT. The film tells the action-packed story of the making of SMOKEY, while tracing the vivid personal journeys of Reynolds and Needham from obscurity to stardom and highlighting one of the most extraordinary relationships in Hollywood history. Featuring new interviews with Reynolds, rare archive material, including footage from Reynolds’ personal archive, as well as candid interviews with the late Hal Needham, the documentary tells an exhilarating and moving story about loyalty, friendship and creative risk.

An adopted Ohio high school senior discovers he is the inherited heir to a porn empire. Dropped into a bitter power struggle, his new flock of beautiful co-workers come to his aid.

Bob Hope stars in this laugh-packed wild west spoof co-starring Jane Russell as a sexy Calamity Jane, Hope is a meek frontier dentist, "Painless" Peter Potter, who finds himself gunslinging alongside the fearless Calamity as she fights off outlaws and Indians.

An unemployed man finds his life sinking more and more into trouble as he hides his situation from his family and friends.

A young singer/songwriter, despite being married, becomes involved with her new guitarist, who she soon discovers has a dark past and may be a danger to her and those close to her.

When the reckless actions of an out-of-control LAPD officer get his partner killed in a deadly hostage situation, he gets suspended from the police force and heads to Mexico to face off against corrupt cops.

On Christmas day, a bomb explodes in a shopping mall. The explosion was perpetrated by a serial bomber. A 9-year-old boy Kuro Hazama and his mother Mitsuko (Naho Toda) are seriously and transfered to a university hospital. With the elite skills of surgeon Dr. Jontaro Honma (Masachika Ichimura), Kuro survives, but is shocked to learn his mother is in a coma. Dr. Honma tells Tokio that when medical science advances, Michiko might one day awake. Tokio decides then to become a doctor. 15 years later, 24-year-old Kuro is a medical student and his mother is still in a coma. Kuro researches ways to awaken his mother whilst practising medicine without a licence.

The Coming War on China is John Pilger's 60th film for ITV. Pilger reveals what the news doesn't - that the United States and the world's second economic power, China (both nuclear armed) are on the road to war. Pilger's film is a warning and an inspiring story of resistance.

In this magical tale about the boy who refuses to grow up, Peter Pan and his mischievous fairy sidekick Tinkerbell visit the nursery of Wendy, Michael and John Darling. With a sprinkling of pixie dust, Peter and his new friends fly out the nursery window and over London to Never-Never Land. The children experience many wonderful and exciting adventures with the Lost Boys, Tiger Lily's Indian tribe, and Peter's arch enemy the dastardly pirate Captain Hook.

Classic Indian film starring Aasia, Afzaal Ahmad and Iqbal Hassan

The wealthiest man in the world, John P. Merrick, is a private person who likes to stay anonymous. One of his many assets, so small that he didn't even knew that he owned it, is Neeley's Department Store. There is labor unrest at the store, and the employees' anger is directed at Merrick, who they hang in effigy outside the store despite not knowing what he looks like. Merrick, not happy at what he sees going on, decides to mete out the rabble-rousers. So he goes undercover as a sales clerk, Thomas Higgins, in the shoe department. However, he soon befriends many of the employees and begins to see things from their point of view.

The film Nienasycenie / INSATIABILITY, directed by Wiktor Grodecki based on the novel of the same title by Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, was selected for the Berlin International Film Festival. The film will be screened as part of the festival's Panorama section.

Paul de Marseul, a prestigious wine-maker and owner of a renowned chateau and vineyard in Saint-Emilion, is disheartened by the notion of his son Martin taking over the family business. Martin does not seem to have inherited the qualities that Paul esteems in a wine-maker: persistence, creative insight and technical prowess matched with passion for the job and the product, and Paul frequently reminds him of this, whether explicitly or in subtle gestures. When Philippe, the son of his manager, appears at the vineyard, Paul leaps at the chance to name him as his successor, neglecting the wishes of his own son...

Rebellious footballer Johnny, falls for cheerleader Tracy. They come from opposite backgrounds; she's from a comfortable well off family, he is poor and broken. Tracy already has a boyfriend but he acts like a jerk, so Johnny has to win Tracy's heart - something she seems reluctant to let him do.

Prince Leo, last in the line of rulers of a long-deposed monarchy on continental Europe and jaded with the frenetic search for kicks with the European jet-set, returns to his father's London town house for rest.