Film Reviews

In The Secrets, two brilliant young women discover their own voices in a repressive orthodox culture where females are forbidden to sing, let alone speak out. Naomi, the studious, devoutly religious daughter of a prominent rabbi, convinces her father to postpone her marriage for a year so that she might study at a Jewish seminary for women in the ancient Kabalistic seat of Safe.

Sari is a young, beautiful and intelligent girl who is busy studying at university,but she suffers from epilepsy and has to face death on a daily basis. Mikko is hersomewhat older university teacher, who is tired of life, and who one day decides toabandon his wife, children and idea of a perfect life. Both characters have been tooscared to live their lives to the brim for too long. But they meet, and in spite oftheir prejudices and reserved natures, they manage to create a dramatic and movingmodern romance which confronts numerous taboos. While the imagery explores theboundary between life and death in a most poetic way, the odd couple's romance istold with both bite and humour. Society - be it in the shape of angry ex-wives,overprotective parents, conservative aunts or embittered colleagues - is doing whatit can to put a spanner in the works."

There's nothing like a restful nap in a pleasant wooded valley. But when André awakens and is greeted by a pesky yellow-and-black striped insect with a nasty stinger, he ends up taking a quick (and painful) hike.

Based on the real life story of an incident in 1946 during the Chinese Civil War, the film involves a communist reconnaissance team soldier Yang Zirong who disguised himself as a bandit to infiltrate a local gang of bandits, eventually helping the main communist force to destroy the bandits. Based on the novel "Tracks in the Snowy Forest" by Qu Bo.

CENTRAL PARK is a film about the famous New York City landmark and the variety of ways in which people make use of it: running, boating, walking, skating, music, theatre, sports, picnics, parades and concerts. The film also illustrates the complex problems the New York City Parks Department deals with in order to maintain and preserve the park and keep it open and accessible to the public.

The story of Louis Sarno, an American ethno-musicologist who lived among the Bayaka Pygmies in Central Africa for 25 years.

A scientist discovers a formula that makes a baseball which is repelled by wood. He promptly sets out to exploit his discovery.

When Charlie Brown complains about the overwhelming materialism that he sees amongst everyone during the Christmas season, Lucy suggests that he become director of the school Christmas pageant. Charlie Brown accepts, but is a frustrating struggle. When an attempt to restore the proper spirit with a forlorn little fir Christmas tree fails, he needs Linus' help to learn the meaning of Christmas.

France, present day. A professional conman passes himself off as the boss of a construction site building a highway extension. He cons the whole region, hires dozens of workers and cynically enjoys the profits of his scam until he meets the lady mayor of a small village that the road will go through. She intrigues and unsettles him, before revealing to him a world he never knew: feelings. How far will he go now to save his victims and save himself from his own lies?

Autobots and Decepticons are at war, with humans on the sidelines. Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried in the secrets of the past, in the hidden history of Transformers on Earth.

Coproduced by the U.S.Holocaust Memorial Museum Research Institute,this Academy Award-winning documentary relates the harrowing story of Gerda Weissmann Klein and her journey of survival and remembering both before and after the war.

A well-bred, lovely, spiritual, sad young woman marries an attentive physician who loves her. She feels affection but no love. Soon after, without design, she falls in love with Pedro Abrunhosa, a poet and performance artist. He also loves her. She keeps her distance from him, confessing her love to a friend who is a nun and, later, to her husband. Hunger for her love and jealousy consume him; she attends him as he wastes away. With his death, she can marry and express her passion, but what she does and how she explains herself, particularly to her cloistered friend, is at the heart of the film. Glimpses of convent life and of Abrunhosa on stage give contrast and mute comment.

A Pedro Almodovar production in which a fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before she dies with out telling her family of her illness.

A waitress, desperate to fulfill her dreams as a restaurant owner, is set on a journey to turn a frog prince back into a human being, but she has to do face the same problem after she kisses him.

When a New York reporter plucks crocodile hunter Dundee from the Australian Outback for a visit to the Big Apple, it's a clash of cultures and a recipe for good-natured comedy as naïve Dundee negotiates the concrete jungle. Dundee proves that his instincts are quite useful in the city and adeptly handles everything from wily muggers to high-society snoots without breaking a sweat.