Film Reviews

An account of karate competitor Choi Yeung-Eui who went to Japan after World War II to become a fighter pilot but found a very different path instead. He changed his name to Masutatsu Oyama and went across the country, defeating martial artists one after another. This film concentrates on the period when he is still young, and developing his famous karate style, Kyokushin.

An adult-oriented version of what would eventually become an award-winning children's classic. This version of the show features Pee-wee's playhouse and many of the characters of the later series, but with adult and sexual overtones and jokes including "mirror shoes" and others.

A documentary about ten very different lives connected by having appeared onscreen wearing masks or helmets in Star Wars.

A man tries to find a son he gave up for adoption years ago.

Emmy-winning actor-comedian Robert Wuhl assumes the role of college professor in this hilarious history lesson conducted in front of an audience of actual New York City college students. Four segments explore the lesser-known aspects of America's storied past that everybody thought they already knew -- including the truth about Paul Revere, the hypocrisy of several founding fathers and the origin of many "modern" ideas.

In this classically surreal fantasy, a sailor, known for telling tales, sees a student killing his teacher and decides to spin a few yarns for him. He tells the boy of his many adventures in exotic South American ports where he visited opium dens and stayed in cathouses. In such dark, dreamlike places, the sailor meets many strange, mystical characters.

When Edward Creighton leads the construction of the Western Union to unite East with West, he hires a Western reformed outlaw and a tenderfoot Eastern surveyor.

Three siblings ingeniously avoid being sent off to a children's home while their solo-mother serves a short sentence in a prison for shoplifting. Rather than have the news leak out and have to be escorted off with the eccentric welfare officer, they invent a 'never present' dad who is looking after them.

An aging Hollywood star, Joe Scott, lives a life of narcissistic hedonism, observed by his laconic personal assistant, Ophelia. The death of his childhood best friend, Boots, takes our protagonist, and the movie, into an extended flashback to a sea-side town in 1970's Britain.

A mother goes to Hollywood to find her runaway daughter. She discovers that the girl has become involved in the pornography industry, and goes to the police to get help in finding her.

It is the 1960s. Two Maori families, the Mahanas and the Poatas, make a living shearing sheep on the east coast of New Zealand. The two clans, who are bitter enemies, face each other as rivals at the annual sheep shearing competitions. Simeon is a 14-year-old scion of the Mahana clan. A courageous schoolboy, he rebels against his authoritarian grandfather Tamihana and his traditional ways of thinking and begins to unravel the reasons for the long-standing feud between the two families. Before long, the hierarchies and established structures of the community are in disarray because Tamihana, who is as stubborn as he is proud, is not prepared to acquiesce and pursue new paths.

Paquita and her brother Venancio, both single and childish, live in a small town near Madrid. Their bossy eldest sister Ignacia, also an old maid, dominates them. One night, Paquita hears her sister tell somebody about her intention to sell all the family wealth. Once the money is gathered, she wishes to travel to Paris with the mysterious person and get rid of her brother and sister.

The Inuit of Belcher Islands struggle to adapt as their environment changes.

A Gainesville Florida auto upholsterer (Giamatti) attempts to subvert his mundane life by training a wild, red-tailed hawk.

Odessa is a beautiful girl addicted to the attention and money that being an adult film star brings. William, a lonely mechanic, has a crush on her, and she indulges his fantasy and leads him on. Thinking he can save her and help her find a normal life, he befriends her drug-fueled bodyguard, Angry Jack, to get close to her.