Film Reviews

He had everything and wanted nothing. He learned that he had nothing and wanted everything. He saved the world and then it shattered. The path to enlightenment is as sharp and narrow as a razor's edge.

How tenuous is man's hold on civilization when survival becomes an issue? When the lights go out and stay out for several days, suburbanites Matthew and Annie learn the hard way that man is "by nature" a predatory creature. Matthew's long-time friend, Joe, happens by on the second day and a rivalry between the two friends simmers as Annie cares for her sick baby. . Is this what is meant by "man's inhumanity to man?"

Documentary film that examines the rise and fall of the Third Reich, incorporating puppetry, rear-screen projection, and a Wagnerian score into a singular epic vision. The director, who grew up under Nazi tyranny, ruminates on good and evil and the rest of humanity's complicity in the horrors of the holocaust.

This consists of four short films by different directors. Rosselini's 'Chastity' ('Illibatezza') deals with an attractive air hostess who receives the unwelcome attentions of a middle aged American. Godard's 'New World' ('Il Nuovo Mondo') illustrates a post-apocalypse world the same as the pre-apocalyptic one but for an enigmatic change in attitude in most people, including the central character's girlfriend. In Pasolini's 'Curd Cheese' ('La Ricotta'), a lavish film about the life of Jesus Christ is being made in a poor area. The impoverished people subject themselves to various indignities in the name of moviemaking in order to win a little food. The central character is hoisted up on a cross for filming, and dies there. Finally comes Gregoretti's 'Free Range Chicken' ('Il Pollo Ruspante') in which a family of the materialist culture inadvertantly illustrate the cynical, metallic voiced doctrine of a top sales theorist.

A tough detective who is part of an elite New York City unit is trying to find out who killed his partner, but uncovers a plot to kidnap mobsters for money.

Two brothers intercept 911 calls in their Father's beat up old Ambulance to exact revenge on a group of careless teen drivers.

In the sleepy suburbs of Miami, seemingly normal Egyptian immigrant Fuad Ramses (Mal Arnold) runs a successful catering business. He also murders young women and plans to use their body parts to revive the goddess Ishtar. The insane Ramses hypnotizes a socialite in order to land a job catering a party for her debutante daughter, Suzette Fremont (Connie Mason), and turns the event into an evening of gruesome deaths, bloody dismemberment and ritual sacrifice.

A group of women, including Skipper, the wealthy young Jennifer and the domineering Nan, journey from the United States to South America in hopes of easily adopting children. Unfortunately, their plans are complicated by local laws that require the women to live in the foreign nation for an extended period before they can take in orphaned kids. While stuck in another country, the women bond as they share their aspirations and anxieties.

PK, an English orphan terrorized for his family's political beliefs in Africa, turns to his only friend, a kindly world-wise prisoner, Geel Piet. Geel teaches him how to box with the motto “fight with your fists and lead with your heart”. As he grows to manhood, PK uses these words to take on the system and the injustices he sees around him - and finds that one person really can make a difference.

In Akira Kurosawa's gritty Stray Dog, a young police detective gets his pistol stolen on a crowded bus during the oppressive heat of a late 1940s Tokyo summer. The gun is later used in a robbery and murder making finding it even more important.