Film Reviews

Born in Los Angeles but a New Yorker by choice, Barbara Hammer is a whole genre unto herself. Her pioneering 1974 short film Dyketactics, a four-minute, hippie wonder consisting of frolicking naked women in the countryside, broke new ground for its exploration of lesbian identity, desire and aesthetic. (from bfi.org.uk)

Early silent short film by Jerzy Skolimowski.

Eddie Kenner (Robert Stack) is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson (Robert Ryan), a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese locals. They use their muscle to take over Tokyo's pachinko racket and commit a series of train robberies, targeting deliveries of military ammunition.

After a few years trying to earn money to marry Jessica Harrison (Sigrid Thornton), Jim Craig (Tom Burlinson) returns to Snowy River. But he finds that a lot of things have changed.

The film follows aspiring singer-songwriter Jed King (Alan Powell) as he struggles to catch a break and escape the long shadow of his father, a country music legend. After reluctantly accepting a gig at a local vineyard harvest festival, Jed is love-struck by the vineyard owner’s daughter, Rose (Ali Faulkner), and a romance quickly blooms. Soon after their wedding, Jed writes Rose “The Song,” which becomes a breakout hit. Thrust into a life of stardom and a world of temptation in the form of fellow performer Shelby Bale (Caitlin Nicol-Thomas), Jed’s life and marriage begin to fall apart.

Stan and Ollie work in a horn factory. Ollie starts having violent fits every time he hears a horn. His doctor prescribes a restful sea voyage. Mayhem ensues.

Down these mean streets a man must come. A hero born, murdered, and born again. When a Rookie cop named Denny Colt returns from the beyond as The Spirit, a hero whose mission is to fight against the bad forces from the shadows of Central City, the Octopus who kills anyone unfortunate enough to see his face who has other plans. He's going to wipe out the entire city.

Employees of the Sleeptite Pajama Factory are looking for a whopping seven-and-a-half cent an hour increase and they won't take no for an answer. Babe Williams is their feisty employee representative but she may have found her match in shop superintendent Sid Sorokin. When the two get together they wind up discussing a whole lot more than job actions! Written by A.L. Beneteau

In the second of Rohmer's moral tales, he examines the relationship between two friends and a girl who at first appears easily exploited. It is a complex tale of feelings and misconceptions, acted out within the head of the main character, as part of Rohmer's attempt to more easily simulate the mindscape quality of literature within a film.

A story of two love affairs. A father's love for his five sons. And one son's love for his father, a love so strong it compels him to live a lie. That son is Zac Beaulieu, born on the 25th of December 1960, different from all his brothers, but desperate to fit in. During the next 20 years, life takes Zac on a surprising and unexpected journey that ultimately leads him to accept his true nature and, even more importantly, leads his father to love him for who he really is.

In 1933 New York, an overly ambitious movie producer coerces his cast and hired ship crew to travel to mysterious Skull Island, where they encounter Kong, a giant ape who is immediately smitten with the leading lady.

Setting up the gracefully jarring dichotomies that disrupt dos Santos’ otherwise “traditional” film, the opening credit montage features the discovery of a body on the train tracks while a cookie-cutter Hollywood soundtrack idly plays. The injured man is Espírito da Luz Cardoso (literally “Spirit of the Light”), a struggling composer whose sambas unite and uplift the marginalized Brazilian people in his midst. Based on the life of composer Zé Keti – who actually appears in the film as the popular singer Alaor – Espírito’s story unfolds through flashbacks which overflow luxuriously with song, yet also expose the manifold divisions within Rio’s social strata. A victim of exploitive businessmen who suck the life out of his music, Espírito witnesses each of his dreams dashed one at a time by unrelenting tragedy. - Harvard Film Archive

An Indian family is expelled from Uganda when Idi Amin takes power. They move to Mississippi and time passes. The Indian daughter falls in love with a black man, and the respective families have to come to terms with it.

Tsukiko is part of the photography club at school, but has always felt less than her sister Tomie. She's cute and very popular among boys. However, one day, Tomie dies in a horrible accident, triggering endless nightmares for Tsukiko. One year later, right when Tomie was supposed to turn 18, someone knocks on the door. Tomie is back. Little by little, Tomie will start to show her darkest side to Tsukiko, making her nightmares come to life.

The sad life and death of Balthazar, a donkey, from an idyllic childhood surrounded by loving children, through adulthood as a downtrodden beast of burden. His life is paralleled with that of the girl who named him, and as she is humiliated by her sadistic lover, so he is beaten by his owner. But he finds a kind of peace when he is employed by an old miller who thinks he is a reincarnated saint.