Film Reviews

In the small Central California town where they grew up, two estranged gay brothers struggle to reconnect after the recent death of their father.

In the summer of 1987, a college graduate takes a 'nowhere' job at his local amusement park, only to find it's the perfect course to get him prepared for the real world.

A typical American family - photographer father, two talented daughters, Michelle an accomplished commercial artist with a clear upward career path. Then she has an auto accident, and the head trauma leaves behavioral changes. The part of the brain involved in impulse control is damaged (but the lesion is not visible on the usual CAT scan, and psychological tests are not done). Michelle has no control of her sexual impulses, and changes to 'a thief, a liar, and a whore' as her eventual therapist puts it. The family is broken apart, her sister and mother leave, but the father remains convinced that the daughter he loves is in there somewhere. It is a long and harrowing road to understanding of her sex addiction, and the end is not certain, but hopeful.

13-year-old Sinikka vanishes on a hot summer night. Her bicycle is found in the exact place where a girl was killed 23 years ago. The dramatic present forces those involved in the original case to face their past.

Phillip Filmore is a naive, 15-year-old, preoccupied with sex, who develops a crush on Nicole Mallow, the new 30-something, French housekeeper and sitter to look after him when Phillip's father is out of town for the summer on a "business" trip. But Mr. Filmore's unscrupulous chauffeur, Lester Lewis, takes advantage of Phillip's crush on Nicole to hire her to seduce the youth, then draws her into a plot to fake her own death in a blackmail scheme aimed to drain Phillip's trust fund.

After her boyfriend ends their relationship, the dreamself of a heartbroken woman floats through the air over an industrial wasteland singing ballads of love.

Jimmy Smits leads an all-star ensemble including Diane Lane, Adrian Pasdar, William Devane, Laura San Giacomo and Bradley Whitford in a film that's as fascinating and fast-paced as the medical profession it explores. Third year med school means too much work, too little respect, and striving to impress the chief of surgery (Smits). When Michael (Pasdar) falls in love in fellow student Gina (Lane), whose boyfriend is a resident, he risks his entire future. As the pressure mounts and the emergencies continue nonstop, Michael and Gina learn whether or not they have what it takes to save lives.

China is the first country in the world to classify Internet addiction as a clinical disorder. Caught in the Net features a Beijing treatment center where Chinese teenagers are being "deprogrammed," and follows the story of three boys from the day they arrive at the center, to their three-month treatment period, and their long awaited return home. The film provides a microcosm of modern Chinese life and investigates one of the symptoms of the Internet age. It examines inter-generational pressures and the disregard of the human rights of minors who get caught in the net.

A young soldier faces profound disillusionment in the soul-destroying horror of World War I. Together with several other young German soldiers, he experiences the horrors of war, such evil of which he had not conceived of when signing up to fight. They eventually become sad, tormented, and confused of their purpose.

When Will Stoneman's father dies, he is left alone to take care of his mother and their land. Needing money to maintain it, he decides to join a cross country dogsled race. This race will require days of racing for long hours, through harsh weather and terrain. This young man will need a lot of courage and a strong will to complete this race.

Brave is set in the mystical Scottish Highlands, where Mérida is the princess of a kingdom ruled by King Fergus and Queen Elinor. An unruly daughter and an accomplished archer, Mérida one day defies a sacred custom of the land and inadvertently brings turmoil to the kingdom. In an attempt to set things right, Mérida seeks out an eccentric old Wise Woman and is granted an ill-fated wish. Also figuring into Mérida’s quest — and serving as comic relief — are the kingdom’s three lords: the enormous Lord MacGuffin, the surly Lord Macintosh, and the disagreeable Lord Dingwall.

A businesslike syndicate runs all the gambling joints in town; least profitable is honest Mike Lee's. Under pressure to allow cheating, Mike "walks out," leaving tough-minded daughter Lady Lee to earn a living the only way she knows. She soon becomes a success gambling among the rich, but, falling out with the syndicate, she considers the marriage proposal of blueblood Garry Madison. Can such a match work despite snobbery and old associations?

Jeb Maynard is a patrolman guarding the U.S.-Mexican border, whose partner and buddy Scooter has just been murdered. Maynard knows that a smuggler of illegal aliens is responsible for Scooter's death, but the feds insist that drug dealers committed the crime.

Marina Pinares, the wife of the president of a South American country, insists on being his vice-presidential running mate in the next election. She's no stranger to assassination to get what she wants, so some suspect she'll kill her own husband after the election to become president. In a series of flashbacks we see her rise to power: a party girl willing to sacrifice a friend's virtue to gain favor; the lover of a soldier she later tortures; the mistress of the military man she soon marries.

The deportation of 4000 Jews from Budapest to Auschwitz in July 1944, as told by George Tabori, and how the narrator's mother escaped it, owing to coincidence, courage and some help from where you'd least expect it.