Film Reviews

Two college student decide to go spend some quality time at a beauty pageant with the help of their Porsche.

In 1981 in Medjugorje (BA), a group of kids claim that Virgin Mary appeared to them on a hill. The local priest believes them and spreads the word. Religious tourism blossoms. The communist government is concerned and arrests the priest.

It’s snowing in Kabul, and gregarious waiter Mustafa charms a pretty student named Wajma. The pair begin a clandestine relationship—they’re playful and passionate but ever mindful of the societal rules they are breaking. After Wajma discovers she is pregnant, her certainty that Mustafa will marry her falters, and word of their dalliance gets out. Her father must decide between his culturally held right to uphold family honor and his devotion to his daughter.

A documentary about juveniles who are serving life in prison without parole and their victims' families.

When her mother moves in, the life of a writer gets crowded.

A World War I British Army patrol is crossing the Mesopotamian desert when their commanding officer, the only one who knows their destination is killed by the bullet of unseen bandits. The patrol's sergeant keeps them heading north on the assumption that they will hit their brigade. They stop for the night at an oasis and awake the next morning to find their horses stolen, their sentry dead, the oasis surrounded and survival difficult.

With Reconversão (Reconversion), Thom Andersen opens another fascinating chapter of his ongoing investigation of architectural landscapes, their filmic representation, and their relation to history, by focusing on 17 buildings and projects by the often-controversial Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura—winner of the 2011 Pritzker Prize. Echoing Dziga Vertov’s concepts and Eadweard Muybridge’s techniques (shooting only one or two frames per second), Andersen masterfully brings forward what makes Souto de Moura an original: the incorporation of the passing of time into architectural designs, positing them within a history fraught with class struggle and societal changes, in a continuum with ruins—from which they may originate, and to which they will return—and with nature—which they frame, and by which they are framed.

Writer Joris (the author's alter-ego) has packed in his job and left his routine. He wanders through Brussels, pretending to be in other places and as far as we can verify lying to everyone. He stays in a dead-beat motel and meets other absurd people, never to any actual end. Will it be different when he meets Luzie and falls in love?

A police officer's partner has died during Hurricane Katrina, but he later discovers that his partner may have been murdered. An investigation follows, taking the officer and his new partner into the depths of the criminal underworld.

In 2001 Jack Cardiff (1914-2009) became the first director of photography in the history of the Academy Awards to win an Honorary Oscar. But the first time he clasped the famous statuette in his hand was a half-century earlier when his Technicolor camerawork was awarded for Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus. Beyond John Huston's The African Queen and King Vidor's War and Peace, the films of the British-Hungarian creative duo (The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death too) guaranteed immortality for the renowned cameraman whose career spanned seventy years.

Pao Lung-Sing, a descendant of the famous Judge Pao Ching Tient, is a 9th degree corrupt judge (lowest degree) who changes his tune when he tries to champion a woman Chi Siu-Lin, who was framed for killing her husband. As a result, Pao is forced to flee and through a series of events (often hilarious) becomes a 1st degree judge and comes back to wreak havoc and justice on the guilty.

On the lazy banks of the Mississippi, a young girl is reunited with her time-served but innocent father. But the reunion is tainted with the whereabouts of the stolen loot, and those who come looking for it... With a luminous cast starring Tommy Lee Jones, Martha Plimpton and Brian Dennehy, this film outstands with simple craft, storytelling, setting and an all but lost cinema magic. Don't miss.

DEEP WATER is the stunning true story of the fateful voyage of Donald Crowhurst, an amateur yachtsman who enters the most daring nautical challenge ever – the very first solo, non-stop, round-the-world boat race.

The small desert town of Black City is held in a reign of terror by a nasty gang of criminals lead by the ruthless Bud Willer. Earnest, but inexperienced Sheriff Jack Ronson arrives in town to establish law and order. Mysterious bounty hunter Django helps Ronson out.

Richard Attenborough, Patrick McGoohan and a host of jazz legends including Charles Mingus and Dave Brubeck star in this 1960s melodrama, inspired by Shakespeare's 'Othello'.