Film Reviews

JUVENILE COURT shows the complex variety of cases before the Memphis Juvenile Court: foster home placement, drug abuse, armed robbery, child abuse, and sexual offenses. The sequences illustrate such issues as community protection vs. the desire for rehabilitation, the range and the limits of the choices available to the court, the psychology of the offender, and the constitutional and procedural questions involved in administering a juvenile court.

Known as one of the best and most prolific comedians working today, Christopher Titus releases his sixth 90-minute comedy special, The Angry Pursuit of Happiness, his best performance to date. The show takes the audience on a wild ride from Titus’ solution to the world’s problems,he fixes everything in a way you wont believe, to his insight on “Here’s how life goes” to his ‘me-logy,’ where Titus gives his own eulogy. Titus takes this special to new comedic places he hasn’t gone yet. At an hour and 45 minutes it’s double what a normal special brings, as Titus says “We need comedy to get rid of our desire to kill”

A young man inherits a nearly bankrupt funeral home from his estranged father. He falls in love with the alluring young mortician, only to find out she's offing people to keep the place in business!

Chan goes to Paris for a reunion with friends from World War I. There he investigates the murder of a munitions manufacturer who was supplying arms to the enemy. At the end Charlie preaches to us about the dangers of peace conferences.

When honest ship captain Roy Glennister gets swindled out of his mine claim, he turns to saloon singer Cherry Malotte for assistance in his battle with no-good town kingpin Alexander McNamara.

Burt Reynolds stars as Jefferson Steel, a washed-up Hollywood action star desperate to revive his flagging career. When his sleazy agent signs him up for what he believes is a high-profile Royal Shakespeare Company production of King Lear at Stratford upon Avon, Steel thinks he has finally landed the plum role he has been waiting for. However, he soon discovers that he has been tricked into joining an amateur dramatics group for a charity production.

Undercover cop Jim Raynor (Jason Patric) is a seasoned veteran. His partner, Kristen Cates (Jennifer Jason Leigh), is lacking in experience, but he thinks she's tough enough to work his next case with him: a deep cover assignment to bring down the notoriously hard-to-capture drug lord Gaines (Gregg Allman). While their relationship turns romantic during the assignment, they also turn into junkies, and will have to battle their own addictions if they want to bring down Gaines once and for all.

Investigating the mysterious deaths of a number of farm animals, vet Rack Hansen discovers that his town lies in the path of hoards of migrating tarantulas. Before he can take action, the streets are overrun by killer spiders, trapping a small group of towns folk in a remote hotel.

Thirty years on from the 1984 Union Carbide plant malfunction, the consequences of which are tragically ongoing, A Prayer for Rain is the powerful and moving story of the Bhopal tragedy, one of the great corporate and environmental scandals of the last half-century. It dramatises the dependence of the local community on the chemical plant that will eventually cause catastrophe, and the series of oversights that led to an event that stands as a benchmark for corporate irresponsibility in the developing world.

A host of real-life celebrities - including Hugh Hefner, Stan Lee, and Kevin Smith - journey into the world of comic book fandom! Documentary filmmaker Donald Swan heads to the world's largest comic book convention where he encounters a culture of craziness that he's totally unprepared for.

When Miley Stewart (aka pop-star Hannah Montana) gets too caught up in the superstar celebrity lifestyle, her dad decides it's time for a total change of scenery. But sweet nibblets! Miley must trade in all the glitz and glamour of Hollywood for some ol' blue jeans on the family farm in Tennessee, and question if she can be both Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana. With a little help from her friends – and awesome guest stars Taylor Swift, Rascal Flatts and Vanessa Williams – will she figure out whether to choose Hannah or Miley?

MOSES AND AARON finds Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, through their exemplary craft, transforming a familiar Biblical tale into a borderline-surreal cinematic opera of seemingly endless possibility. In expressive, melodic tones, the fraternal pair debate God’s true message and intent for His creations, a conflict that leads their followers — in extravagantly choreographed song and dance — towards chaos and sin. Set almost entirely within a Roman amphitheater whose history lends every precise line-reading and gesture, every startling camera move and cut, a totalizing force, Straub-Huillet’s adaptation of Schoenberg’s unfinished opera opens us to the stimulating worldview of a filmmaking duo whose masterful efforts are finally coming to light.

Stewart McBain (Coleman) is a real-estate mogul who spends his living blowing up old buildings to make room to erect new buildings. All goes as planned for a new subdivision, until a group of protesters object to the destruction of one lonely, ugly building, called the Dutch House. Typically, the media is sent to the scene of the protest, and McBain appears on TV in a bad way. His children - Daphne (Thurman), Chloe (Amis), and Jimmy (Hewlett) - ridicule him for appearing on TV, and as a reward for their remarks, he drops them off at the Dutch House with $750 apiece, and tells them they're on their own. They must find jobs if they expect to make money to stay warm. McBain and his wife, Jean watch from afar as their children adapt to their new lifestyle, meeting new friends, and inviting others into their new home, including a decrepit bum.

Set in Hong Kong and Vancouver, the story follows Mac Ramsey and Li Ann Tsei, lovers and professional thieves who are separated while fleeing the powerful Hong Kong underworld crime lord who raised and trained them. After being imprisoned in Hong Kong, Mac is forcefully recruited into a clandestine international crime-fighting unit by a hard-nosed, menacing Director. He is teamed in Vancouver with Li Ann, who thought Mac was dead, and her new fiancé Victor Mansfield, an ex-cop who is attracted to the unorthodox methods of the agency. Conflict flares between Mac and Victor as the trio take on their assignment. They soon learn that their principal target is their foster brother Michael Tang, who had been given Li Ann as his future wife and who has vowed to hunt down the pair for their disloyalty to the "family".

The classic Nicolas Gogal fable The Overcoat is given a European flavor by Italian filmmaker Alberto Lattuada; some consider the film to be Lattuada's best "psychological study." Comedian Renato Rascel plays a nebbishy nobody who spends his life-savings on a fancy overcoat. Suddenly, the nobody becomes a somebody, proving beyond doubt that clothes make the man. And then one day, the overcoat is stolen...Fleshing out the short-but-bittersweet Gogol original are several colorful new characters, including a publicity-hungry small-town mayor, played by Giulio Stival. The background music was composed by director Lattuada's wife Felice. American prints of Il Cappato are missing a so-called "naughty" telephone exchange between the mayor and his silken mistress.