Film Reviews

Jobless and insecure to the point where he can't even face himself in the mirror, a terrified Máiquel enters a salon to have his hair died platinum blond after losing a soccer bet to a friend. His new look supplying an unexpected jolt of confidence, Máiquel asks Cledir, the salon employee who died his hair, to join him at the bar in celebration. Taunted by local bully Suel upon arrival at the bar, Máiquel decides to settle the matter by purchasing a rifle and shooting down the loudmouthed Suel in the presence of Suel's young girlfriend. Unexpectedly hailed as a hero by his neighbors and the police, Suel's girlfriend subsequently approaches Máiquel and claims that since he killed Suel, it is now Máiquel's responsibility to care for her. Simultaneously learning that Cledir is pregnant and anticipating a marriage proposal, Máiquel's newfound reputation soon catches up to him as the dubious requests of influential locals begin to take their toll on him.

Mary Hale (a singer) and Jimmy Seymour (pianist/composer), are a show biz couple working in The Big Apple in small night clubs hoping to hit it big. One night, Larry Bryant (a Broadway producer) spots Mary and is taken with her beauty and golden voice. Larry Bryant asks her to audition for Mr. Collier and have Jimmy accompany her. After hearing Mary, Collier wants Mary to be in his show. Jimmy encourages a reluctant Mary to go on the road without him. Soon Mary's talent is noticed and her role in the show increases, while Harriet Ingalls the show's original star is pushed out. Ingalls quits promising to seek revenge. After 5 weeks on the road, Mary returns home. Mary is now a big star, while Jimmy's career has gone nowhere, and he feels threatened by Mary's success.

The story concerns two grizzled mountain men -- Bill Tyler and Henry Frapp -- during the dying days of the fur-trapping era. The plot begins when Running Moon runs away from her abusive husband Heavy Eagle and comes across the two seedy fur trappers. The mountain men take her in, unaware that Heavy Eagle has dispatched an army of Indian braves to reclaim her.

While waiting at a train station, Nikki Collins witnesses a murder from a nearby building. When she brings the police to the scene of the crime, they think she's crazy since there's no body. She then enlists a popular mystery writer to help with her sleuthing

Franco, after being fired from his job decides, as compensation for the damage, to steal a bull from his former company.

A plane carrying a troupe of beautiful dancers crashes on a deserted island inhabited by radioactive spiders whose bite turns you into a murderous monster.

Before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Before they were arch-enemies, they were closest of friends, working together with other mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known.

The Lutz family have managed to flee their home with their lives intact, but before them, another family lived in this house and were caught up in the original evil who weren't so lucky...

Chantal Akerman meets with elderly Jewish women in Paris, all of them survivors of the Shoah, and listens to their family stories. Between interviews, Akerman's mother Natalia speaks of her own family. Made for a French miniseries on grandmothers.

Don Knotts is Roy Fleming, a small town kiddie-ride operator who is deathly afraid of heights. After learning that his father has signed him up for the space program, Roy reluctantly heads for Houston, only to find out upon arriving that his job is a janitor, not an astronaut. Anxious to live up to the expectations of his domineering father, Roy manages to keep up a facade of being an astronaut to his family and friends. When NASA decides to launch a lay person into space to prove the worthiness of a new automated spacecraft, Roy gets the chance to confront his fears.

The story of Muhōmatsu, a rickshaw man who becomes a surrogate father to the child of a recently widowed woman. 1958 remake of a 1943 film (same title, same director)

They say a blast of flames can take a life ... and hide a secret. But now firemen brothers Brian and Stephen McCaffrey are battling each other over past slights while trying to stop an arsonist with a diabolical agenda from torching Chicago.

At her husband's funeral, Pearl (Shirley Maclean), Jewish mother of two divorced and antagonistic daughters, meets an old Italian friend (Marcello Mastroianni) of her husband, whose advice years previously had stopped the husband leaving home. For 23 years he, now a widower, has secretly loved Pearl...

Nigel Dennis publishes a scandal magazine. But for each story he writes, he first approaches the person whose scandalous behavior is described (or rather implied, to avoid any libel suit) and says he will suppress the story in return for money. Several of his victims first decide individually to kill him instead of paying, but fail in amusing ways. Then they find that to protect their various secrets they must now join forces for a rather different purpose...

A look at Paul Taylor and his dance company over several months in 1997. Preparation of Taylor's piece, "Piazzolla Caldera," from conception and rehearsals to opening night at City Center, frames the film. The troupe's trip to India falls in the middle. Included are black and white footage of rehearsals, and, in color, interviews with Taylor, his dancers, dance critics and scholars, and those who manage the business side. There is also footage of a younger Taylor dancing and film of the troupe performing a dozen Taylor pieces. His genius, his roots, his method of working with dancers, and his sometimes difficult nature draw the attention of those who comment.