Film Reviews

Adapted from a story by Truman Capote ("In Cold Blood"), the world of the prison convict is open to the viewer. As the story develops, one thing becomes clear. As in the outside world, there is a "system"; and just as on the outside, there is accommodation, honesty, cynicism, violence and all the other factors that make up our society. The film follows the three newcomers, it records the grim, terrifying, sometimes fascinating events that occur.

A groups of astronauts crash-land on Venus and find themselves on the wrong side of a group of Venusian women when they kill a monster that is worshipped by them.

Coming Through the Rye, set in 1969, is a touching coming of age story of sensitive, 16 year old Jamie Schwartz, who is not the most popular kid at his all boys' boarding school. Disconnected from students and teachers, he believes he is destined to play Holden Caulfield, the main character of The Catcher in the Rye, and has adapted the book as a play.

The true story of Oscar, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident, who crosses paths with friends, enemies, family, and strangers on the last day of 2008.

An executive (Dave Foley) after being passed over for a promotion to president storms into his office only to find the man who got the promotion dead. Assuming everyone will think he committed the crime he takes off as a fugitive...

Set in a small town in the Sierra Nevadas, Pine Flat is a look at youth and a meditation on nature, socialization, and solitude.

During the 16th century, Japanese pirates proliferate along the Chinese coastline. In 1557, the pirates take over Cengang in Zhejiang. After months of futile advances, Commander Yu (Sammo Hung) finally defeats them under the leadership of newly promoted General Qi (Vincent Zhao). The pirates, however, manage to escape. In 1561, the pirates regroup and once again attack the coastal cities of China. With both the cities of Xinhe and Taizhou under attack, Qi's army is caught between two fires. Even though most family members of his soldiers are located in Xinhe, Qi makes the tough decision to go to Taizhou and leaves his wife in charge of the fight against the pirates in Xinhe, knowing that the defeat of the pirates' elite team in Taizhou will bring long lasting peace to the coastal cities.

When two souls find one another, nothing can tear them apart. Widower Takumi (Shido Nakamura) lives a quiet life with his six-year-old son Yuji (Akashi Takei) after the loss of wife and mother Mio (Yuko Takeuchi). Yuji unfailingly remembers her promise to him: "I'll be with you again in a year's time, when the rains come." On the first anniversary of her passing, Takumi and Yuji are taking a walk in the woods when they come across a woman sheltering from a monsoon downpour. She bears an uncanny resemblance to Mio, but has no recollection of who she is or what she is doing there. Family life resumes from where they left off, while Takumi and Mio's memories of their first encounter in high school come flooding back. However, their new life together is interrupted by the discovery of Mio's old diary, which reveals the secrets of her past and how they must say goodbye once more in six weeks' time...

One-time Maori speed-chess champ, Genesis Potini, lives with a bi-polar disorder and must overcome prejudice and violence in the battle to save his struggling chess club, his family and ultimately, himself.

A team of softball players get lost in the woods after their bus breaks down. They get attacked, beaten, raped and murdered by some psychotic men. The women fight back with baseball bats and bows and arrows.

Lee Long is a martial-arts champion who the police use as an undercover agent to infiltrate a drug ring responsible for importing heroin from Japan to Hong Kong. When he is identified and imprisoned, the police pressure his sister, Tina Long, to help them locate and free him. She gets the help of Lee's martial-arts school, including the powerful Sonny Kawasaka, for the inevitable battle-royale with the drug gang, which includes masters of many different 'schools' of fighting.

Documentary about the final five, turbulent years in the life of civil rights activist Martin Luther King. The story begins at the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963, when a 34-year-old preacher galvanized millions with his dream for an America free of racism and comes to a bloody end five years later on a motel balcony in Memphis. King has since become a mythic figure, an activist whose works and image are more hotly contested, negotiated and sold than almost anyone else's in American history. (Storyville)

Sochi, Russia. The day before wedding Katya finds her fiancé on a date with a hot blonde, so her classmates Vika, Sveta, and Dasha decide to find Katya a new husband. They have one night only. Will they succeed?

The Deputy Marshall tracks down an escaped convict along with a young deputy and the help of a former prostitute.

In the mid-19th century, Senator William J. Tadlock leads a group of settlers overland in a quest to start a new settlement in the Western US. Tadlock is a highly principled and demanding taskmaster who is as hard on himself as he is on those who have joined his wagon train. He clashes with one of the new settlers, Lije Evans, who doesn't quite appreciate Tadlock's ways. Along the way, the families must face death and heartbreak and a sampling of frontier justice when one of them accidentally kills a young Indian boy.