Film Reviews

A coming of age drama following the life of Matt Hamill, the first deaf wrestler to win a National Collegiate Wrestling Championship.

Diane is a well-known lawyer, divorced for three years. She loses her mobile telephone and receives a call from the person who finds it. That person is Alexandre, a charming man and the perfect gentleman. They make a connection over the phone and agree to meet up the following day. But when Alexandre arrives, there's a surprise in store when Diane discovers he is only 4' 6" tall. From that moment on, Diane tries to overcome the prejudices of society and her own fears to experience the best time of her life...

During the medieval times, Martin Guerre returns to his hometown in the middle of France, after being away in the war since he was a child. Nobody recognise him, and the people who knew him suspect he is not Martin, but he knows all about his family and friends, even the most unusual things. Is this man really Martin Guerre?

Going beyond the occasional news clip from Burma, the acclaimed filmmaker, Anders Østergaard, brings us close to the video journalists who deliver the footage. Though risking torture and life in jail, courageous young citizens of Burma live the essence of journalism as they insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country.

Poking fun at his much-publicized brouhaha with Southwest Airlines, writer, director, actor and ardent podcaster Kevin Smith declares himself too fat for his 40th birthday in a hilarious Q-and-A session with his rabidly loyal fans. Filmed at the Count Basie Theater in Smith's hometown of Red Bank, New Jersey, this two-hour comedy special spotlights not only Smith's self-deprecating sense of humor, but also his fondness (and true gift) for spinning a good yarn.

Garvey is a San Francisco pawnshop operator. His unemployed and criminal friends Dillard, Turtle, and Weslake, team up with Boardwalk, a local pimp, to burgle Garvey's shop while the owner is out of town. During the elaborate planning process, Dillard falls for a Hispanic woman, the sister of a friend. Also, Boardwalk is assigned to case a local apartment, where he meets and falls for the maid. Amidst all these romantic hijinks, Weslake puts together a burglary plan, which is executed by the makeshift gang.

Ding Bo (Chen Po Lin) and his friends Nan Feng (Fan Bingbing) and Fei Zao aka Fatso (Fei Long) are a trio of 20-something outsiders who have no intention of sitting exams and getting into universities. When they need a new home, they answer an ad placed by lonely, retired Chinese opera singer Chang Yue Qin (Sylvia Chang), who is mourning the death of her son, and move into her sprawling Chengdu apartment. Right off the bat, the four clash over lifestyle and values, with the bratty trio seeing fit to steal from her and invade her privacy. However, slowly but surely a bond among them develops and everyone eventually learns something from the next.

World-famous architect Louis Kahn (Exeter Library, Salk Institute, Bangladeshi Capitol Building) had two illegitimate children with two different women outside of his marriage. Son Nathaniel always hoped that someday his father would come and live with him and his mother, but Kahn never left his wife. Instead, Kahn was found dead in a men's room in Penn Station when Nathaniel was only 11.

A portrait of an unnamed city in Italy. Sidestepping the tourist attractions that make the city famous, the film/video posits an almost-imaginary place that draws closer to the reality of its inhabitants. Using a voiceover narration that collages direct observation, literary texts, historical fact, local folklore, and a bit of sheer fabrication, the film/video melds documentary and narrative, past and present. Visuals range from verite street footage, to formal portraits of residents, to an unusual type of time lapse cinematography that allows filming in the low-intensity light of night landscapes and museum interiors. Made in collaboration with local residents and institutions, Amber City reflects on the "in-betweeness" of places whose historical and geographical location renders their reality strangely invisible.

The film is a sub-story to Kirikou and the Sorceress rather than a straight sequel. The movie is set while Kirikou is still a child and Karaba is still a sorceress. Like Princes et princesses and Les Contes de la nuit, it is an anthology film comprising several episodic stories, each of them describing Kirikou's interactions with a different animals. It is however unique among Michel Ocelot's films, not only in that it is co-directed by Bénédicte Galup (who has previously worked with him as an animator) but also for each of the stories being written by a different person (in all other cases, Ocelot has been the sole writer and director of his films).

A rising Boston gangster (Ben Barnes) endangers those around him when he starts to make moves without the knowledge of his boss (Harvey Keitel).

After a car accident, a woman with a seemingly perfect life begins to have visions that suggest she is not who she thinks she is.

Set in old England, Hugh Grand ("Four Weddings & a Funeral", "Notting Hill") plays a highwayman who steals from the rich and gives to the poor. But during one of his robberies, he falls in love with an aristocratic lady, Emma Samms ("Star Quest", "Delirious"). Now, he is forced to choose between his true love or his true cause. This swash-buckling romantic adventure will have you on the edge of your seat with every swing of Hugh's savage sword.

A man, accompanied by a dog, struggles through snow on a mountain side. We see film stock blister; drawn square shapes appear. Then, we see an infant's face. The images of struggling climber, baby, blurred film stock, large snow flakes, and what may be microscopic details of matter are superimposed on each other, one dominating the frame briefly to be replaced by another. As the man falls in the snow and tries to regain his feet, the baby continues to appear, first with eyes closed. Alternately, images rush by - montages of paper cutouts and life under a microscope.

A shy but gentle man named Clifford Skridlow is a professor of comparative literature at the financially-strapped fictional Monroe College in Chicago. A chance encounter with four beautiful women at a restaurant changes his life forever.