Film Reviews

Pointing out the importance of maintaining a playful spirit, which we all have when we are kids and society forces us to abandon in our adult lives, Drops of Joy is a documentary that speaks widely about the idea that playing is something very serious and urgent.

Just weeks after being diagnosed with a rare and incurable form of cancer, 31-year-old actress Kris Carr turned the camera on herself as she embarked on the fight of her life. The result is this moving and funny inspirational documentary. In need of experimental treatment, Carr travels the country seeking experts on alternative medicine and, along the way, meets other cancer-stricken women driven to survive.

Lyle is filled with rage. After badly beating a classmate during a schoolyard fight, Lyle is committed to a juvenile mental institution in lieu of criminal prosecution. Inside the hospital, Lyle encounters a group of adolescents struggling with a variety of illnesses.

Bank robber Kelle Grabowski escapes from prison while his unemployed smalltime crook buddy is sitting around doing nothing after he just lost all their money. A fast paced comedy from German director Peter Thorwarth.

A kind-hearted fisherman, content with simple life, is reluctantly drawn into helping a noble emperor regain his throne from his evil brother.

Gregoire Canvel has everything a man could want: a wife he loves, three delightful children and his dream job - he is a film producer. Discovering talented filmmakers and developing films that fit his conception of the cinema, free and true to life, is precisely his reason for living. Gregoire devotes almost all of his time and energy to his work. Although he spends weekends with his family at their house in the country, even these precious moments are regularly interrupted by demanding directors and concerned investors. While Gregoires very presence commands admiration, and his exceptional charisma lead many to believe he is invincible, the future of his prestigious production company, Moon Films, is in doubt; too many productions, too many risks, too many debts. Storm clouds are gathering, and Gregoires realisation that he may have made one gamble too many will trigger a series of events that will change the lives of his family forever.

In 1913, laconic sea captain Corto Maltese, adrift in the Pacific, gets rescued by his bandit friend Rasputin who's taking two rich shipwrecked teens to an island where his boss the Monk will hold them for ransom. WWI complicates things.

Marina, 23, is growing up with her architect father in a prototype factory town by the sea. Finding the human species strange and repellent, she keeps her distance. Instead she chooses to observe it through the songs of Suicide, the mammal documentaries of Sir David Attenborough, and the sexual-education lessons she receives from her only friend, Bella. A stranger comes to town and challenges her to a foosball duel, on her own table. Her father meanwhile ritualistically prepares for his exit from the 20th century, which he considers to be "overrated." Caught between the two men and her collaborator, Bella, Marina investigates the wondrous mystery of the human fauna.

This is the story of four African-American "yuppies" (a banker, a doctor, a lawyer, and a "playboy") who call themselves "The Brothers". When the playboy gets engaged, the other three friends find themselves having to come to terms with their own issues of commitment and honesty...

Around the World in 80 Days is a 1989 three-part television Eastmancolor miniseries originally broadcast on NBC. The production garnered three nominations for Emmy awards that year. Starring Pierce Brosnan as Phileas Fogg, Eric Idle as Passepartout, Julia Nickson as Princess Aouda, and Peter Ustinov as Detective Fix, the miniseries featured multiple cameo appearances, including Patrick Macnee, Simon Ward, and Christopher Lee as members of the Reform Club, and Robert Morley, who had a cameo in the 1956 film adaptation, and Roddy McDowall appear as officials of the Bank of England. The heroes travel a slightly different route than in the book, and the script makes several contemporary celebrities part of the story who were not mentioned in the book, such as Sarah Bernhardt, Louis Pasteur, Jesse James, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Queen Victoria.

A young man is torn between following in his brothers' footsteps or striking out on his own.

Mary Hagen lives in a small town in Ohio and goes to Jordon Junior College. For years, there has been whispers, rumors and gossip about who are her real parents. When Tom Bates returns to town, he takes over the house and practice that Judge Merrivale left him when he died. As Tom has been away a number of years, this leads to more gossip and Mary believes that he is her father. The popular and rich Ken loves Mary, but his family and friends constantly remind him that she is 'not one of us'. Julia, a teacher at school encourages Mary but Mary cannot get a break in anything she does, or is accused of doing. Tom knows the answer to her true identity, and he is silent.

A teenage boy takes a job as a counselor at a summer camp. He finds that the camp is run like a military training camp, and he resolves to turn it into Party Central.

This hand drawn animated film, based on the award winning graphic novel by Raymond Briggs, is an intimate and affectionate depiction of the life and times of his parents, two ordinary Londoners living through extraordinary events.

Hoping to alter the events of the past, a 19th century inventor instead travels 800,000 years into the future, where he finds humankind divided into two warring races.