Film Reviews

On planet Perdide, an attack of giant hornets leaves Piel – a young boy – alone in a wrecked car with his dying father. A mayday message reaches their friend Jaffar, an adventurer travelling through space. On board Jaffar’s shuttle are the renegade Prince Matton, his fiancée, and Silbad who knows the planet Perdide well. Thus begins an incredible race across space to save Piel… René Laloux, the director of Fantastic Planet [La Planète sauvage], created Les Maîtres du temps, his penultimate animated feature film, in 1982. A huge hit in France at the time of its release, it combines Laloux’s famous imagination with that of animation designer Jean Giraud (aka Moebius). Les Maîtres du temps is a finely animated metaphysical rescue mission, previously seen in English-speaking countries as a dubbed version entitled Time Masters.

After being denied a promotion at the university where she teaches, Doctor Lily Penleric, a brilliant musicologist, impulsively visits her sister, who runs a struggling rural school in Appalachia. There she stumbles upon the discovery of her life - a treasure trove of ancient Scots-Irish ballads, songs that have been handed down from generation to generation, preserved intact by the seclusion of the mountains. With the goal of securing her promotion, Lily ventures into the most isolated areas of the mountains to collect the songs and finds herself increasingly enchanted.

Ebeneezer Scrooge (Alastair Sim) contentedly meanders through his life as a cruel miser until one fateful Christmas Eve when he is visited by three ghosts. The spirits show him how his behavior over the years has made him a lonely, bitter old man, and how his heart has grown colder. Using events from Scrooge's idealistic past, dreary present and dismal future, the apparitions try their best to melt his steely soul. Tightfisted Ebeneezer Scrooge learns the error of his ways through the intervention of the ghost of his former partner and of the three spirits and, just in time for the holidays, manages to make everyone's lives a little brighter, his included!

Manager Pascaline and chef Angelo have been, for several years, striving toward earning the coveted "chef's hat" in the Gault Millau restaurant guide. Tonight is Valentine's Day: one of the busiest nights of the year. Angelo provides an appropriate menu and Pascaline lovingly sets the tables. As always, Pascaline has everything under control. Her customers expect a lot tonight. For every couple that has won a table they expect to get love on their plate. Hopefully nothing goes wrong.

After the death of his father, a teenage boy forms a healing friendship with a park ranger in the Yorkshire Dales

Dark, mysterious and sensual, Vampirella (Talisa Soto) is a princess from the Planet Drakulon. Like all vampires, she needs blood to live, but she will not kill to get it - a synthetic substitute keeps her alive. After journeying across space and time seeking vengeance for her father's brutal murder, she now finds herself on Earth, in Las Vegas, where her enemy Vlad (Roger Daltry) has disguised himself as a rock star. In order to stop Vlad's doomsday plan for world domination, Vampirella must make a dangerous alliance with a group of hi-tech vampire hunters. It's a race to stop the apocalypse of humanity and our fate is in the hands of the fiery, dangerous and beautiful Vampirella.

This compelling doc chronicles the dedication of military dog teams on the front lines of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Always Faithful" follows five young Marines and their four-legged partners, exploring the intense bond that develops between man and dog as they put their lives on the line day after day.

Charming bon vivant Rudolf is convinced that infidelity is the basis for a happy marriage, since, after all, a woman does not want to be bored with her partner.

During the Florida land boom, the Marx Brothers run a hotel, auction off some land and thwart a jewel robbery.

The young caretaker at the estate of a reclusive woman develops a dangerous obsession with her daughter, a sexy television star. Unexpected twists and turns.

Reese, an elite member of a covert unit of Ninja Warriors, is captured. Being tortured for information, Reese recalls the lessons learned from his training in order to fight his way free and stop an evil conglomerate from arming a dangerous weapon.

Giovanna d'Arco al rogo (English: Joan of Arc at the Stake) is a 1954 Italian film directed by Roberto Rossellini and starring his wife Ingrid Bergman, which shows a live performance on December 1953 at the San Carlo Theatre in Naples. The film takes place mostly in a surrealistic fantasy around the time of the execution of Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc, played by Ingrid Bergman, is being burned alive for heresy. In a kind of dream state, she departs from her body and begins to look back upon her life. She begins this journey in a depressed and demoralized state. However, a priest appears to help guide her. First, he shows her those that accused her in the guise of animal characters, in order to show her their true nature. Then, he shows her the good that she has performed for people. In the end, she is proud of what she has done and is ready to face the flames.

Jennifer Hills is still tormented by the brutal sexual assault she endured years ago. She’s changed identities and cities, reluctantly joining a support group where she begins to piece together a new life. But when her new friend’s murderer goes free and the tales of serial rapists haunt her, Jennifer will hunt down the men responsible and do what the system won’t – make them pay for their crimes in the most horrific ways imaginable. Only this time, no jury may be able to save her.

A traveler obsessed with the supernatural visits an old inn and finds evidence of vampires.

Agatha Christie's classic whodunit speeds into the twenty-first century. World-famous sleuth Hercule Poirot has just finished a case in Istanbul and is returning home to London onboard the luxurious Orient Express. But, the train comes to a sudden halt when a rock slide blocks the tracks ahead. And all the thrills of riding the famous train come to a halt when a man discovered dead in his compartment, stabbed nine times. The train is stranded. No one has gotten on or gotten off. That can only mean one thing: the killer is onboard, and it is up to Hercule Poirot to find him. [from imdb.com]