Film Reviews

Bourgeois convention is demolished in Luis Buñuel’s surrealist gem. Featuring an elegant soiree with guests seated at toilet bowls, poker-playing monks using religious medals as chips, and police officers looking for a missing girl who is right under their noses, this perverse, playfully absurd comedy of non sequiturs deftly compiles many of the themes that preoccupied Buñuel throughout his career—from the hypocrisy of conventional morality to the arbitrariness of social arrangements.

A private detective is hired to find a missing stripper but the job turns complicated when everyone he questions ends up dead. From the mean streets of Los Angeles to the desolate desert of New Mexico, Cruz must contend with a brutal Russian Boxer, three brash LAPD detectives, an aged billionaire looking for the Big Bang, and the billionaire's stunningly gorgeous wife. The solution to the mystery will cost ten lives, net $30 million and just might explain - well - everything.

iggy Banks tells the story of two charming and brilliant brothers who finance their lifestyle by robbing and murdering pretty much anyone foolish enough to get in the car with them. They learn the business from their sociopath father (Tom Sizemore) who doesn't bother to hide his crimes, or the brutal philosophy which drives it. He tells his sons people are just piggy banks. You need money? Just break one open. Michael is sloppy and reckless he goes about his work with a demented glee, John perhaps even more horrifyingly, understands the misery he inflicts he simply doesn't care. It's just a job. Lock all your doors.

Native Americans in Los Angeles. For 12 hours one Friday night, from late afternoon until dawn, we follow a handful of urban Indians. Yvonne is pregnant, commenting on her life and dreams as she shops, walks home, cooks dinner, and watches her husband Homer leave with his friends. Homer and his pals go bar hopping, play some poker, and end up, bottles in hand, with other Indians on a hilltop. During the night, the men pick up women, there are fights, there's camaraderie, and Homer reflects on life in the city versus life on the reservation. At dawn, Yvonne watches Hector from a window as he and two pals and two women head somewhere. "Let's do it again tonight," says one.

Joey and Sissel are two misfits spending most of their time together talking or having sex. Gradually and slowly their relationships are becoming boring for them.

1972, Milano. We are just a few days before the general elections. The daughter of a well-known professor is found dead. Mr Bizanti editor in chief of newspaper "Il Giornale", in agreement with its owner Mr. Montelli, decides to charge of following the story the junior Roveda and the senior Lauri. At one point, some elements indicates senator Boni as a possible murderer. All the "old guard" within "Il Giornale" drives articles in order to underline responsibilities of senator Boni. But young Roveda doesn't surrender and continues to search for the truth. (IMDb)

Heading through Colorado Territory in search of gold and women, Alferd Packer and his group of bemused companions find themselves lost, starving and musically inspired by the obstacles they confront along the way, including a die-hard Confederate cyclops, a trio of surly trappers, a tribe of Japanese-speaking "Indians," and ultimately, each other.

Lil and Roz are two lifelong friends, having grown up together as neighbors in an idyllic beach town. As adults, their sons have developed a friendship as strong as that which binds their mothers. One summer, all four are confronted by simmering emotions that have been mounting between them, and each find unexpected happiness in relationships that cross the bounds of convention.

Compelling character study, revolving around Jack Flowers (Ben Gazzara), an American hustler trying to make his fortune in 1970s Singapore in small time pimping. He dreams of building a fortune by running a brothel himself and returning to the States to lead a life of luxury. Savvy but not unsavory he strikes up a friendship with William Leigh (Denholm Elliot), a genial and decent auditor who travels to Singapore every year. Ultimately, the background of the Vietnam War comes into the picture as Jack is offered the opportunity by the CIA to run a brothel for the R&R activities of U.S. soldiers on leave in Singapore.

Comedian Vir Das tackles nationalism, globalism, good food and bad politics in two cleverly crosscut performances in New York and New Delhi.

Two former U.S. Army soldiers, Adam Dyer and Josh Corey, join a band of Turkish mercenaries in 1922 Turkey whom are hired by Osman Bey, a local governor, to escort his three daughters to Smyran and to protect a gold shipment that is to accompany them. Nobody is aware that Elci, a local colonel, plans to seal the gold for himself, while a rebel general persuses all parties involved.

Nabeshima Naoshige murders his lord, Takafusa Ryuzoji, seeking to gain power and steal his Lord's wife. To avoid her fate, Lady Takafusa drowns herself along with her cat in a nearby marsh. A decade later, Naoshige's efforts to steal another woman triggers a curse on him when she also commits suicide at the same marsh forcing him to suffer the consequences of his past actions.

Patrick lays comatose in a small private hospital, his only action being his involuntary spitting. When a pretty young nurse, just separated from her husband, begins work at the hospital, she senses that Patrick is communicating with her, and he seems to be using his psychic powers to manipulate events in her life.

Laurel Canyon focuses on Sam and Alex, a pair of upper-middle class lovebirds from the East Coast who relocate to Los Angeles. Enter Jane, Sam's estranged mother, a successful record producer, who's more than willing to put the couple up in her lavish digs. As Sam and Alex settle in at Jane's, they gradually lose their straight-and-narrow approach to life and begin to experiment.

In 1880's China, young Lalu is sold into marriage by her impoverished father. Rather than becoming a bride, Lalu ends up in an Idaho gold-mining town, the property of a saloon owner who renames her China Polly and plans to sell her as entertainment for the locals. Refusing to become a whore, Lalu ultimately finds her own way in this strange country filled with white demons.