Film Reviews

"Strong Ivan" is a film telling an outstanding life story of Ivan Firtsak who was born in June, 1899 in a Ukrainian village Bilky, Irshava district in Zakarpattia Oblast. At the age of 18 he became a performer with a Czechoslovak circus and travelled to 64 countries of the world, astonishing everybody with his victories. He was a weightlifting champion of Czechoslovakia, a bodybuilding champion of Europe. He earned the nickname Strong Ivan Croton for his incredible strength. Ivan Firtsak won a great number of single combats with famous wrestlers of the world. From hands of the Queen of England he received a helmet and a belt decorated with cold and diamonds. American press called him the strongest man of the XX century. In 1937 in the prime of his fame he came back to the homeland.

Directed by Gian Tavarelli, Liberi (Break Free) centers on the freckle-faced Vince (Elio Germano), whose life in a Roman mountain village is unfulfilling, to say the least. His father Cenzo (Luigi Maria Burruano) lost his job after a local chemical plant closed; shortly afterward, Cenzo's wife Paola (Anita Zagaria) dumped him for a politician. Fed up, Vince travels to the beach town of Pescara and lands a job as a junior cook at a tourist resort. While there, he falls in love with Genny (Nicole Grimaudo), a waitress plagued by a phobia of traveling. Just as the romance begins to take off, Cenzo appears at Vince's doorstep demanding that his son help him get Paola back. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi

One hot afternoon in the south of France, several paths are converging towards a tragic conclusion. Those involved are: Stéphane and Luigi, two cousins who have just emerged from adolescence; Georges, a retired old man; Amélie, Luigi’s girlfriend; and Amélie’s mother Anne. Little do they know how their lives, scarred by fear, humiliation and weariness, will become intertwined and propel them to a terrible outcome...

Swedish efficiency researchers come to Norway for a study of Norwegian men, to optimize their use of their kitchen. Folke Nilsson (Tomas Norström) is assigned to study the habits of Isak Bjørvik (Joachim Calmeyer). By the rules of the research institute, Folke has to sit on an umpire's chair in Isak's kitchen and observe him from there, but never talk to him. Isak stops using his kitchen and observes Folke through a hole in the ceiling instead. However, the two lonely men slowly overcome the initial post-war Norwegian-Swede distrust and become friends.

A Rock 'n Roll version of the Twilight Zone, with four segments: "Disco Inferno," where metalheads find themselves in hell; "My Generation," where hitchhikers help you die before you get old; "Room Service," rock star room-trasher vs. the hotel maid; "More Than a Feeling," an A&R man feels talent in his gut but can't hold on to the artists he finds.

The film follows the Spice Girls and their entourage (mostly fictional characters) - manager Clifford, his assistant Deborah, filmmaker Piers (who is trying to shoot a documentary on "the real Spice Girls") and others in their everyday life.

Matchmaker, Dolly Levi takes a trip to Yonkers, New York to see the "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire," Horace Vandergelder. While there, she convinces him, his two stock clerks and his niece and her beau to go to New York City.

Raoul Ruiz’s enthralling thriller is made up of four intertwining stories of bizarre occurrences in Paris featuring a man who was stolen away by fairies, a professor who becomes a tramp, the lovers who inherit a chateau – and the last tale that connects all that has gone before.

Things have been tough lately for Amelia. Her best friend moved out of the apartment, her cat got cancer, and now her best friend, Laura, is getting married. She copes with things, from the help of Andrew, Frank, Laura, and a brief romance with Bill "The Ugly Guy".