Film Reviews

A six-hour long epic (original director's cut) about the life of Don Cossacs in a village in southern Russia between 1912 and 1922. The leading character Grigori Melekhov is a rugged Cossac, who is torn between his first and true love Aksiniya, and his wife Natalya. Grigori Melekhov's personal life is shown as a rough journey through the experience of World War One, the Russian Revolution, and the following Civil War. The Cossacs are shown as traditional farmers and warriors, who are suffering through the most dramatic events in the history of Russia.

Paul Thomas Anderson joined his close friend and collaborator Jonny Greenwood on a trip to Rajasthan in northwest India, where they were hosted by the Maharaja of Jodhpur, and he brought his camera with him. Their destination was the 15th-century Mehrangarh Fort, where Greenwood was recording an album with Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur and an amazing group of musicians.

A 2,000-year-old astrology board possesses deadly powers that threaten the fate of humanity.

Yeo-jin and Jae-yeong are two teenage girls who are trying to earn money for a trip to Europe. To reach this end, Jae-yeong is prostituting herself while Yeo-jin acts as her pimp, setting her up with the clients and staying on guard for the police. Things take a turn for the worse when Yeo-jin gets distracted from her duty and the police raid the motel where Jae-yeong is meeting with a client. To avoid getting caught, Jae-yeong jumps out of a window, fatally injuring herself.

The Earnshaws are Yorkshire farmers during the early 19th Century. One day, Mr. Earnshaw returns from a trip to the city, bringing with him a ragged little boy called Heathcliff. Earnshaw's son, Hindley, resents the child, but Heathcliff becomes companion and soulmate to Hindley's sister, Catherine. After her parents die, Cathy and Heathcliff grow up wild and free on the Moors and despite the continued enmity between Hindley and Heathcliff they're happy-- until Cathy meets Edgar Linton, the son of a wealthy neighbor. Written by Marg Baskin

Louise and Kasper want to become parents, but Louise cannot have children. She seals a pact with her Romanian maid, Elena, to bear her child, but things don't turn out quite as planned...

The most unusual of all Bartas films, the pre-apocalyptic Seven Invisible Men (2005) starts off like a genre movie – a bunch of robbers trying to evade the police after stealing and selling off a car. It is only after about half an hour, when one of them arrives at a farm that is near completely severed from the rest of the world, that the film moves into the world of Bartas.

Two campers in the New Jersey woods have their outdoor fun interrupted by the arrival of a meteorite crashing nearby. They go to investigate the crater, but are suddenly attacked and devoured by alien parasites who have hitched a ride to Earth. After finishing off the campers, the hungry space monsters head for a nearby town, where they make their domain in the basement of an old house soon begin polishing off one hapless inhabitant after another. Four young teenagers, plus one pre-teen boy, try to find a way to stop the angry space monsters before they reproduce and literally eat humanity.

Hollywood action film star Rafe Stoker has sunk $130,000 of his own money into his own production, but can't find legitimate financing to complete the film. His mob-connected investor demands an exorbitant amount of collateral and a guarantee that Rafe hand over a commercially acceptable film in 4 weeks, then hires a gang of psycho bikers to sabotage the picture to ensure he collects Stoker's collateral. As if a cranky local cop and bad weather didn't slow production enough, Crazy Harvey decides to take Rafe out of the picture after Rafe shows him up once too often.

The Sign of Venus (Italian: Il segno di Venere) is a 1955 Italian comedy film directed by Dino Risi and starring Sophia Loren. It was entered into the 1955 Cannes Film Festival.