Film Reviews

Set in a Tex-Mex border town, Not Forgotten is a classic psychological thriller about Jack and Amaya Bishop, a couple who must come to terms with their tortured pasts in order to save their kidnapped daughter. It is a tale taut with intrigue and steeped in Latino mysticism, where the line between what's real and what's imagined becomes hopelessly blurred.

Invisible Stripes is a 1939 Warner Bros. crime film about a gangster (George Raft) unable to go straight after returning home from prison. The movie was directed by Lloyd Bacon and also features William Holden and Humphrey Bogart. The screenplay by Warren Duff was based on the novel of the same name by Warden Lewis E. Lawes, a fervent crusader for prison reform, as adapted by Jonathan Finn.

The new science teacher Dr. Julian Olcott with a mysterious past arrives in an institutional boarding school for troublemaker girls. Along the night, the intern Mary Smith, who is blackmailing another teacher - Sir Alfred Whiteman - with some love letters, is slaughtered by a werewolf. The detective in charge of the investigation attributes the crime to a wolf, while her mate Priscilla believes she was killed by Sir Alfred. On the next days, other deaths happen in the school, reducing the list of suspects.

Suki is a young woman confronting her destructive mental illness using "The Siamese Burn," an experimental machine designed to eliminate multiple personalities. The closer Suki comes to being "cured," she's haunted by a thought... what if the last unwanted identity turns out to be her?

A young Danish man, Christoffer, lives a life of joy and happiness with his wife Maria in Stockholm. When his father dies his mother insists that Christoffer take over management of the family industry which is in danger of bankruptcy. He is torn between his chosen life and his sense of duty to his family and its past. When he chooses to step in as manager his family life and self-respect languish.

The time is the late '80s, a crucial period in the history of South Africa. President P.W. Botha is hanging on to power by a thread as the African National Congress (ANC) takes up arms against apartheid and the country tumbles toward insurrection. A British mining concern is convinced that their interests would be better served in a stable South Africa and they quietly dispatch Michael Young, their head of public affairs, to open an unofficial dialogue between the bitter rivals. Assembling a reluctant yet brilliant team to pave the way to reconciliation by confronting obstacles that initially seem insurmountable, Young places his trust in ANC leader Thabo Mbeki and Afrikaner philosophy professor Willie Esterhuyse. It is their empathy that will ultimately serve as the catalyst for change by proving more powerful than the terrorist bombs that threaten to disrupt the peaceful dialogue.

Adapted from Edgar Allan Poe's Fall of the House of Usher, director Jean Epstein studiously avoids cheap shocks in this tale of hereditary madness, choosing instead a tightly controlled, spookily subtle technique. The hero, having indirectly caused the death of his beloved, stubbornly tries to resurrect her spirit by devoting himself to painting and sculpture. Epstein conveys the twilight zone between life and death with lingering dissolves and brilliant utilization of slow motion.

In this film director Yoji Yamada bows down before his teacher and role model. Yamada was assistant director on Yazujirō Ozu’s Tōkyō monogatari, a moving family portrait set after the Second World War. In his remake, Yamada has made very few departures from Ozu’s masterpiece in order to update the story of ageing couple Shukichi and Tomiko to present day Japan. Once again, the pair decides to leave their quiet lives in the country to pay a visit to their children and grandchildren in Tokyo. Once there, they discover that neither their oldest son, a doctor named Koichi, nor their eldest daughter Shigeko - who runs a beauty parlour - has time for them: both are too busy attending to their everyday concerns. Even the youngest son went his own way. The old couple feel lonely and bewildered in the fast-paced metropolis.

There is an ancient ritual known to humankind for more than a hundred years...According to the legend, an ominous entity known as The Queen of Spades can be summoned by drawing a door and staircase on a mirror in the darkness, and by saying her name three times. The Queen of Spades gets her energy from reflective objects; she cuts locks of hair from those asleep, and those that see her go mad or die. Four teenagers decide to call The Queen of Spades as a joke. But when one of them dies of a sudden heart attack, the group realizes they are up against something inexplicable and deadly dangerous.

A drama about a life of two sisters - Nadya and Lida, who both are dreaming about theater and actress career.

A former bank robber is released after 10 years in prison. He gets help from a social-worker, but gets harassed by an old cop from his past.

The time of the French revolution, and Citizen Robespierre is beheading the French aristocracy. When word gets to England, two noblemen, Sir Rodney Ffing and Lord Darcy take it upon themselves to aid their French counterparts. Sir Rodney is a master of disguise, and becomes "the black fingernail", scourge of Camembert and Bidet, leaders of the French secret police...

Arising out of the horror of the Spanish Civil War, a candidate for canonization is investigated by a journalist who discovers his own estranged father had a deep, dark and devastating connection to the saint's life.While researching the life of Josemaria Escriva, the controversial founder of Opus Dei, the young journalist Robert uncovers hidden stories of his estranged father Manolo, and is taken on a journey through the dark, terrible secrets of his family’s past.

This documentary on The UFO Phenomenon aims to show that some UFOs may be extraterrestrial and that secrecy and ridicule are regularly employed to keep the truth about UFOs hidden.

Based on the best-selling novel about a woman who decides that her one goal in life is to have her tongue split, this is the sexy body modification movie you’ve been waiting for. While alone in a nightclub, straight-laced Lui meets sensitive but troubled punk kid Ama (Kengo Kora of last year’s SAD VACATION). Mesmerized by his split tongue, she becomes obsessed with body modification and soon wants the same treatment. After Ama’s heavily-tattooed friend Shiba (Arata, 20th CENTURY BOYS) pierces her tongue, Lui finds herself inexorably drawn to both men – and to her growing list of desires, she now adds a tattoo.