Film Reviews

Intended as the concluding film in the trilogy on the modern history of Taiwan began with Beiqing Chengshi (1989), this film reveals the story through three levels: a film within a film as well as the past and present as linked by a young woman, Liang Ching. She is being persecuted by an anonymous man who calls her repeatedly but does not speak. He has stolen her diary and faxes her pages daily. Liang is also rehearsing for a new film that is due to go into production soon. The film, entitled Haonan Haonu, is about a couple Chiang Bi-yu and Chung Hao-tung who returns to China to participate in the anti-Japanese movement in China in the 1940s and are arrested as communists when they go back to Taiwan.

When Robin meets the lovely Jamika he thinks he's in heaven. But when he meets her friend Bebe's children, whom she is looking after, he knows he's in hell. Bebe's kids are the most obnoxious, irritating, pain in the butt kids he has ever met. Written by Brian W Martz

Sam Ellis is a man on the rise — a hot-shot federal prosecutor on the cusp of a bright political future. But what was meant to be a one-time experience with an escort turns into a growing addiction — a new demon threatening to destroy his life, family, and career.

Gaby owns a farm on which he raises lambs: Bouchard & Sons Farm. But he has no sons. Rather, he has two daughters that he raised like princesses and who live far away, in the big city. One day, the oldest asks him for some financial support so she doesn't end up losing her house...

THE FALLEN is a three-sided story about German, Italian, and American soldiers, set in Northern Italy during the final weeks of the World War II. On the one side, a group of American supply soldiers delivers ammunition to the front line, a journey that becomes a descent into hell, the success of the mission becomes less likely with every setback. On the other, a doomed German unit and their ragtag Italian partners struggle to maintain morale and discipline amongst their beleaguered troops in the face of certain defeat. Torn between these are the divided loyalties of the Italians, both fascist soldiers and communist partisans, who have turned brother against brother in a bloody civil war. The film looks at the everyday life of the soldiers, their encounters on the road, their hopes and dreams, and the differences in values, morals, and patriotism between the cultures at the end of that era.

A flirt tries to make her fiancée jealous by hiring a gigolo.

A policeman is assigned by his superior officer to find and apprehend escaped convict Richard B. Riddick, Riddick was being transported on-board space transport vessel "Hunter-Gratzner" carrying on-board 40 people, where a bounty hunter named Johns who captured him was escorting him to the penal colony "Slam City" and claim the bounty on his head. But the "Hunter-Gratzner" was struck by a meteor shower and crashed on a desert planet, where Riddick and 10 survivors were marooned. The policeman decides to hire a female bounty hunter to track down and capture Riddick alive. The female bounty hunter begins to suspect there is something more behind the "Hunter-Gratzner" incident and learns one of the survivors, Paris P. Ogilive was carrying on-board "Hunter-Gratzner" a priceless collection of artifacts and learns the back-stories of the 10 survivors as well as Riddick.

An average guy who works in a recycling plant wakes up one morning to discover that he's become inexplicably famous.

Pop sensations Alvin, Simon and Theodore end up in the care of Dave Seville's twenty-something nephew Toby. The boys must put aside music super stardom to return to school, and are tasked with saving the school's music program by winning the $25,000 prize in a battle of the bands. But the Chipmunks unexpectedly meet their match in three singing chipmunks known as The Chipettes - Brittany, Eleanor and Jeanette. Romantic and musical sparks are ignited when the Chipmunks and Chipettes square off.

Paul Hubsschmid is Paul Finney aka Upperseven, master of disguise. He's out to stop a diamond smuggling operation which fronts for a missile building project.

Harper, a writer who's about to explode into the mainstream leaves behind his girlfriend Robin and heads to New York City to serve as best man for his friend Lance's wedding. Once there, he reunites with the rest of his college circle.

A caretaker at a summer camp is burned when a prank goes tragically wrong. After several years of intensive treatment at hospital, he is released back into society, albeit missing some social skills. What follows is a bloody killing spree with the caretaker making his way back to his old stomping ground to confront one of the youths that accidently burned him.

Four hardened crooks break out of prison. Hunted down, with nowhere to run, they seek refuge in the only place the police cannot follow, a Cistercian monastery. Cut off from the outside world, a nightmare stand off develops between the fugitives, ready to kill in defence of their dearly purchased freedom, and the monks they' re holding hostage. But in this potentially lethal confrontation, nothing is quite as it seems. The game' s been rigged from the start. Requiem' s a violent and fast paced French film that really delivers.

In post-Civil War Kentucky, young David Burnic becomes the unexpected heir to the family secret, a map leading to buried treasure on the Florida isle of Matecumbe.

Dazzling and raucous, Ryan Trecartin's first feature-length video takes cues from chat rooms, social networking web sites, YouTube, John Waters, and Pee-wee’s Playhouse, and then turns them upside down and inside out to create an entirely singular video genre. In I-Be AREA Trecartin intertwines the stories of an incredible ensemble cast to follow a day in the life of I-BE II, the rebellious clone of I-BE (played by Trecartin). (Wexner Center of the Arts)