Film Reviews

Botany major Buster mistakenly graduates in electrical engineering and is hired to wire a new home.

As a privileged teenager living in an affluent suburb of Rio de Janeiro, Jean has little to worry about beyond games, grades and girls. But as his overbearing father drags the family into debt, Jean is forced into a change of lifestyle which opens his eyes to the world beyond his 'casa grande' - not least that of the feisty, mixed-race firecracker Luiza. Cultures, classes and generations collide in this engrossing coming-of-age drama from Brazil.

A man meets the daughter of his lover and they begin to fall in love.

Denis Hopkins, a pilot, lives with his pregnant wife Valerie and has a comfortable lifestyle. When a gang of criminals led by the sadistic Ricky Barnes breaks into his home, he offers whatever the criminals want to protect his wife and unborn child, but the evil Ricky kills Valerie anyway. Their baby is saved, and later Barnes is arrested and sentenced to life in the maximum security prison, Sullen Voe. Denis fakes his own suicide, then assaults a police car in order to get himself arrested and sent to prison with the intention of tracking down and killing Ricky Barnes. He does not reveal his true name and is called John "What" by the prisoners and guards. Denis escapes from successive prisons, forcing his eventual transfer to Sullen Voe. When he reaches his objective, Ricky Barnes schedules a confrontation, but things do not quite turn out the way Denis had expected.

Sam has a problem with his roommates: they are disgusting, and don't seem to share his views on responsibility, privacy, and basic hygine. Such is his discomfort with his living arrangements that he agrees to share the occupancy of another flat: he gets two nights a week, the owner (a sleazy frat-boy yuppie named Brian, soon to be married) and Ellen (a would-be painter seeking relief from her boring marriage) each get their seperate nights in the flat. Things go extremely well until Sam and Brian swap nights without telling Ellen, who attributes the "nice" things that happen around the place to the slob Brian, while berating the responsible Sam for his hedonistic lifestyle.

Duck faces winter alone having missed the migration

A rancher vows revenge on the five men responsible for his father's death.

James and Carl were only 10 years old when they kidnapped and murdered 3 year old David McClendon. They were caught, tried, convicted and placed in separate juvenile facilities. At 18-years old, both are given new names and released back into society - much to the horror of the nation. They can have no contact with each other or with their past friends or relatives. The story follows the lives of these two boys as they try to start over, escape the past and survive the growing outcry following their release.

Relations between the students and the new teacher of German are extremely tense. When one female student commits suicide, her schoolmates blame the teacher for her death. An awareness that things are not quite so black and white comes too late.

"Wishful Drinking" is based on Fisher's memoirs of the same title. The stage adaptation had its world premiere in 2006 at the Geffen Playhouse in L.A. It later played at Berkeley Repertory before opening on Broadway in October at Studio 54. The show takes audiences on a comic tour of Fisher's messy personal life and career. The actress-writer recounts stories about her work on the "Star Wars" series as well as her relationship with her parents Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. She also discusses her much-publicized problems with alcohol and drugs.

The Sheffield family reveal and go through some home truths as their middle child inherits the Foxworth mansion. The family's ghosts looming over, and more tragedies are in store as the curse lives on.

An unexpected first kiss causes Gabriel to feel the electrifying "jitters" of love and lust with the free-spirited Marcus; a perfect way to end a Summer studying abroad. Realizing he is gay, Gabriel returns home and is immediately scrutinized by his family and friends who notice he’s different. But as the school year launches with Gabriel distracted with parties and his friends’ own dramas, Marcus returns, reigniting the hot, thrilling emotions of one’s first crush. Jitters fires head-first into the topsy-turvy world of first love with an attractive cast and pulsating soundtrack, making it a smartly refreshing journey into the queer, teen experience.

When a boy’s video to a female star goes viral, it scores him a date with his celebrity crush to the prom. Complications arise when the famous starlet falls for the boy’s small-town teacher.

A mentally ill man's life suddenly changes with the arrival of a letter from his brother's widow.

Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford is a pillar of the community in his small west Texas town, patient and apparently thoughtful. Some people think he is a little slow and maybe boring, but that is the worst they say about him. But then nobody knows about what Lou calls his "sickness": he is a brilliant, but disturbed sociopathic sadist.