Film Reviews

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

In 1944, Capt. Josiah J. Newman is the doctor in charge of Ward 7, the neuropsychiatric ward, at an Army Air Corps hospital in Arizona. The hospital is under-resourced and Newman scrounges what he needs with the help of his inventive staff, especially Cpl. Jake Leibowitz. The military in general is only just coming to accept psychiatric disorders as legitimate and Newman generally has 6 weeks to cure them or send them on to another facility. There are many patients in the ward and his latest include Colonel Norville Bliss who has dissociated from his past; Capt. Paul Winston who is nearly catatonic after spending 13 months hiding in a cellar behind enemy lines; and 20 year-old Cpl. Jim Tompkins who is severely traumatized after his aircraft was shot down. Others come and go, including Italian prisoners of war, but Newman and team all realize that their success means the men will return to their units.

Football player John Kent tags along as Huck Haines and the Wabash Indianians travel to an engagement in Paris, only to lose it immediately. John and company visit his aunt, owner of a posh fashion house run by her assistant, Stephanie. There they meet the singer Scharwenka (alias Huck's old friend Lizzie), who gets the band a job. Meanwhile, Madame Roberta passes away and leaves the business to John and he goes into partnership with Stephanie.

As Chicago gears up for its annual Thanksgiving Day parade, Emily Jones, an eager parade coordinator is shocked when Henry Williams, a wealthy new development consultant, is brought in to analyze the parade's finances.

In winter 1990, a friendly bowling match turned into a deadly nightmare when a pair of robbers walked into the Las Cruces, New Mexico, lanes, emptied the safe and then shot the bowlers. This documentary takes a close look at the still-unsolved case.

The arrival of the telegraph put Pony Express riders like John Blair and his pal Smoky out of work. A race will decide whether they or stageline owner Drake get the government mail contract.

A married couple attend a bourgeois party and wade through the stifling strain that long-term marriage has imposed upon them.

A conservative writer who's sworn off dating is swept off her feet by a man who, she learns, works for an upscale dating service.

Martha is a businesswoman and divorced mother of two children - Augusta and Jack. However, when docile Augusta becomes a teenager, feelings of anger and self-hate cause her personality to undergo a scary transformation, and Martha realizes that this is not just typical teen angst. Augusta begins doing drugs, drinking, and ends up on the streets. Her concerned mother and father reach out to an educational consultant, who advises them to send Augusta to a strict wilderness camp for troubled teens. However, even the institution's experienced and tough administrators find Augusta a difficulty to keep under control. Martha comes to realize that there is no answer to her daughter's behavior.

Mary Class is a highly successful business executive - who just happens to be the daughter of Santa Claus. But when her father falls ill, Mary returns to the North Pole and the life she left behind to take over for her dad and implement her innovative ideas for running Christmas.

In 2009 three young men were killed in a remote part of Yellowstone National Park. Authorities never found the murderer. He found them! Hours after the trio were gunned down, Dwayne Nelson confessed to the crime. Despite this Nelson was allowed to go free because of an American Constitution loophole. Documentarian Julian T. Pinder travels to Yellowstone in a compelling chase for truth behind a crime that should have rocked the nation. How did a guilty man go free? In his hunt for answers Pinder risks his own life when he finds evidence that could re-open the case years later.

Marc is a passionate cyclist and urban slacker who avoids work and responsibility. Marc's life changes from one moment to the next when he suffers a life-changing accident. He can either wallow in self-pity or tackle the beast called life with the help of love and willpower.

When the champ's promoter, Rev. Sultan, decides something new is needed to boost the marketability of the boxing matches, he searches and finds the only man to ever beat the champ. The problem is that he isn't a boxer anymore and he's white. However, once Rev. Sultan convinces him to fight, he goes into heavy training while the confident champ takes it easy and falls out of shape.

Though almost forgotten today, Veit Harlan was one of Nazi Germany's most notorious filmmakers. His most perfidious film was the treacherous anti-Semitic propaganda film Jud Süß - required viewing for all SS members. An unrepentant and blindly obsessive craftsman, no figure - save for Leni Riefenstahl - is as closely associated with the cinema of the Holocaust years. (Harlan's epic Kolberg was the basis for Inglourious Basterds's pivotal film-within-a-film Stolz Der Nation.) This documentary is an eye-opening examination of World War II film history as well as the story of a German family from the Third Reich to the present; one that is marked by reckoning, denial and liberation.

Cameramen and women discuss the craft and art of cinematography and of the "DP" (the director of photography), illustrating their points with clips from 100 films, from Birth of a Nation to Do the Right Thing. Themes: the DP tells people where to look; changes in movies (the arrival of sound, color, and wide screens) required creative responses from DPs; and, these artisans constantly invent new equipment and try new things, with wonderful results. The narration takes us through the identifiable studio styles of the 30s, the emergence of noir, the New York look, and the impact of Europeans. Citizen Kane, The Conformist, and Gordon Willis get special attention.