Film Reviews

Gerónimo is a 45 year old man devastated by a tragic event. His friend Julian tries out afloat by encouraging him to participate in the project of a marginal town near Buenos Aires. Both are Catholic priests who decided to dedicate their life to the poorest: Geronimo in the Third World and Julian in Argentina. While working in Villa Virgen, Geronimo begins to wonder if the Church is the right institution to protect the weak. Julian, meanwhile, decides that the best way to change the lives of the needy people is politics. The counterpoint is Luciana, an atheist lawyer who has a different perspective on social reforms.

Five children in an apparently ideal American small town find their lives changing as the years pass near the turn of the century in 1900. Parris and Drake, both of whom have lost their parents, are best friends; Parris dreams of becoming a doctor, studying under the father of his sweetheart Cassie, while Drake plans on becoming a local businessman when he receives his full inheritance - juggling girlfriends in the meantime. As they become adults, the revelations of local secrets threaten to ruin their hopes and dreams.

An epic love story: Olanna and Kainene are glamorous twins, living a privileged city life in newly independent 1960s Nigeria. The two women make very different choices of lovers, but rivalry and betrayal must be set aside as their lives are swept up in the turbulence of war.

Eva Hendrickx is an ambitious young journalist working on the team of television legend Herman Verbeeck. She's determined to bring a story about the riots in the suburbs of Brussels. While the city spins further away in a spiral of violence, Eva meets Lahbib, a Moroccan with a heavy past. He escorts her into his complex and hard world. Meanwhile, Herman Verbeeck sees a way to exploit Eva's story in the ever-competitive mediagame...

Ivan is the fierce patriarch of a family of Croatian refugees in Auckland. Nina is his daughter, ready to live on her own, despite his angry objections. Eddie is the Maori she takes as her lover. Nina works at a restaurant where Eddie cooks. For a price, she agrees to marry a Chinese, another restaurant employee, so that he (and his Chinese wife) can establish permanent residency. The money gives her the independence she needs to leave her parents' house and move in with Eddie. Complications arise when Eddie realizes the depth of her father's fury and the strength of Nina's family ties.

A fearless sea captain, Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, sails a ship through loopholes in international law, providing abortions on the high seas, and leaving in her wake a network of emboldened activists who trust women to handle abortion on their own terms.

The story involves Rose Chismore's youth. She flashes back and remembers her coming-of-age. Her recollections are sometimes less than sweet, particularly those of her troubled and alcoholic step-father. Her memories of Robin, her first-love, are much happier and she also recalls her colorful Aunt Starr -- who's visit is fun but also detrimental to her family's health. The setting of 1950s Las Vegas' bomb testing is increasingly significant to the development of the story.

Auggie wants to make it big and has tried pretty much everything in order to do so. His next idea: turn his cousin's garage into a burger joint. To make it appealing, they develop a very very very special sauce. But beware, the king of fast food, Wrangler Bob, is out to get them...

Like many uninsightful fathers, Nicola is very ambitious and hardworking and perceives himself to be a failure. He has persuaded himself that the only good thing his thirteen-year-old son can possibly do is to work harder and smarter than he himself did, so that he, at least, can fulfill his father's dreams. This end justifies any number of beatings and scoldings, along with constant admonitions to study hard and work hard. As might be expected, this abuse has no effect whatsoever, as it is not based on the boy's own ambitions, which include becoming a championship runner. Despite his mother's attempts to protect him from his aggressively insensitive and stupid father, he gets shipped off to work with some rope manufacturers, who can be counted on to work him like a dog.

Toro (Spanish for "Bull") is a young con man and the right hand of Romano, a powerful mob boss in Torremolinos, Málaga (Andalusia, south to Spain). After Toro decides to leave Romano to get a life free of crime, his last sting fails, resulting one of his brothers dead and he sent to jail. Five years later, Romano realizes that López, Toro's older brother, is robbing him money from his tourism business and he orders to kidnap Diana, López's little daughter, until this one get back the money. Without options, López visits Toro, now a touristic driver with the third grade prison close to get the parole, who only wants to be free to marry his girlfriend Estrella. When Toro accepts to help López and both meet Romano looking for a solution, Toro ends attacking Romano's men and fleeing with Diana, trying to escape from Romano's revenge. But Romano starts a ruthless searching for they three, meanwhile Toro counts the hours to back the prison according to the third grade...

Jeff grows up near Basin Street in New Orleans, playing his clarinet with the dock workers. He puts together a band, the Basin Street Hot-Shots, which includes a cornet player, Memphis. They struggle to get their jazz music accepted by the cafe society of the city. Betty Lou joins their band as a singer and gets Louie to show her how to do scat singing. Memphis and Jeff both fall in love with Betty Lou.

The lives of many individuals connected by the desire for happiness, often from sources usually considered dark or evil.

Told by a psychic of his imminent death on his next birthday, Jack lives out the year, as a hopeless agoraphobic, until he meets a young woman who slowly coaxes him out of his self imposed bondage.

An impractical widower tries to hang onto his Miami hotel and his 12-year-old son.

How much should you negotiate with the enemy? In Israel, the debate over that question evoked fury to the point of assassination. Such was the case of Kasztner. Dr Israel (Rezso) Kasztner, a Hungarian Jew who tried to rescue the last million Jews of Europe by negotiating face to face with Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann, was gunned down by another Jew who never set foot in Nazi Europe. After 50 years, his assassin Ze'ev Eckstein breaks his silence on the fateful night he shot and killed Kasztner. (Storyville)