Film Reviews

Ice Cube stars as Darius Stone, a thrill-seeking troublemaker whose criminal record and extreme sports obsession make him the perfect candidate to be the newest XXX agent. He must save the U.S. government from a deadly conspiracy led by five-star general and Secretary of Defense George Deckert (played by Willem Dafoe).

Based on Puccini's opera La bohème, Rent tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists struggling to survive and create in New York City in the 1990s. This is a live recording of Rent's final performance after more than 12 years and 5000 shows.

Robinson is commissioned to investigate the unspecified "problem of England." The narrator describes his seven excursions, with the unseen Robinson, around the country. They mainly concentrate on ports, power stations, prisons, and manufacturing plants, but they also bring in various literary connections, as well as a few conventional landscapes. Written by Will Gilbert

3 years on from hospitalité, Kiki Sugino and Koji Fukada are back again with this socially-conscious film about a 18-year-old girl in-between adolescence and adulthood who spends a summer in a valley and enjoys romance. Sakuko, a 18-year-old girl studying for her university entrance exams, decides to accompany her aunt Mikie on a trip to a seaside town. There she befriends Takashi, a refugee from Fukushima who has dropped out of high school and works at a motel run by Ukichi, a friend of Mikie. In-between childhood and adulthood, Sakuko starts to understand the difficulties of becoming an adult.

Jermaine, a young struggling Atlanta lawyer, decides to spruce up his marriage with Jasmine, who's mentally recovering from an abusive previous relationship, by hiring Jade, a bisexual stripper/prostitute fighting a custody battle with her ex-husband for their four-year-old son, for a threesome menage-a-trois get together only to have all three of them suffer the after-affects when Jermaine begins acting possessive towards Jasmine and Jade which leads to Jade (or someone) stalking him and disrupting his private and professional life. Written by Matt Patay

In the future, as a result of devastating wars, all suitable for cultivation of land turned into one big lifeless desert. In the search of fertile lands around the world were traveling group of nomadic farmers. But one of the distant city genesis in these lands came cyborgs. For the operation they need human resources, or more simply - blood. To combat this army of Vampire creator has been sent cyborg Gabriel (Christopherson). In this he will help the girl Nea (Long), whose parents as a child killed the main villain - Job (Henriksen).

The story of the seven pearls of the English Crown, from Henry VIII to 1937; three of them missing.

After opening a convent in the Himalayas, five nuns encounter conflict and tension as they attempt to adapt to their remote, exotic surroundings.

Nolan Mack, a soft-spoken bank employee, undoubtedly loves his wife Joy, though their cavernous empty house only underscores how disconnected they’ve always been from each other. Nolan finds himself drifting from his familiar present-day life in pursuit of lost time after meeting a troubled young man named Leo on his drive home. What begins as an aimless drive down an unfamiliar street turns into a life-altering series of events.

In 1978 Jimmy Graham, a thirty four year old happily married the father of two, scored his dream job with Operation Deepfreeze - training American scientists in survival skills in Antarctica. He left in December of that year. Three months later he arrived back agitated and paranoid. He said that while out on the ice he had stumbled onto a secret American nuclear site and the CIA had given him a chemical lobotomy to keep him quiet. Jimmy rapidly descended into schizophrenia. His behaviour became so frightening that his wife Frances fled to safety, taking their two children Sean and Juliet with her. For thirty years the family lived with this story, but no one ever dug deeper. The man they loved went away sane and came back permanently fractured – his mind was a blizzard. Now Juliet wants to know what exactly did happen on that frozen continent.

Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director (Aru eiga-kantoku no shogai) is a 1975 Japanese documentary film on the life and works of director Kenji Mizoguchi, directed by Kaneto Shindo (Onibaba). It runs 150 minutes and can be found on the second disc of the Region 1 Criterion Collection release of Ugetsu (1953).

An independent tragicomedy, Run If You Can is the debut feature for director Brüggemann who, along with his sister, also wrote the compelling screenplay. Forced to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, Ben is deeply desperate, despite his humor and vivaciousness. When he meets Christian, his new assistant, Ben treats him like every other helper he’s had. Things suddenly change when Christian meets Annika, “the cello player” whom Ben has been observing from his window for years. The three become close friends, putting Annika in the middle of an emotional, and somehow dangerous, ménage à trois. While conquering Annika is nothing very serious for career-focused Christian, Ben’s love for Annika reminds him of his past and forces him to face his most remote fears. A character-driven story, Run If You Can owes much of its power to the actors’ performances, especially Robert Gwisdek’s outstanding interpretation of Ben.

From the Irish countryside to London to New York and back again, Maggie reenters the world as a countess and shady art dealer. With her panache and charisma, she finds more than an auction, a rekindled interracial love affair, helpful relatives and a painting of great price. She finds more than she bargained for in the labyrinth and milieu of stolen art.

It's no holds barred for Julian in pursuit of upward mobility. Although expected to channel career aspirations into the Church of the post-Napoleonic era, his intensely romantic liaisons propel him forward at a pace he cannot control.

Lola, a striking teenaged girl who is on the cusp of adulthood, who longs to rush into the adult world of independence, freedom and sexual exploits, but is tenaciously held back by her mother.