Film Reviews

After serving together in the French Foreign Legion, a mercenary and a doctor leave the service and go their separate ways. Later, they are reunited and become involved with a caper involving millions in a high-security safe. The two men become locked in during a holiday weekend as the attempt to crack the safe's combination.

The true story of the formation of the Lonesome Dove Church in Texas.

A shy and mute seamstress goes insane after being attacked and raped twice in one day. She wanders the New York streets at night in a sexy black dress with her attacker's gun strapped to her garter belt, blowing away any man who tries to pick her up.

This film turns on two basic axes: the inquiry into ways of cinematographic representation and a critical image of official Spain at the time of the Franco dictatorship. “Montage of attractions” and Brechtianism in strong doses. Umbracle is made up of fragments (some are archive footage) that resound rather than progress by unusual links, with dejá vu scenes that promise us more but remain tensely unfinished. Jonathan Rosembaun said: “few directors since Resnais have played so ruthlessly with the unconscious narrative expectations to bug us”. Learning from the feeling of strangeness caused by Rossellini as he threw well known actors into savage scenery in southern Europe. Portabella makes Christopher Lee wander around a dream-like Barcelona. Without a doubt Portabella’s most structurally complex and most profoundly political film, that is ferociously poetic. — pereportabella.com

Sheena's white parents are killed while on Safari. She is raised by the mystical witch woman of an African tribe. When her foster mother is framed for the murder of a political leader, Sheena and a newsman, Vic Casey are forced to flee while pursued by the mercenaries hired by the real killer, who hopes to assume power. Sheena's ability to talk to the animals and knowledge of jungle lore give them a chance against the high tech weapons of the mercenaries.

After his retirement, Raghavan Nair (Thilakan) is back at his home. His long cherished dream to spend his retired life along with his family is thwarted after seeing his two sons brawling each other over their political differences.

As a visually radical memoir, Cameraperson draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.

Bill Hooper -- bitter after a messy divorce -- tries to help a friend gain custody of his child any way he can.

The “@midnight” host makes things very funcomfortable for the packed house at The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco as he explores awkward and sometimes super creepy memories from both childhood and today. With “the energy of SpongeBob dipped in cocaine water,” Hardwick delves into dealing with anxieties, finds the humor in joining the “Dead Dad Club,” and shares deeply personal anecdotes that most people would be too embarrassed to say out loud.

The film is set during 1962 in Sevastopol, Crimea, then a secret Navy Base in the Soviet Union. General Serov hires Viktor, a cadet from the Kremlin Guard to work as his private chauffeur. In a jet-black "ZIM" limo, Viktor is chauffeuring the General's disabled daughter Vera. Viktor is oblivious to the hidden agenda of the KGB agent Saveliev, who manipulates everyone behind the scenes in the old rivalry between the Army and KGB.

All fourteen-year-old Robbie Hendrick ever wanted was a family. Yet as another Mississippi summer begins, his wayward mother has run off again fearing a breakdown and he's left to burn the days caring for his half brother, Fess. As the deep days and nights pass without her return and with older brother Lucas dangerously in their lives again, Robbie must face the fact that his dream of a family may only be a dream and he might just lose the only family he's ever had: Fess.

In the futuristic city of Vanille, with properly tuned ImmerSyst Eyes & Ears the world can look and sound like a paradise. But the life of a father and his young son threatens to disintegrate when the father's device begins to fail. Desperate to avoid facing his own traumatic reality, the man must venture outside to find a replacement, into a city where violence and danger lurk beneath a skim of beautiful illusion.

An ancestral city; through its delicious botanical garden and its branched canals, we observe the clues and traces of its ancient culture. Two couples of men and women, former lovers, meet again one year later. The yesterday's breath of youth is still perceptible in their conversations. Is it still possible for us to love? Does youth really have an end? Like the networks linking the old city, what type of ecological existence does their culture require? Written by Venice Film Festival

Pot growers Ben and Chon face off against the Mexican drug cartel who kidnapped their shared girlfriend.

A look at the history of tattoos in America, featuring tattooing legend Norman "Sailor Jerry" Collins.