Film Reviews

For John Cuttin it all started with the first sip of the wine of her life. A "Marzemino", a typical wine of the province of Trento, quoted by Lorenzo Da Ponte in his libretto for "Don Giovanni" by Mozart. The instant he tasted the blood-red drop of nectar John felt a sort of pleasant and mysterious explosion of the senses, and from that moment on, his nature is transformed. In just three years, from shy bank clerk and faithful husband became director, tombeur de femmes and the most revered and respected expert on wine in Italy. Just as he had predicted the enigmatic "Professor" who had convinced him to taste his first glass of wine. The only event that the "Professor" with his accent and his piercing blue eyes, had not predicted was that he would soon be charged with the murder of his wife Adele. While being put under pressure by the Commissioner Sanfelice, John is to reflect on the last three years of his life, dominated by a single and mad passion: wine.

During the 1990s, David Lee Hoffman searched throughout China for the finest teas. He's a California importer who, as a youth, lived in Asia for years and took tea with the Dali Lama. Hoffman's mission is to find and bring to the U.S. the best hand picked and hand processed tea. This search takes him directly to farms and engages him with Chinese scientists, business people, and government officials: Hoffman wants tea grown organically without a factory, high-yield mentality. By 2004, Hoffman has seen success: there are farmer's collectives selling tea, ways to export "boutique tea" from China, and a growing Chinese appreciation for organic farming's best friend, the earthworm.

Engineering Red - 1993 Dir: Andrey I. Y. Petrosyan Medical/art/found footage collage.

A gunfighter takes part in a scheme to bilk a wealthy cattle family out of half a million dollars by pretending to be their son, who was kidnapped as child.

After the parents of Ruby and her younger brother, Rhett, are killed in a car crash, their parents' best friends, Erin and Terry Glass, become their guardians. The children hear promises of a world of opulence and California fun -- all they have to do is move into the Glasses' gated house. Before very long, though, Ruby suspects that Erin and Terry may not be the ideal guardians they seemed to be.

After falling out with his editor, a fading political journalist is forced to interview America's most popular soap actress.

A solitary woman (Melissa Leo) earning her living by delivering mail and body piercing, makes every attempt to help her volatile adult daughter (Marin Ireland) get on her feet, and in-so-doing neglects herself, channeling all of her womanly desires into her houseplants...even when a charismatic and industrious environmentalist (Josh Hamilton) moves in with them.

A 91 years old carpenter, who is still in completely good health, has to fight developers who are trying to force him to sell his land.

A guy who moves back to Portland, Oregon becomes involved in the mystery of his ex-girlfriend's disappearance.

The lives of the residents of a small French town are changed when thousands of the recently dead inexplicably come back to life and try to integrate themselves into society that has changed for them.

A singer in a bar full of weird people and mutants sing the story of an abandoned robot that is reactivated hundreds of years after an apocalyptic war. Wandering off searching for his origins, the robot meets characters of the ruined world, mutants, adventurers and common people. Always set to help humanity he makes both friends and enemies. (IMDb)

Sergei Eisenstein's final film, this is the first part of a three-part biopic of Czar Ivan Grozny, which was never completed due again to producer dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's attempts to use forbidden experimental filming techniques and excessive cost overruns. The second part was completed but not released for a decade after Eisenstein's death and a change of heart in the USSR government toward his work; the third part was only in its earliest stage of filming when shooting was stopped altogether. In this first part, set during the early part of his reign, Ivan faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people.

Phillip Kwok plays the orphaned son of a general disgraced and executed by his political enemies... which has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Raised to be a righteous martial artist, Yuan kicks off the story proper by finding a cave containing a skeleton, a treasure map, and a manual teaching him the Golden Snake style. Obeying a request hidden in the manual to give a portion of the treasure to the Golden Snake's old girlfriend, Yuan begins to seek the woman out - on the way solving the riddle of the Golden Snake, and how he came to his end.

Set in the 1790s, this historical drama follows the travails of an idealistic noblewoman who helps lead a daring revolution in Italy.

The residents of a quiet English village begin to receive nasty, threatening letters. The wife of the local vicar calls in her friend Miss Marple to investigate.