Film Reviews

Two boys (Tamir & Amine) awake one morning to find that their father has abandoned their family. Shocked, they begin to misbehave. While surreptitiously watching a movie, they think they see their father speaking to them and steal the film to examine the frames. Their mother (Achta) eventually despairs and sends them to Koranic school. Unhappy, they plan their escape until the eldest boy falls in love with a deaf girl (Khalil).

A young, underappreciated intern at the ultra-hip magazine Skirt must learn to deal with kissy-face phoniness, model tantrums and bulimic editors, while trying to steal the heart of a dashing British art director from the grips of a supermodel.

Wondering what has happened to herself, now feeling stagnant and in a rut, Shirley Valentine finds herself regularly talking to the wall while preparing her husband's chips and egg. When her best friend wins a trip-for-two to Greece Shirley begins to see the world, and herself, in a different light.

Chinatown Fair opened as a penny arcadeon Mott Street in 1944. Over the decades, the dimly lit gathering place, known for its tic-tac-toe playing chicken, became an institution, surviving turf wars between rival gangs, changing tastes and the explosive growth of home gaming systems like Xbox and Playstation that shuttered most other arcadesin the city. But as the neighborhood gentrified, this haven for a diverse, unlikely community faced its strongest challenge, inspiring its biggest devotees to next-level greatness.

This fifth Danish Dogme film is about six vulnerable individuals whose lives are interwoven. In a city suburb, a young minister arrives to take up duties at a local church. He is persuaded by his assistant to join an Italian night school class, and he soon becomes the centre of a group of people to whom fate has dealt quite serious blows. Gradually each one in the group manages to overcome his/her predicament and find a happy solution. This Dogma production was shown at the Berlinale in 2001 where it surprisingly won a silver medal.

When hot shot, Wall Street dealmaker Jai thinks of putting some pleasure into his 48 hour business trip to Mumbai, Sahil, his young, music-producer friend, drops everything, including his reckless boyfriend Alex, to help him execute the perfect getaway. Hiking the hills and canyons of Maharashtra, amidst half-attempted conversations and sudden silences, business calls and old jokes, the friends discover there is more than just time-zones keeping them apart. Things take another turn when Alex shows up with a new male-companion at his side, throwing up old conflicts and bringing unanswered questions to the fore.

The Yildiz brothers - Celal, Sami and Mesut - still live under one roof - despite their differences. The family bridal shop is doing really badly and they each yearn for a different life: Heartthrob Celal pines for his ex-girlfriend Anna and risks every last cent of their family inheritance for his dream of a mobile phone shop. Sami is searching for true love but ruins every blind date with his anger mis-management. And Mesut, the youngest of the three, tries to combine a cool music career with his strict adherence to the Koran. So when a sweet little baby comes careering into their lives, nothing is as it was before. The three young Turkish bachelors are given a crash course in responsibility.

A very successful stock broker is called to court to testify against a mob boss who was into some inside trading. Andrew Morenski must become Max Hauser and go back to high school for protection from the mob.

A boy must brave deep winter snow to obtain an important family keepsake. Before he can even start this difficult journey he must first help his family survive financial ruin, rescue his beloved pet goat, and with his best friend, outwit a bratty bully who seems out to get him at every turn. Will he make it back to the village in time to celebrate the end-of-winter holiday of Chalandamarz?

Alain Leroy is a recovering alcoholic who decides to end his life, but first decides to visit his friends in Paris one last time, in an attempt at finding a reason to continue living.

Two teenage boys try to help a tiny spherical alien get back to its mothership, while the army and a devious petty crook pursue the creature for its wonderful powers.

Filmmaker and artist Jack Smith described his own film as a “comedy set in a haunted movie studio.” Flaming Creatures begins humorously enough with several men and women, mostly of indeterminate gender, vamping it up in front of the camera and participating in a mock advertisement for an indelible, heart-shaped brand of lipstick. However, things take a dark, nightmarish turn when a transvestite chases, catches and begins molesting a woman. Soon, all of the titular “creatures” participate in a (mostly clothed) orgy that causes a massive earthquake. After the creatures are killed in the resulting chaos, a vampire dressed like an old Hollywood starlet rises from her coffin to resurrect the dead. All ends happily enough when the now undead creatures dance with each other, even though another orgy and earthquake loom over the end title card.

A murderer is brought to court and only Miss Marple is unconvinced of his innocence. Once again she begins her own investigation. The third Miss Marple film starring Margaret Rutherford as the quirky amateur detective.

East-Berlin, 1961, shortly after the erection of the Wall. Konrad, Sophie and three of their friends plan a daring escape to Western Germany. The attempt is successful, except for Konrad, who remains behind. From then on, and for the next 28 years, Konrad and Sophie will attempt to meet again, in spite of the Iron Curtain. Konrad, who has become a reputed Astrophysicist, tries to take advantage of scientific congresses outside Eastern Germany to arrange encounters with Sophie. But in a country where the political police, the Stasi, monitors the moves of all suspicious people (such as Konrad's sister Barbara and her husband Harald), preserving one's privacy, ideals and self-respect becomes an exhausting fight, even as the Eastern block begins its long process of disintegration.

Afro Samurai avenged his father and found a life of peace. But the legendary master is forced back into the game by a beautiful and deadly woman from his past. The sparks of violence dropped along Afro’s bloody path now burn out of control – and nowhere are the flames of hatred more intense than in the eyes of Sio.