Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller

Year: 2009

Country: USA, Japan

Rating:

Starring: Isaach De Bankolé, Alex Descas, Jean-François Stévenin, Óscar Jaenada, Luis Tosar

Director: Jim Jarmusch

My Review: Isaach de Bakolé plays an enigmatic assassin in this art-house release from Jim Jarmusch (Stranger than Paradise, Night on Earth, Broken Flowers, Z-Channel - A Magnificent Obsession). An very odd/unconventional film. Isaach is a hired assassin, but he doesn't know who he's supposed to kill, and neither do we. He doesn't know where he's supposed to be, and neither do we. As he goes about his day, various shady figures/interesting characters approach him, engage him in conversation (even though they know that he doesn't speak Spanish) and provide him with his next clue - A short five letter cipher; which he looks at, then eats. Filled with odd characters, amazing camera work, perfect pacing, editing, lighting, color and sound. Wonderful architecture, rich location shots, a great soundtrack and a puzzle as twisted as they get. The nude scenes with Tilda Swinton were unexpected but appreciated! and the quiet introspective primary character was a joy to puzzle over. This serene, sublime movie contained no narrative, no exposition, and very little dialogue. If you love cerebral mystery, art, and independent film, you'll find a gem in this amazing work. 5 out of 5. Not for everyone. This movie is rated quite low on Netflix, but I give it high praise. If you know me, you'd understand what's going on here. You couldn't force me to watch Transformers II. As a matter of fact, I'd rather watch grass growing! Added to my 'Must Have' list.

Summary: A solitary man who does not speak Spanish is an underground courier. Two men who are both thuggish and philosophical send him to Madrid with cryptic instructions. Over the course of a few days, he receives his instructions from a series of distinctive individuals who provide words of philosophy or of warning and also give him a matchbox with a tiny piece of paper, which he reads then eats, accompanied by espresso served in two cups. He is quiet, self-contained, focused on his work. He has rules. He encounters and at times transmits a violin, diamonds, a guitar, and a map. Is he a smuggler? Merely an independent conduit? Or, something else?

Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Year: 1983

Country: USA

Rating:

Starring: Barbara Hershey, Ron Silver, David Labiosa, George Coe, Margaret Blye

Director: Sidney J. Furie

My Review: This movie is supposedly based on a 'True Story', but I doubt the 'supernatural' veracity of the accounting - as depicted in the movie. What can I say? I'm a sceptic. Anyway the movie. Barbara Hershey plays Carla Moran, a single mother who's had bad luck with men, was sexually molested by her father, and now she's the target of a malicious 'Entity'. Not to give too much away, the story is very explicit, kinky, and full of suggestive themes. At first, Carla thinks she may be insane, and she seeks psychological assistance from psychologist Phil Sneiderman (played by Ron Silver). When that proves futile, and others witness the phenomena surrounding Carla's 'Hauntings', she switches to 'Parapsychology'. Soon afterwards, a team of eager students and one determined parapsychologist come up with a plan to trap and neutralize the entity. I enjoyed the story, but the acting (except for Ron Silver and Barbara Hershey) was pretty bad. The editing wasn't handled very well, and the sound work was terrible. 3 out of 5. A remake is slated for release in 2010.

Summary: Carla Moran awakens one night to find herself being beaten and raped by an unseen presence. Terrified of what's happening to her, and shunned by friends and family who think she's lost her mind, she seeks help from parapsychologists. The researchers soon discover that evil spiritual force has been drawn to Carla and is responsible for the violent attacks. The question now, however, is how do they stop it? Based on a supposedly true story.

Genre: Drama, Romance, War

Year: 1960

Country: Soviet Union

Rating:

Starring: Vladimir Ivashov, Zhanna Prokhorenko, Antonina Maksimova, Nikolai Kryuchkov, Yevgeni Urbansky

Director: Grigori Chukhrai

My Review: This Russian movie (made during Soviet era - 1960) was nominated for academy awards in writing, story and screenplay for 1962. It's the story of a 19 year old soldier. Alyosha wins a six day pass for heroic action on the front. He was so 'frightened' that he took out two Nazi tanks all by himself. He was slated to receive a medal for valor, instead he begged his commander for one day of leave so he could go home to repair his mother's roof. Granted leave six days leave on condition that he return to the front, Alyosha wastes no time getting underway. The movie is the story of his return home. The people he meets, the tales of sorrow, hardship, struggle, family and love. A story of the Soviet people during WWII. While some of the messages in this movie are clearly patriotic propaganda, one can't help but see the excellent craftsmanship involved. The camera shots were sublime. The acting authentic, heartfelt and well done. The two principles - Alyosha (played Vladimir Ivashov) and Shura (played by Zhanna Prokhorenko) had some amazing chemistry together, and they went on to glorious acting careers through the 90's and 00's. The direction was superb, and the writing outstanding. Grigori Chukhrai (writer/director) did an outstanding job, it's too bad their aren't many more (three titles on Netflix) titles available from this talented writer/director. 4 out of 5.

Summary: During World War II, 19 year old soldier Alyosha gets a medal as a reward for a heroic act at the front. Instead of this medal he asks for a few days leave to visit his mother and repair the roof of their home. On the train eastwards he meets Shura who is on her way to her aunt. In those few days traveling together they fall in love.

Genre: Comedy

Year: 2009

Country: USA

Rating:

Starring: Jeff Chase, Carla Gallo, Paul Soter, Michael Yurchak, Nat Faxon

Director: Kevin Heffernan

My Review: If you saw and liked 'Waiting', you'll love this movie (It's not as vulgar/profane, but the laughs are just as big). A movie about the wait staff at 'The Slammin' Salmon'; a restaurant owned by a former heavy weight world champ. The owner is a lovable, but sadistic sociopath. After loosing a bet, the champ announces that the restaurant must earn 10k or he'll have to shut it down. The manager announces a contest to entice the staff, but the rewards offered just aren't enough incentive to make them care. When the champ announces a $10,000.00 reward for the highest earner, and a smack down for the loser… Well, things get much more interesting. Very funny, good acting, great chemistry, and excellent direction. 4 out of 5.

Summary: The brutal former heavyweight boxing champion Cleon "Slammin'" Salmon, now owner of a Miami restaurant, institutes a competition to see which waiter can earn the most money in one night: the winner stands to gain $10,000, while the loser will endure a beating at the hands of the champ.

Genre: Crime, Drama

Year: 2009

Country: Canada, USA, UK

Rating:

Starring: Woody Harrelson, Elias Koteas, Michael Kelly, Sandra Oh, Kat Dennings

Director: Peter Stebbings

My Review: With a very limited theatrical release (in the US), this movie comes as quite a hit on DVD. I really didn't expect much of it, but I was pleasantly surprised by this terrific movie. In this movie, Woody Harrelson plays Arthur Poppington, a slightly eccentric construction worker who moonlights as a super-hero. Despite his lack of actual 'super powers', Arthur is a cunning 'Defendor' of the weak and oppressed. Striking fear into his opponents, he uses an unconventional arsenal of tools to subdue the villains of 'Metropolis'. When Arthur gets mixed up with a young prostitute, he soon finds himself embroiled in a dangerous campaign to take down 'Captain Industry', his arch nemesis. This movie has everything. Comedy, drama, romance, action and social commentary. The screenplay was perfect. With excellent character development and a mature and realistic plot. The movie is presented in a lightly held flashback narrative, with the story arc carefully edited to bring us full closure by the end. The acting was solid, but the direction lacked slightly. Definitely worth watch again, and again. 4 out of 5.

Summary: A crooked cop, a mob boss and the young girl they abuse are the denizens of a city's criminal underworld. It's a world that ordinary Arthur Poppington doesn't understand and doesn't belong in, but is committed to fighting when he changes into a vigilante super-hero of his own making, Defendor. With no power other than courage Defendor takes to the streets to protect the city's innocents.

Genre: Drama, War, Thriller

Year: 1942

Country: UK

Rating:

Starring: Richard George, Eric Portman, Raymond Lovell, Niall MacGinnis, Peter Moore

Director: Michael Powell

My Review: Excellent WWII drama. Takes place in Canada! Set in 1940 (filmed and released in 1941), the US has yet to enter the war. With Britain's declaration of war against Germany, German U-Boats began targeting Canadian shipping. This movie is a fictional piece of propaganda, designed to sway american audiences and influence politicians. When the U-Boat is spotted by Canadian coastal patrols, they head for Hudson bay. After setting a small team ashore, the U-Boat is once again spotted. This time it's bombed and sinks in a remote region of Canada. With the U-Boat destroyed, the German crew members implement a deadly escape plan. While the Germans are mostly portrayed as ruthless killers, scheming to impose their will on those they encounter; the Canadians are portrayed (in powerful stereotypes) as proud, peace loving, loyal, patriots. The locations are excellent, the camera work vivid, and the writing superb, and the direction tightly controlled. As the movie makes it's way towards the U.S. border, American neutrality offers refuge to the desperate Germans. A WWII movie unlike any other. I give it a 4 out of 5.

Summary: A damaged U-boat is stranded in a Canadian bay in the early years of World War II. The Fanatical Nazi captain and his crew must reach the neutral United States or be captured. Along the way they meet a variety of characters each with their own views on the war and nationalism. In this film Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger show their ideas of why the United States should join the Allied fight against the Nazis.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Horror, Thriller

Year: 1962

Country: UK

Rating:

Starring: Karlheinz Böhm, Moira Shearer, Anna Massey, Maxine Audley, Brenda Bruce

Director: Michael Powell

My Review: A rather interesting movie. An early template for many american horror, gore, thrillers. Thankfully, this one is filled with far more psychological horror than gore. The main character is a disturbed young man obsessed with fear and it's effect on others. This lonely, sexually repressed, loner is working on a documentary. Filming the effects of fear on various subjects. Some sort of psychological treatment to his twisted childhood. Unfortunately, as a consequence of his project, all the actors in his film end up on the 'cutting room floor'. When Mark meets Helen, he sees a possible route to redemption. Unfortunately, she wants to 'star' in one of his films. A thrilling horror film with some thoughtful writing and gripping drama. The camera work and pacing were excellent. As was the editing and direction. The sequence with Moira Shearer (as Vivian) was awesome. 4 out of 5.

Summary: Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm), works as a focus puller in a British film studio. On his off hours, he supplies a local porno shop with cheesecake photos and also dabbles in filmmaking. A lonely, unfriendly, sexually repressed fellow, Mark is obsessed with the effects of fear and how they are registered on the face and behavior of the frightened. This obsession dates from the time when, as a child, he served as the subject of some cold-blooded experiments in the psychology of terror conducted by his own scientist father. As a grown man, Mark becomes a compulsive murderer who kills women and records their contorted features and dying gasps on film. His ongoing project is a documentary on fear. With 16mm camera in hand, he accompanies a prostitute to her room and stabs her with a blade concealed in his tripod, all the while photographing her contorted face in the throes of terror and death. Alone in his room, he surrounds himself with the sights and sounds of terror: taped screams, black-and-white "home movies" of convulsed faces. At his house, he meets Helen Stephens (Anna Massey), a young woman who lives with her blind mother in a downstairs flat. She visits his flat, where he shows her black-and-white films that were taken of him when he was a child. She is horrified to see that his father used him as a guinea pig in various experiments, taking movies of his reactions of fear.

Genre: Adventure, Drama, Romance, War

Year: 1952

Country: UK, USA

Rating:

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley, Peter Bull, Theodore Bikel

Director: John Huston

My Review: Directed by John Huston, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. This movie is set in 1914, at the outbreak of WWI. This movie features Charlie Allnut (played by Humphrey Bogart) and Rose Sayer (played by Katherine Hepburn). Charlie is a free spirited Canadian entrepreneur. A cigar chomping, gin guzzling, social outcast. Captain of a leaky little tramp-steamer (The African Queen) on a backwater African river (The fictional Ulonga-Bora). Ms. Sayer is the recently widowed wife of a British Methodist missionary. When a run-in with pro-German forces, result in the untimely death of her husband, Rose decides it's time to leave this malaria infested country, and return to the comforts of modern England. Unfortunately, the only convenient ways out of the country are controlled by the pro-German forces. The only solution, she convinces Charlie to attempt an incredibly dangerous river passage. They set off on their great adventure by way of Lake Tanganyika and south to Rhodesia. The characters are incredibly complex, social disparate and obviously mis-matched. Despite their differences, the arduous journey soon finds them relying on, trusting, and ultimately quite fond of each other. The on location camera work was excellent. The performances, drama and direction were truly outstanding, and the story gripping. The remastered Paramount DVD contained an exceptionally well restored version of this land-mark film. 4 out of 5.

Summary: September 1914, news reaches the colony German Eastern Africa that its motherland is at war, so Reverend Samuel Sayer became a hostile foreigner; German imperial troops burn down his mission, driving him mad- shortly after his well-educated, snooty sister Rose Sayer buries him and leaves by the only available transport, the crummy river steamboat 'African Queen' of grumpy boorish compatriot Charlie Allnut. As if a long difficult journey without any comfort weren't bad enough for such odd companions, she is determined to find a way to do their bit for the British war effort (and revenge her brother) and aims high as God is obviously on their side: construct their own equipment, a torpedo and the converted steamboat, to take out a huge German warship, the Louisa, which is hard to find on the giant lake and first of all to reach, in fact as daunting an expedition as nobody attempted since the late adventurous explorer John Speakes, but she presses till Charlie accepts to steam up the Ulana, about to brave a German fort, raging rapids, very bloodthirsty parasites and the endlessly branching stream which seems to go nowhere but impenetrable swamps... Despite fierce rows and moral antagonism between a bossy devout abstentionist and a free-spirited libertine drunk loner, the two bachelors grow closer to each-other as their quest drags on...

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Year: 2004

Country: France, Belgium

Rating:

Starring: Guillaume Canet, Marion Cotillard, Thibault Verhaeghe, Joséphine Lebas-Joly, Emmanuelle Grönvold

Director: Yann Samuell

My Review: A romantic French film with a great story. Two characters (Sophie and Julien) are the focus for this bittersweet romance. The movie follows these two from childhood friends, to teenagers, to young adult. Their relationship is marked by a game of stunts and dares, where they continuously strive to one-up the other. While the game starts out as a fun way to thumb their noses at authority. The game gets them into all sorts of trouble while they're growing up, but the game takes a negative turn when their relationship enters a new phase. Will the game keep them from a serious relationship, or can they finally put aside their childish ways? Excellent acting, direction and camera work, but a rather limited plot. 3 of 5.

Summary: As adults, best friends Julien and Sophie continue the odd game they started as children -- a fearless competition to outdo one another with daring and outrageous stunts. While they often act out to relieve one another's pain, their game might be a way to avoid the fact that they are truly meant for one another.

Genre: Documentary

Year: 2009

Country: USA

Rating:

Starring: Joan Allen, Meri Roth, Marcela Nohynkova, Zdenek Kozakovic, Zdenek Astr

Director: Roberta Grossman

My Review: A documentary about Hannah Senesh. A Jewish woman who left her Hungarian home (in 1939) and mother to immigrate to Palestine. There she attended agricultural school. Upon graduation, she joined a Kibbutz. She still felt that she wasn't doing enough for the Jewish people. In 1943 she joined a British sponsored military effort to assist partisans fighting Nazis in German controlled Hungary. After paratrooper and radio training, she and others were parachuted in Yugoslavia. From there, they made their way into Hungary. This documentary follows her journey from life to death. It's a very tightly controlled narrative with excellent film work and integration of re-enactment with archive footage. The live action shots are extremely well choreographed and edited to appear period. The film is extremely well edited and directed. Unfortunately, the story is a bit slow, and the outcome of her mission a bit of a let-down. A true story. A very well executed biographical documentary. 3 out of 5.

Summary: