Quote:
Small-town friends Reggie (Reggie Bannister), Mike (A. Michael Baldwin), and Jody (Bill Thornbury) continue in their quest to stop the evil, dimension-hopping schemes of The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) and his armada of killer Sentinel Spheres. This time, the fight becomes a multi-dimensional battle across multiple timelines, alien planets and altered realities, where no less than the fate of Earth is on the line.Read More »

Quote:
A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE is a love story of a troubled marriage between a working class man, Nick (played movingly by Peter Falk), and his wife Mabel (played with brilliant attention to emotional nuance by Gena Rowlands). Mabel appears to be experiencing a breakdown, though there is not much difference between her normal and abnormal behaviour. The film explores the impact of her fragility, neediness, and shifts of feeling on Nick, their three children, relatives, and friends.Read More »

Quote:
Fired from his part-time job in a restaurant kitchen for absenteeism, rookie boxer Tamura has a lot to be angry and frustrated about in his life. But things start to change when he’s approached at the gym by the artist Hattori, who wants to use him as the new model for the manga character Yellow Kid. Yellow Kid first appeared in an American comic in the late 19th century, and Hattori revived him as an older character a century later. What makes the proposition intriguing for Tamura is that the first model for the revived character was former WBA Lightweight champ Mikuni Tokio, the man who inspired him to take up boxing. And Mikuni now lives as a virtual recluse in what seems to be a very fraught relationship with his girlfriend Mana. And Mana, now pregnant, used to be in a relationship with the artist Hattori… — Vancounver International Film FestivalRead More »

Synopsis:
The film begins with exposition as a lunatic asylum “mad scientist” ex-Nazi played by Amamoto Eisei (he and his pals switch back and forth between menacing Japanese and scary German the whole film) discusses how a massive diamond was lost and a young Japanese (Nakadai Tatsuya) has it in his possession. A league of assassins make comedic attempts at Nakadai’s life (along with a girl, Dan Reiko, Yuriko from Ozu’s The End of Summer and a goofy pal) which are all thwarted, naturally, since even playing a little bit of a “dweeb”, Nakadai is still graced with luck and a certain charisma (a natural fighting ability). Turns out that the diamond…Read More »

Synopsis:
‘In World War I, Brodie, a successful novelist and soldier, is pronounced dead and given a new identity by the Secret Service. Sent on an espionage mission in Switzerland, he is teamed with a fake ‘wife’, Elsa and an assassin, the General.’
– BFI ScreenonlineRead More »

Synopsis
A psychological study of a woman who chooses solitude as an escape from the duplicity and emotional barrenness of the men around her.Read More »

Quote:
This Traveltalk entry starts in Miami, which at the time of filming was still a small vacation community. We then go to Hialeah to watch the thoroughbred horses race. After short stops at The Everglades and Cypress Gardens, we are taken to Silver Springs, named after its pristine waters. Mr. Ross Allen, director of the Silver Springs Reptile Institute, is shown catching alligators and milking a poisonous snake of its venom. The venom is sent to pharmaceutical companies to manufacture snakebite serum.Read More »

Quote:
KAZE (aka WIND, 1998/ 27min) is a coming of age story about a teenage girl who lives in the Wind Village in Yamagata Prefecture. The film also features award winning director Koji Wakamatsu as a spirit from the wind.Read More »

Quote:
The most electrifyingly timely movie playing in New York was made in 1965. Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers is famous, but for some time it’s been available only in washed-out prints with poorly translated, white-on-white subtitles. The newly translated and subtitled 35-millimeter print at Film Forum is presumably the version that was privately screened in August for military personnel by the Pentagon as a field guide to fighting terrorism. Former national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski volunteered this blurb: “If you want to understand what’s happening right now in Iraq, I recommend The Battle of Algiers.” I wonder if these politicos are aware that Pontecorvo’s epic was once used by the Black Panthers as a training film? In fact, not much in the current Iraq situation is historically comparable to the late-fifties Algerian struggle for independence dramatized in The Battle of Algiers, but its anatomy of terror remains unsurpassed—and, woefully, ever fresh.Read More »