The Film:

A pre-occupied CEO falls for a highly independent artist in a Paris-set, colorful but ultimately too predictable, light comedy by Gallic helmer Pierre Jolivet. Occasional bits of fresh humor ease pic's too-sweet-bordering-bitter narrative but it all ends with the mandatory love-conquers-all lesson many will undoubtedly find annoying.

Lucas (Vincent Lindon) is struck by Elsa's (Sandrine Bonnaire) beauty when he sees her working on a giant ceramic floor in the foyer of his building. He approaches her and asks if she would be willing to have lunch with him. After a stereotypical exchange of misleading lines she agrees. Something more than a friendship is in the making.

Lucas likes Elsa and Elsa likes Lucas. Both of them however have second thoughts about why the other is interested. Elsa believes that Lucas is a man who can have any woman he desires - he is rich,...Read the entire review

The Film:

Screened at the Berlin International Festival in 2006 Egyptian director Marwan Hamed's "Yacoubian Building" offers a bold and surprisingly mature look at a country torn between Western modernity and North-African traditionalism. Based on Alaa Al Aswani's novel, an Arabic sensation, pic galvanizes homosexuality, religious fundamentalism, and romance in an explosive mix bound to fascinate those who are lucky enough to see it.

Multiple characters occupy the colorful Yacoubian Building -- rich, pretentious, secretive, ambitious, insincere, and dangerous. Some trapped in the past, some struggling with the present, a few dreaming about the future.

Aging Zaki Pasha (Adel Imam) is a respected but frivolous man whose passion for women is criticized by his old-fashioned sister (Issad Younis). Forced to leave their inherited property Zaki moves into his "office", a place...Read the entire review

Stefan Schwietert's documentary about contemporary Swiss yodeling, Echoes of Home (Heimatklange), authoritatively conveys the importance of yodeling as a traditional folk art of Switzerland, and captures its revitalization as a source for new artistic expression through three Swiss musicians. Of the three, Noldi Alder is the most visible link between yodeling as traditional and experimental art. Alder was born into a family long famed for its traditional yodeling. He achieved early success playing with his siblings, and even toured Japan. Living on a family farm perched high on a mountainside, the now mature Alder explores the parameters of yodeling much to the dismay of his elderly traditionalist father.

Also featured is Erika Stucky, a Swiss-American who spent her first eight years in San Francisco before moving to an isolated Swiss hamlet. In San Francisco, wee Erika decided...Read the entire review

The Film:

Canadian distributor Mongrel Media bring yet another "missing in action" recent European production with an impressive cast. Written by Christopher Thompson (Avenue Montaigne) and directed by Thierry Klifa Le Heros de la Famille a.k.a Family Hero (2006) is likely to attract the attention of those who follow French cinema closely yet are limited to R1 product only.

Similar to Patrice Chereau's bitter-sweet Ceux qui m'aiment prendront le train a.k.a Those Who Love Me Can Take The Train (1998) a tragic event instigates an unlikely reunion in Family Hero. Extravagant behavior, melodramatic confessions, and plenty of broken hearts, provide the blue print for a long but ultimately satisfying story where colorful characters bare their souls.

Gabriel Stern (Claude Brasseur), owner of the famous night locale Blue Parrot, is found dead...Read the entire review

If as Noam Chomsky asserts, the major media outlets are propaganda mills for their corporate masters, independent documentary filmmaking is surely a bastion of contrarian voices. For every issue of the American left--war (No End in Sight), consumerism (The Corporation), the WTO (This is What Democracy Looks Like), the military-industrial complex (Why We Fight), big-media (Outfoxed), the agro-industrial complex (The Future of Food), the war on drugs (Weed), labor (The Wobblies), the environment (Trashed), homelessness (Homeless in America), gun control (Bowling for Columbine), oil dependence and urban planning (The End of Suburbia) and everything between and beyond--there are a number of documentaries available for home viewing. One of the earliest leftist documentaries widely available to home viewers in North America...Read the entire review

The Film:

An interesting mix of neo-noir and social drama Lucas Belvaux's The Law of the Weakest is yet to be officially released in the United States. Fortunately, Canadian distribs Mongrel Media offer an adequate English-friendly version which can be easily imported.

A disillusioned forty-something (Robert, Claude Semal), a handicapped old timer (Jean-Pierre, Patrick Descamps), and a struggling young father (Patrick, Eric Caravaca) see no hope in their future. Playing cards, drinking beer, and struggling to make ends meet is the routine they follow daily. Their lives have become so miserable that even the most ridiculous of ideas occasionally sound logical.

When an ex-con (Marc, Lucas Belvaux) arrives in town Robert, Jean-Pierre, and Patrick decide that it is now or never. They befriend Marc and ask for his assistance in stealing a la...Read the entire review

Global Warning, simply put, is a collection of three films with forward-thinking global views, including Jennifer Baichwal's Manufactured Landscapes (2006), Basil Gelpke & Ray McCormack's A Crude Awakening (2007) and Hélène Choquette & Jean-Philippe Duval's Refugees of the Blue Planet (2006). Having reviewed the first two films for DVD Talk as stand-alone releases earlier in the year, portions of this text contain brief summaries and links to the original disc reviews. Like most DVD boxed sets, Global Warning is essentially an easy, economical way to get a large amount of like-minded content in one package. The three films are as follows:

It'll test your patience at times, but that certainly doesn't mean Manufactured Landscapes (86 minutes, at top) i...Read the entire review

The Movie

I'm not the sort that readily embraces change. Abrupt shifts in routine, notable differences in loved ones and the gradual acceleration of years can weigh anyone down, but some are more inclined to roll with the punches than others -- I've learned I'm not such a person. Perhaps that is why Canadian actress Sarah Polley's directorial debut, Away from Her, affected me as deeply as it did. It's a film as much about the grueling realities of Alzheimer's disease as it is a thoughtful, considered rumination about life's inevitabilities; Away from Her is a shattering, emotionally brutal experience, anchored by an exquisite Julie Christie performance.

Polley, who adapted the screenplay from Alice Munro's short story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain," displays a keen eye for the subtle language of long-time married couple Grant and Fiona (Gordon Pinsent and C...Read the entire review

The Film:

Spanish director David Trueba's award-winning picture Bienvenido a Casa a.k.a Welcome Home (2006) reminded me a lot about Cesc Gay's similarly-themed En la ciudad a.k.a In the City (2006). Both films juxtapose comedy with social-drama hoping to convince their audience that there is enough in the lives of disillusioned twenty-something Spanish couples worth capturing on film. Yet, after ninety minutes of over-used clichés I was anything but entertained. In fact, I was bored to tears.

Eva (Pilar López de Ayala) and Samuel (Alejo Sauras) have just moved to Madrid hoping to further strengthen their relationship. He is a photograph at a local newspaper, she is a musician. He is committed to his new job, she is carrying his child and ready to reveal her secret. When she finally does things take an unusual turn.

Chopp...Read the entire review

The Film:

French director Tony Gatlif offers a healthy dose of Gypsy folklore in his latest film Transylvania (2006) which is yet to be released on DVD in the United States. A road-affair, as was the director's previous effort Exils (2004), pic once again relies on a colorful cast of European actors and the impressive eye of cinematographer Celine Bozon.

Italian beauty Zingarina (Asia Argento, Queen Margot) has come to Transylvania with her friend Marie (Amira Casarto, Anatomy of Hell) looking for her gypsy lover Milan (Italian popstar Marco Castoldi). When the two meet Zingarina tells Milan that she is expecting his child. Shortly after Milan rejects her.

On the way back to France Zingarina and Marie part ways. The Italian dresses as a gypsy and embarks on an emotional journey through the back roads of Transylvania. Along the way she m...Read the entire review

The Film:

Inspired by a high-profile case known simply as the Elf Affair suspense-master Calude Chabrol's latest picture La Comédie du pouvoir a.k.a Lust for Power (2006) walks its audience into a highly-compromised corporate system infested with dubious characters. Here the focus of attention is Judge Jeanne Charmant-Killman (Isabelle Huppert) whose desire to reach to the bottom of a shady offshore deal throws her into a powerful political vortex with strong antagonistic forces.

Finding entertainment value in events other directors will likely dismiss with an ignorant aplomb Chabrol's latest picture isn't easy to embrace! The director's foray into the higher echelons of corporate business is dry, mechanical, and at times slightly c...Read the entire review

The Movie

I was struck watching Michael Moore promoting his latest cinematic screed, Sicko, earlier this year. The guy seemed almost contrite -- eager to confront the Bush administration head on about his trip to Cuba, yes, but otherwise very low-key in his approach to spreading the word about his film on America's ailing health-care system. Matter of fact, Moore doesn't even show up on screen until almost 30 minutes in -- it's a change of pace for the filmmaker who dominated (and some would say self-sabotaged) his earlier works like Bowling For Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11.

Moore's role in the political arena has always been a contentious one; the famously left-leaning director hasn't met a conservative yet that he wouldn't snipe at, whether it be on film or at numerous political rallies for various presidential candidates. But is Moore's power a resu...Read the entire review

Challenging is a very easy adjective to describe Exterminating Angels (Les Anges Exterminateurs), an erotic conundrum from director Jean-Claude Brisseau. The very fabric of female sensuality and, above that, the epitomic point of beauty within orgasm offers a lot of mystery and reflection in this work. Instead of giving us an earnest reflection on a complicated scenario, however, Exterminating Angels ends up overreaching its bounds and forgetting about the resemblance of a connective balance between reality and fantasy.


The Film:

Francois (Frederic van den Driessche), after a series of "tests" for one of his upcoming films, turns onto a perfectly decadent woman lush with passion and beauty. However, even though he decides to go another route for that picture, her haunting beauty during this particular on-screen display of arousal leaves a lingering spar...Read the entire review

Compact and dramatic, James Longley's Iraq in Fragments gives us a surprising amount of access to a country in turmoil. Armed with only two relatively inexpensive cameras, one Apple G4 laptop, roughly 1.5 TB (yes, TB) of hard drive space, 300 digital video tapes and plenty of courage, Longley shows us three distinct portraits of the war-ravaged environment in just 93 minutes. As director, cameraman, composer and sound technician, Longley recorded roughly 30 minutes of footage daily for nearly two years, often editing and time-coding footage for translation while still in the field. It's a substantial achievement in solo documentary filmmaking---but if that weren't enough, this three-part story unfolds in a poetic, emotional and involving way.

Part 1, "Mohammed of Baghdad", is told from the perspective of...Read the entire review

The Movie:

In case prices at the gas pump haven't scared the bejesus out of you, just pop A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash into the DVD player, and you just might end up with night terrors. Directed by Swiss first-time filmmakers Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack, this somber, well-crafted documentary argues that oil, what it calls "the bloodstream of the world's economy," is hemorrhaging. The concern is as easy to understand as it is dire: The planet grows more and more dependent on oil as its primary energy source, and we are quickly running out of it.

A Crude Awakening backs up its thesis with an impressive array of experts who range from geologists and oil consultants to physics professors and government officials. These aren't folks who naysayers can dismiss as environmentalist wackos.

In stark terms, the movie illustrates the dilemma of rapidly depleting oil...Read the entire review

The Film:

For William (Daniel Auteuil) and Madeleine (Sabine Azema) life has been an exciting, full of success journey. They have pursued the careers of their dreams, created a family, and raised a beautiful child.

Looking to escape the havoc of city life Madeleine often embarks on short trips through the French countryside where she likes to paint alone. During one of those trips Madeleine encounters Adam (Sergi Lopez) a blind man with an unusual sense of humor. He offers to show her a gorgeous house which the owners are now selling.

Madeleine quickly falls in love with the house. A day later she asks William if he would ever consider moving away from the city. The answer is positive.

Madeleine and William invite Adam and his girlfriend for dinner at their newly restored home. In a matter of days the two couples become inseparable friends.

Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/27700 Tue, 24 Apr 2007 23:20:27 UTC Recommended

The Film:

Miriam (Martina Gedeck, Mostly Martha), Andre (Peter Davor), their son Niels (Lucas Kotaranin) and his girlfriend Livia (Svea Lohde) head to the Baltic Sea for a relaxing vacation. There the family encounters Bill (Robert Seeliger), an attractive but lonely man, who has recently returned to Germany after many years of living abroad. They quickly become friends and even sail together when the weather allows it.

Attracted by Livia and her wit Bill invites the young girl to spend more time with him. Miriam, who has assumed responsibility for Livia while she is away from her parents, becomes concerned that a friendship between a 12-year old girl and a man in his upper 30s can only produce trouble. Especially given Livia's sexually immature behavior!

In the meantime Niels who has been hoping to solidify his relationship with Livia becomes increasingly hostil...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/27626 Wed, 18 Apr 2007 19:33:43 UTC Recommended

It'll test your patience at times, but that certainly doesn't mean Jennifer Baichwal's Manufactured Landscapes (2006) isn't worth your time and attention. This slow-burning documentary combines striking images by Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky with footage shot at the original locations, creating what some might call a "moving exhibition". This series of photographs includes landscapes and people directly affected by industry---and though the initial idea came to Burtynsky in Pennsylvania over 20 years ago, it flourished more recently in enormous Chinese factories like the one above.

The latter environment sets the tone for Manufactured Landscapes; during the opening sequence, a camera pans across the massive factory floor for roughly eight minutes. The scope of the workers' pro...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/26388 Sat, 03 Feb 2007 19:59:02 UTC Highly Recommended

Eve and the Fire Horse is a story about family, childhood, and religion. Most importantly, it's a film about belief. Never would a tale about godly discovery within a nine-year old be anywhere near as convincing as with this film. This wonderful Sundance confection delivers an easygoing dose of philosophy behind a clever coming-of-age drama. Directed Julia Kwan has crafted a film brimming with warmth and wisdom.


The Film:

Eve (Phoebe Kut) and Karena (Hollie Lo) are sisters within the Eng household, a typical Canadian-Chinese family during the '70s that includes their father, mother, and their elder grandmother. Confucian principles and a cloud of other spiritually-bound beliefs fill the Eng household. One old belief is that of the zodiac symbol "fire horse" that recurs every 60 years. Children born under this zodiac were notorious for being the most hard-headed an...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/26338 Sat, 03 Feb 2007 19:59:02 UTC Recommended

The Movie:

If a double-tall mocha latte doesn't supply enough a jolt to your senses, leave it to Black Gold to awaken whatever moral indignation might be lying dormant inside. A sobering look at the $80 billion-a-year coffee business, this compact documentary examines an ugly and rarely seen side of the international coffee trade.

The film's title is fitting. Coffee is second only to oil as the world's most exported commodity. But while oil has brought untold riches to some nations that export it, the farmers who cultivate first-rate coffee beans end up reaping, well, figurative beans for all their toil.

At least that's the experience in Ethiopia -- the birthplace of the coffee bean -- as is pointed out by Black Gold's filmmakers, British brothers Marc and Nick Francis. The economy of Ethiopia is inexorably tied to coffee. Nearly 70 percent of its export revenu...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/26214 Thu, 25 Jan 2007 06:03:29 UTC Skip It

The Movie:
Actress Sarah Polley portrays Hanna, a troubled deaf woman with a tragic past who chooses to spend her first vacation in four years in the middle of the ocean on an oil rig caring for a burn victim in writer / director Isabel Coixet's The Secret Life Of Words.

Polley has always made interesting career choices, such as her turn as a grocery clerk / drug dealer in Go, and her beautiful performance as a dying woman in My Life Without Me. Now we can add TSLOW to that list. And while her co-star, Tim Robbins, who plays burn victim Josef, has quite a few blockbuster roles under his belt, it's turns like this one, as well as his portrayal of a man torn between love and duty in Code 46, that leave me wondering if this is the same guy who played Ebby Calvin 'Nuke' LaLoosh in Bull Durham all those years ago.

In the end, while this movie seems on the surface to be about two people thrown ...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/26178 Mon, 22 Jan 2007 20:05:11 UTC Recommended

The Film:

Three years after the release of El Otro Lado de la Cama a.k.a The Other Side of the Bed (2002) Spanish director Emilio Martinez Lazaro returns with a follow-up to his quirky comedy titled simply Los 2 Lados de la Cama a.k.a The 2 Sides of the Bed (2005). This time around the protagonists are a bit wilder, funnier, and once again madly in love.

Javier (Ernesto Alterio) has finally decided to make it official: he is going to marry his long-time girlfriend Marta (Veronica Sanchez). Pedro (Guillermo Toledo), Javier's best friend, is also in love with his girlfriend Raquel (Lucía Jiménez). The two couples are inseparable. Rafa (Alberto San Juan) is in love with Pilar (María Esteve). The two aren't ready to make it official but looking at Javier and Pedro Rafa believes that it is just a matter of time. The boys will fina...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/26142 Mon, 22 Jan 2007 20:00:41 UTC Recommended

I don't like telemarketers. I don't like them calling me during dinner, or while I'm watching a movie...or even when I've got nothing better to do. Sales pitches regurgitated from cue cards turn me right off, so I often politely decline the offer (usually, it takes several attempts) and hang up promptly. It's an impersonal and cold way to do business, and it's one of several reasons that I opted for a cell phone instead of a landline. However, I realize that the person on the other end is a living, breathing human being; they've got to put food on the table, even if I don't appreciate what they're doing in the least.

It's a good thing that Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal's Bombay Calling (2005) shows us the people behind the pitches; otherwise, I'd probably have turned it off as fast as I hang the ...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/26031 Thu, 11 Jan 2007 19:37:35 UTC Recommended

THE MOVIE:

I haven't been disturbed by a film in quite some time the way I was disturbed by The Great Happiness Space. And this comes without any killing or blood or gore, no violence or physical illness whatsoever. Instead, Jake Clennell's documentary about the sordid world of hosting in Osaka, Japan, sends shivers through the viewer by laying bare how twisted people can be with one another.

The "star" of this movie is Issei, the top host at the leading entertainment club for women in Osaka, the Rakkyo Café. Issei is one of a cadre of nearly interchangeable boys, all sporting muscle Tees or designer suits and bleached Rod Stewart hair. They hit the streets and give come-ons to passing women to lure them into the club, where the ladies will then pay by the ...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/25673 Wed, 27 Dec 2006 19:41:22 UTC Recommended

The Movie

I realize I'm probably setting myself up for a fair amount of crap by opening a review with a quote from Garden State, but for all of the not-so-transparent emotional manipulation director Zach Braff indulges in, there was one line of dialogue that's stuck with me ever since I saw the film two years ago and not so coincidentally spoken by Braff's character, Andrew Largeman: "You know that point in your life when you realize that the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore ... all of a sudden, even though you have some place to put your shit, that idea of home is gone ... or maybe it's like this rite of passage ... you will never have that feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, for your kids, for the family you start; it's like a cycle or something ... maybe that's what family really is ... a group of people that miss the same imagin...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/25675 Mon, 18 Dec 2006 02:03:24 UTC Rent It

THE SHOW:

Human Cargo is a miniseries that ran on Canadian television in 2004. Directed by Brad Turner, who has worked extensively in both television (24, La Femme Nikita) and features (Species III), it was serialized in six episodes, each clocking in at just over forty-minutes in length. An ambitious undertaking, it spans several countries and two continents, and was shot on location in South Africa and Vancouver B.C.

The show opens on election night in Vancouver. Right-wing politician Nina Wade (Kate Nelligan, The Cider House Rules) is losing her government seat to an opponent of Indian heritage, while at the same time, a suspicious looking truck is pulled over at the border. Inside is a lone survivor among a pile of dead bodies...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/25600 Sat, 16 Dec 2006 06:34:05 UTC Skip It

I'm not a purist when it comes to taking operas or classical stage works, and updating them or transporting them to different locales or periods in history. Bizet's Carmen, one of my favorite operas, has been adapted numerous times for the cinema, most notably by Francesco Rosi, starring Placido Domingo and Julia Migenes in 1984, and by Otto Preminger in the brilliant update from 1954, starring the stunning team of Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Balefonte. Director Mark Donford-May's 2005 update of Bizet's masterpiece, U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha, won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, and quite a lot of attention from critics all over the world. I was less than impressed. Just because a film wins an award doesn't mean it's automatically good, or important, or even worthwhile (in fact, there are a couple of famous film festivals where, if a film wins there, you can almost bet tha...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/25380 Sat, 02 Dec 2006 05:53:53 UTC Recommended

The Film:

When Gegen Die Wand a.k.a Head-On won the top prize at the Berlinale back in 2004 something rather unusual happened - both critics and fans instantaneously agreed that German cinema had made a triumphant return on one of Europe's biggest stages. Surprisingly it was an ethnic Turk born and raised in Hamburg, the city where the Beatles released their first commercial recording, who made it possible.

Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (2005), Fatih Akin's latest film, follows the steps of Alexander Hacke, bassist for the little known in America Einstürzende Neubauten, as he visits Turkey hoping to learn more about the country and its music. As he wanders around the streets of Istanbul the German discovers a world where past and present coexist in harmony.

Skipping between traditional Turkish music, trendy electron...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/20815 Sun, 26 Mar 2006 16:07:52 UTC Recommended

THE MOVIE

A little girl is awakened by her father, who asks if she remembers getting married. She says no. Anyway, her father says, her husband is dead. She's a widow now. "For how long?" she asks, but she doesn't get an answer. Her father can't bear to tell her that she'll be a widow for the rest of her life.

This is India in 1938, and ancient Hindu texts command that widows remain chaste and unmarried, lest they be reincarnated as jackals (!). The girl, named Chuyia (played by a little cherub named Sarala), is the central figure in "Water," the third part in Deepa Mehta's political trilogy that began with "Fire" and "Earth."

Mehta, an Indian woman who moved to Canada in her 20s, creates a powerfully real (but cinematically lovely) view of 1930s India, at a time when Gandhi was coming to prominence and urging Indians to get out from under British rule. Indian women, however, pa...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/20290 Tue, 21 Feb 2006 15:58:53 UTC Highly Recommended

The Film:

Last year I saw a number of Israeli productions ranging from good ("Medurat Hashevet" a.k.a Campfire) to very good (the French-Israeli co-produced "Mon Tresor" a.k.a Or) to disappointing (Ushpizin) to plain terrible ("LaLehet Al HaMayim" a.k.a Walk on Water). What I have in my hands now is the heavily promoted Ha Kala Ha-Surit, better known in America as The Syrian Bride (2004), which appears to be a massive Israeli/German/French production highly decorated by a number of important film institutions.

I could not see The Syrian Bride at home although it was screened during the Chicago International Film Festival and though I knew that a DVD release was possibly in the making I nearly forgot about it after almost a year passed away and no US distributor stepped up to promote the film (a US release as it s...Read the entire review

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