Gay-oriented films tend to present problems, sometimes very profound, mixed with tension-release comedy. In Trick, directed by Jim Fall, the problem seems quite simple—that Gabriel (played by Christian Campbell) meets Mark (played by John Paul Pitoc), the two want to have sex, but they are unable to have sex all night, and therein lies the effort […]

It is 1941. If the Nazis are coming to a small village somewhere in Czechoslovakia, should the Jews calmly await their fate? In Train of Life, a French film (“Train de Vie”) directed by Radu Mihaileanu, the village idiot Shlomo (played by Lionel Abelanski) has an idea: The townspeople should buy a train and ride to

In Trash, which had a premier screening in Hollywood on June 24, youthful director/writer Mark Anthony Galluzzo, has attempted to bring assorted true events of the area near Ocala, Florida, to the screen in order to show the difficulties that poor Whites face in a part of the South where economic opportunities are limited. The tagline

The Thirteenth Floor Belief in reincarnation satisfies a longing for immortality, or at least a feel that we can do better in the next life. Similarly, older people often look back upon their life as a time of missed opportunities; if only we could relive the past and make different choices, we might have found

A rich man may not get away with murder in The Thomas Crown Affair, but he gets away with a prank and a paramour. A remake of Norman Jewison’s 1968 classic film, this version has more of a James Bond signature than Steve McQueen provided. A rich financier, Thomas Crown (played this time by Pierce Brosnan)

A large number of persons, especially women, work on a temporary basis. We are familiar with substitute teachers and extras in films as temporary jobs, but the bulk of the “temps” are office workers. In Temporary Girl, codirected and written by Lisa Kotin and Johnny C. White, Jr., we view why temps exist and how they

A Stranger in the Kingdom is a thriller in the Perry Mason genre but based on a true story. In 1957, as the film unfolds, Walter Andrews (played by Ernie Hudson), a Protestant minister, is recruited to the pulpit by a congregation in Irasberg, Vermont, located in Kingdom County. The townspeople doubtless expected that he would

Summer of Sam is a film full of nostalgia, especially for director Spike Lee, who in 1977 decided to become a filmmaker. Centered at a community in Queens where Italian working class men hang out near the Long Island Sound, the premise of the film is that the soaring temperatures of summer 1977 became so unbearable

When Stigmata begins, a priest in São Paulo, Father Almeida, dies. A statue of the Virgin Mary cries human blood. Father Andrew Kiernan (played by Gabriel Byrne), having been assigned by the Vatican to investigate a reported appearance of the Virgin Mary in an oxidized rock, takes an unscheduled trip to São Paulo. A rosary of Father

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, the first of three prequels to the “Star Wars” series is not a film for mature adults; it is for children who read comic books and be counted upon to attend the film multiple times. The tagline of the film is “Every generation has a legend. Every