Bobby, directed by Emilio Estevez, is a biopic about Robert F. (Bobby) Kennedy, focusing on the day in June 1968 when he was assassinated. The movie features a lot of film footage from that day, when he won the California presidential preferential primary, and concludes with a montage of photos accompanying Bobby’s equivalent of the […]

The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros (Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros), directed by Aureaus Solito, is a coming-of-age film about twelve-year-old Maximo Oliveros (played by Nathan Lopez). His mother is dead, his father Paco (played by Soliman Cruz) is a gangster, and his two older brothers, Boy (played by Neil Ryan Sese) and Bogs (played by

Another Gay Movie, directed and written by Todd Stephens, focuses on four San Torum High School gays in Southern California (actually Culver City High, though the fictional school’s name clearly refers to the homophobic Pennsylvania senator) who are virgins but pledge to get laid before college starts in the fall. The film, in short, takes

Apocalypto, directed by Mel Gibson, is an epic story about the Mayan people. After establishing several Mayans as delightfully innocent savages, the film shows how they are captured by the brutally savage Aztecs. When the film ends, in 1519, Spanish ships have docked on the coast, and the Mayan survivors of the Aztec imperialists decide

POCAHONTAS DISCOVERS A MOST PECULIAR ENGLAND IN THE NEW WORLD The New World, directed by Terrence Malick, should perhaps have been named “The Pocahontas Story,” as the film focuses mostly on her life from 1607, when the 12-year-old Native American princess first encounters 27-year-old Captain John Smith (played by Colin Farrell), until her death in

Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, directed by Albert Brooks, is for American audiences but may not play well in the Muslim World. The ridiculous plot is simple enough to carry many laughs. An out-of-work comedian, Albert Brooks (playing himself), is summoned to Washington by Fred Thompson (playing himself). Thompson, former Senator but now

In Last Holiday, directed by Wayne Wang, a kitchen salesperson at Kragen Department Store in New Orleans, Georgia Byrd (played by Queen Latifa), is diagnosed with a terminal illness. She has three weeks to live, according to her physician. The film is a retake of a 1950 classic film with Alec Guinness (as George Bird) that

  The Romeo and Juliet paradigm frames La Petite Jérusalem, a French film directed by Karin Albou. Laura (played by Fanny Valette) was brought to a Paris suburb from Tunisia by her widowed mother (played by Sonia Tahar) some years ago. She is studying philosophy at a university in Paris and finds Kantian wisdom to be

Copying Beethoven, directed by Agnieszka Holland, is a biopic of Ludwig Van Beethoven (played by Ed Harris) that is premised on a fictional Anna Holtz (played by Diane Kruger), though based on actual persons, as his assistant from the completion of the Ninth Symphony until his death. After a prologue in which Anna cries on

Ceasefire (Atash bas) is an Iranian film about a conflict between a traditional male married to a liberated woman. Director Tahmineh Milani has dealt with the same theme in several previous movies, notably The Hidden Half, which garnered a Political Film Society nomination for best film on human rights in 2001. However, in Ceasefire she decides