The German film Aimée and Jaguar, based on Erica Fischer’s 1994 book of the same title and directed by Max Färberböck, is a biography of how beautiful Lilly Wust (played by Juliane Köhler) coped with everyday life in Berlin during the last twenty months of World War II, when the city was being bombed and Allied […]

Fortune and Men’s Eyes (1971) dramatically alerted Americans to the ever-present danger of rape in prison. Some three decades later, the same issue is presented in this year’s Animal Factory, directed by Steve Buscemi, who plays a part in the film. Based on the novel of the same title by Edward Bunker (who also acts in the

  When Beautiful People begins, a Croat (Faruk Prutti) and a Serb (Dado Jehan) start a fight on a London bus in October 1993 during the height of the Bosnian War, when refugees are arriving with post-traumatic stress syndrome. Soon, we observe episodes of violence breaking out everywhere, and we wonder why we are still viewing one

In Sun-Tze’s The Art of War, the ruler is advised that the best way to defeat an enemy is through efforts to weaken a state from inside. This epigram is perhaps the only wisdom to be derived from the fast-paced The Art of War, directed by Christian Duguay. We see a lot of action, punctuated with glances

  If a company needs money to promote a promising new product, a bank will ideally provide a bridge loan. If a bank turns down the loan, one alternative is a junk bond for sale on the open market and aggressive brokers to find buyers. This is the premise for Boiler Room, directed by Ben Younger,

According to the tagline of Bless the Child “Mankind’s last hope just turned six.” But would Jesus return after 2,000 years in the form of a six-year-old autistic girl? When the film begins, Jenna O’Connor (played by Angela Bettis), a drug addict, abandons her baby to her unmarried sister Maggie O’Connor (played by Kim Basinger), a nurse

Films about gay life have become more frequent and more professional in recent years. The latest, The Broken Hearts Club — A Romantic Comedy, unfortunately says nothing new despite clever lines and good acting. Director Greg Berlanti exposes filmviewers to the problems of those in their late 20s who search in vain for a well-trod formula

  In Un Pont Entre Deux Rives (A Bridge Between Two Shores), George (played by Gérard Depardieu) was once a small-scale entrepreneur in a town of Normandy, operating a masonry business with three employees, but his business went bankrupt. He therefore spends hours gambling at a tavern while his wife Mina (played by Carole Bouquet) goes to

  Lino Brocka’s Macho Dancer (1989), banned in the Philippines, exposed the reason why nongay men sold their bodies to gay customers — poverty. Midnight Dancers (1995), a follow-up directed by Brocka’s onetime assistant Mel Chionglo, provided no new insight. Now comes Burlesk King (1999), also directed by Chionglo, with the same message and a few new plot twists. The film

Chocolat, directed by Lasse Hallström, is a modern fable based on a novel with the same title by Joanne Harris. The story, with occasional voiceovers (by Sally Taylor-Isherwood), is based on the familiar paradigm of a stranger entering a small town of naïve residents, provoking unexpected consequences. The setting is Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, a mythical small town