Cinema Directory

Comments: The secret life of girls... it's not pretty.

Summary: A mother and her daughter confront the intimidation of teen peer pressure and the emotionally brutalizing social rituals of high school. A well-adjusted teenager becomes depressed when she's ostracized by her friends at school. Her mother must help her daughter regain her confidence.

Summary: Oedipus Orca is the sequel to La Orca both directed by Visconti and starring Rena Niehaus. In La Orca a high school aged girl played by Niehaus is kidnapped and held for ransom, while the second movie Oedipus Orca is about her life with her family and boyfriend after she returns home. The first film was somewhat controversial and labeled pornographic by some due to its exploitive nudity and sexuality involving a teenage girl. Oedipus Orca begins with her return home. The exploitive side as the film series continues as she is nude every few minutes. She once again uses sex to her advantage against a family friend. This movie has lots of flashbacks to the first film and deals with her emotional state a lot. The most memorable is when she visits the room she was held captive in and masturbates while recalling having sex with her captor. It makes as strong a statement of how the mind can be twisted by such a situation.

Comments: A Very Powerful Place

Summary: An 11-year-old girl watches her father come down with a crippling depression. Over one summer, she learns answers to several mysteries and comes to terms with love and loss.

Summary:

Summary: Oh My God! is a humorous observation of children´s interpretations and experiences of sexuality. The film also looks back through grown-up eyes at the reality of being part of the “in-crowd” and the lengths to which one is prepared to go to become a respected member. But first and foremost Oh my God! is a film about the orgasm.

Summary: Funny children's classic from the Soviet Union, about a young girl, with a vivid imagination, trying to fit into the disciplined world of school and gym. Life is so much easier when your drawings come to life!

Summary: The 12 years old well-bred Lonnie meets the impudent Karen on the street. They spend some time together and Karen teaches Lonnie some of her favorite occupancies, like make-up, shoplifting, skipping school and lying to the parent about it, but confessing to the priest later. But Karen also learns some honesty from Lonnie. A film about social differences and growing up.

Languages: English, Dolby Digital 5.1; French, Dolby Digital 5.1

Summary: An adaptation of the classic Dickens tale, where an orphan meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. From there, he joins a household of boys who are trained to steal for their master.

Summary: This is a two and a half minute short about a girl named Olivia who is accidently left behind by her family as they go on their annual holiday to Wales. The film explores Olivia's naivety and imagination as she tries to find her own way there.

Comments: Life is never as innocent as it seems.

Summary: Olivier, Olivier's plotline stems from the Duval family who live in rural France. They’re not entirely happy with one another; Elisabeth, the mother (Brigitte Roüan) dotes on her nine-year old son Olivier (Emmanuel Morozof), who his father Serge (François Cluzet) thinks is a mummy’s boy. Olivier’s sister Nadine is an outcast, unwanted by her mother and forced into her own world. The father is thinking of running away to Africa. So far, so Mike Leigh.

Events take a horrific turn when Olivier, sent on an errand, disappears without trace. Despite the best efforts of keen copper Druot (Jean-François Stévenin), there are no signs of him, and the family rips itself apart. Elisabeth falls in to a suicidal depression, Serge quickly jets off to Africa and Nadine continues to feel unwanted. There’s a horrible realism to the plot, written by Holland, illustrating in depth how harrowing something like this must be.

Six years later, a street waif (Grégoire Colin) is picked up in Paris by the same copper, who feels in his bones that he must be Olivier. The instant Elisabeth sees him, she is convinced, and takes him back to the family in triumph. Serge jets back from Chad, and the family is reunited. But is it? Nadine is not so sure that this is the real Olivier, and despite yourself it’s a mystery that will enthral you as much as it repels.

In all, it’s a magnificent study of the consequences of family tragedy. In a way, it’s like a prototype version of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, which deals mainly in the familial aftermath of a similar event. Child kidnap is not an easy subject to deal with, since the ripples it creates resonate for decades, even generations. Holland is sympathetic but realistic, and in a way it gets more intense when Olivier returns, raising more questions than it answers. Where’s he been? And more importantly – why?

Languages: German

Summary: Eight year old Paul and his mother just moved to a skyscraper. After an embarrassing encounter with Anna, Paul meets her in the elevator. Anna makes fun of him and they start to quarrel. They can't arrange about going up or down. The elevator suddenly drops and carries them deep down into the realms of a wicked witch. The witch is out for their youth, since her own time is running out. Their only chance against her is for once to help together. They meet a blind horse, a clock without clock hand and a knight without courage helping them on their journey.

Summary: The much loved trio of felons — the Olsen Gang — stand bright in the spotlight of the national film heritage. Egon has been brought up in a children's home and he is determined to find a prosperous family. He is soon swept off by adoptive parents who trick him into believing they are millionaires. He wises up when he discovers his new home is a cell at a military base. Egon makes his escape, and in doing so he overhears the plans his captors have in mind: now that they have paid the boy's home for all Egon's records, Egon has to all intents and purposes ceased to exist, and they can use him as a guinea pig for their clandestine space project which will send Egon orbiting the earth and perhaps to his doom. But Egon is hard to nail down and besides, he has a plan!

Summary: When a man buys a child's dog without her knowledge, the rightful owner (Zsuzsi Czinkoczi), approximately twelve years old, hounds the fellow until he agrees to give it back. In the process, the two form a friendship which quickly develops into a father/daughter-like relationship.

Then, the girl's parents permit the lass to move in with the man, but this makes his girlfriend a bit jealous. A well done, interesting film which perhaps falls short by never fully explaining why the leading male is so interested in the aforementioned dog and its young owner.

Summary: Many 1970's Italian horror films tried to rip-off Hollywood hits "Rosemary's Baby", "The Exorcist", or "The Omen". Well this one tries to rip-off all three at the same time, and the result is a completely incomprehensible mish-mash. As near as I could follow, the film is about a coven of middle-aged female Satanists who begin to have buyer's remorse over the deal they made with the Dark Prince after he targets their nubile teenage daughters(perhaps this is supposed to be a metaphor for former 60's "flower children" reconsidering what the social changes of that era had wrought by the late 70's?). Three of the women band together to fight back against their infernal master with disastrous results.

Languages: English, Dolby Digital 4.0; English, Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; French, Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo

Comments: The terror continues.

Summary: Damien Thorn is dead, but his prophecy is reborn in a mysterious girl named Delia, who is adopted by two attorneys, Gene & Karen York. When Karen realizes her baby was born under suspicious circumstances, she hires a private investigator to find Delia's real parents. A series of bizarre accidents occur, and Karen begins to suspect everyone of conspiring against her as she unravels the truth about her baby.

Summary: Con-woman Trish and her niece/ward Patsy are caught trying to steal from a department store right before Christmas. With the holidays so near, Bert, a store employee, agrees to be responsible for the pair so that Patsy need not spend the holidays in social services. Romance ensues.

Comments: She was having a perfectly bad day... Then he came along and spoiled it.

Summary: Melanie Parker, an architect and mother of Sammy, and Jack Taylor, a newspaper columnist and father of Maggie, are both divorced. They meet one morning when overwhelmed Jack is left unexpectedly with Maggie and forgets that Melanie was to take her to school. As a result, both children miss their school field trip and are stuck with the parents. The two adults project their negative stereotypes of ex-spouses on each other, but end up needing to rely on each other to watch the children as each must save his job. Humor is added by Sammy's propensity for lodging objects in his nose and Maggie's tendency to wander.

Languages: English

Comments: A boy turned Indian, a trooper turned deserter and ROSIE, a camel turned IMPOSSIBLE!

Summary: Filmed on location in Utah, "One Little Indian" is a leisurely paced Western adventure for children and families. This sets it apart from many of those that preceded it in the '70s--and appear to have served as influences--like "Little Big Man" (1970) and "Jeremiah Johnson" (1972). There is less violence and, as in many Disney productions, animal sidekicks are a big part of the action; in this case, an ornery camel named Rosie and her calf, Thirsty. James Garner plays Keyes, a deserter from the U.S. Cavalry, who "borrows" the camels while making his escape. Shortly afterwards, he meets Mark (Clay O'Brien), a white boy raised by Indians upon the death of his parents. He too slipped away from the cavalry after they rounded up his adopted family for relocation. He joins Keyes for a trip to Mexico. Along the way, they encounter widow Doris McIver (Vera Miles) and daughter Martha (Jodie Foster). All the while, the cavalry is hot on their trail. Bernard McEveety directed episodes of a number of TV Westerns from the '50s through the '70s. These included "Gunsmoke", which featured appearances by Miles (a favorite of John Ford) and Foster. He would later direct Garner in his best-known series, "The Rockford Files", the following year. "--Kathleen C. Fennessy"

Languages: English

Comments: Some things have to be believed to be seen

Summary: Pobby and Dingan live in the opal capitol of Australia. They are friends with Kellyanne Williamson, the daughter of a miner - but only Kellyanne can see them. Pobby and Dingan are imaginary. Kellyanne's brother Ashmol, thinks his sister should grow up and stop being such a fruit-loop - until the day when Pobby and Dingan disappear, the same day that his father is accused of ratting, the worst sin an opal miner can commit.

As Kellyanne, grief-stricken, begins to fade away, Ashmol recruits the whole town in the search for Pobby and Dingan. In the end, however, he discovers that only he can find them, and he can only find them if he too begins to believe they are real. Opal Dream is an enchanting, funny and profoundly moving story.

Summary: A defiant misfit teenaged girl goes on a magical journey of self-discovery through a surrealistic enchanted forest after she is booted out of boarding school. Tereza goes through the beautiful countryside en route to Bratislava, the capital city where her estranged mother lives. Along the way, she has several quirky adventures, overcomes a number of obstacles and meets assorted weird characters, including a sad young man who is about to marry a woman old enough to be his mother, and an old woman who is buried up to her waist in order to relieve her pain. Matters don't get any less strange when she finally reaches her destination.

Summary: Maria learns that her aunt Oriana has died and willed her a crumbling and remote Venezuelan hacienda where Maria spent a short time as a girl just entering puberty. Maria goes to the hacienda to prepare the place for sale; while going through her aunt's papers, she recalls her visit years' before. In flashbacks, we see the young Maria trying to sort out why Oriana never leaves the hacienda, what secret may be in Oriana's past, and who the mysterious Sergio was. The young Maria, as she learns things, imagines her aunt's youth, cruel father, and first love. After these reveries within reveries, Maria, now a grown woman, makes one more discovery.

Summary: Oskar and Josefine are celebrating Midsummer with Oskar's grandparents in the country. A demon, Thorsen, gives Josefine the gift of enabling her to time travel. Visiting Oskar's family in the 17th century, Josefine saves a sickly young girl from the stake. But now the villagers see Josefine as a witch and want to burn her at the stake instead.

Languages: English, Dolby Digital 5.1; Commentary by Animation Directors, Producer and Writer; French, Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish, Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround

Comments: He's one cell of a guy.

Summary: Frank Detomello is a slovenly zookeeper, and simple father to the only young and bright girl named Shane, who catches a cold right after when he swallowed a germ-ridden egg! The inside of his body is known as the "City of Frank". An unlikely hero of a policeman white blood cell, by the name of Osmosis Jones works as a member of Immunity, for Frank's immune system, as a white blood cell. But with that germ-ridden egg comes a mortal danger: Osmosis discovers Frank has really contracted a villainous and black-hearted deadly virus known as Thrax who arrives and plotting to ultimately overheat Frank's body, killing him from the inside out! Thrax is motivated by trying to become the nastiest new virus, attempting to kill each new victim faster than the previous. His grandiose plan for Frank is death in 48 hours, breaking previous medical records! Meanwhile the pill that Frank took, Drix arrives in the body and covers Frank's throat with ice to cover the irritation. Osmosis Jones becomes his newest partner. Now it's all up to only Osmosis and Drix to put an end of Thrax's plans before Frank gets sick forever and Shane will become an orphan!

Summary: The heroine of fantastic adventures becomes the Moscow schoolgirl of XXI century of Alisa Seleznev. Strange robots chase the girl, but they can't swim - and Alisa can - very good!

Languages: English, Unknown

Summary: When a childless couple learn that they cannot have children, it causes great distress. To ease his wife's pain, the man finds a piece of root in the backyard and chops it and varnishes it into the shape of a child. However the woman takes the root as her baby and starts to pretend that it is real. When the root takes life they seem to have gained a child; but it's appetite is much greater than a normal child.

Languages: English, Dolby Digital 5.1; French, Dolby Digital 2.0

Comments: Sooner Or Later They Will Find You.

Summary: A woman who lives in a darkened old house with her two photosensitive children becomes convinced that her family home is haunted.

Languages: English, Spanish,

Summary: The twins we all know and love visit the Land Down Under and wreak their own brand of cute havoc on the Aussies. Kangaroos, koalas, and overall crazy fun abound.

Comments: The children's story that is not for children...

Summary: Dirk Bogarde is a no-good rotter who returns to his family after several years' absence. Only his seven children are present to greet Bogarde as he enters his shabby London home, and they're somewhat vague as to the whereabouts of the mother. What Bogarde doesn't know is that his wife had died some time ago. The kids (including future stars Pamela Franklin and Mark Lester) decided amongst themselves that they didn't want to be broken up and sent to orphanages; thus, they secretly buried their mother and went on about their business, pretending that mom was still alive. Money-hungry Bogarde threatens this cozy set-up, leaving the children little recourse but to prepare a second grave.

Comments: An orphan girl plays matchmaker to a flight attendant and lonely zoo keeper.

Summary: In modern-day Saigon, three lonely strangers form a unique family as a ten-year old orphan plays matchmaker to a zookeeper and a beautiful flight attendant.