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Based on the award-winning play from Lorraine Hansberry, this film version keeps the setting of the play fairly confined to the characters’ small apartment and allows an active camera and the sheer power of the performances to overcome its inherent staginess.

The story chronicles the lives of the Younger family as they await the arrival of the life insurance check owed them after the death of the family patriarch. Matriarch Lena (Claudia McNeil, SIMPLY HEAVENLY) is in charge of the money, which her son Walter Lee (Sidney Poitier, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT) wants desperately so he can open up a liquor store. Walter Lee tries to convince his tired wife Ruth (Ruby Dee, DO THE RIGHT THING) to help him persuade his mother to give him the money, but she doesn’t want to get involved in that fight. Part of the money has already been promised to Walter Lee’s younger sister Beneatha (Diana Sands, TV’s DR. KILDARE), who is studying to be a doctor. Walter Lee desperately wants a chance to make something of himself, leaving his job as a chauffeur behind and giving his young son Travis (Stephen Perry, THE SOUND AND THE FURY) a reason to look up to him.

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This gambling tale is at its best when it is simply watching the way the world of sports betting works. Brandon Lang (Mathew McConaughey, AMISTAD) is a Division 1 college football quarterback clearly heading pro until a bad knee injury sidelines his dreams of the lavish life. While trying out for any team that will let him, Lang works in Las Vegas as a 900 number recorder. When one day he gets a shot at the sports line, he injects his own picks, which average an 80% accuracy. After which he gets a call from Walter Abrams (Al Pacino, THE GODFATHER), who runs one of the hottest sports picking services in the U.S.

Their business is legal because they do not take bets; only advise betters on whom to bet on. Lang’s talent at picking winners is unmatched, so Abrams lavishes the young man with money and a beautiful apartment while training him to become a salesman. In the process, Abrams transforms the non-cursing, non-betting Lang into a sports car driving, cocky persona named John Anthony. Abrams looks at Lang as the son he never had often including him in outings with his wife Toni Morrow (Rene Russo, THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR) and ultimately building his business around the young man.

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This wonderful biography is able to make science as exciting as anything in a thriller. In the process, it tells a geeky love story like no other.

Marie Sklodowska (Greer Garson, MRS. MINIVER) was born in Poland and went to Paris to study mathematics and physics. Her professor Jean Perot (Albert Bassermann, THE RED SHOES) asks scientist Pierre Curie (Walter Pidgeon, FORBIDDEN PLANET) if his top student can work in his lab. Pierre agrees, but is reluctant when he discovers that Marie is a woman. He feels women and love are not conducive to science. However, it doesn’t take long for Marie’s brilliance and beauty to make Pierre whistle a different tune. Pierre’s eventual proposal is so formal and awkward that you have to laugh. I wonder if Liam Neeson saw this film before making KINSEY — the similarities between Pigeon’s performance and Neeson’s are striking.

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This slice-of-life character piece slyly looks at the hypocrisy and injustice that the working man has to endure and how he does so. Navy seamen Billy “Bad Ass” Buddusky (Jack Nicholson, FIVE EASY PIECES) and Mate “Mule” Mulhall (Otis Young, 1973’s THE CLONES) have been assigned the duty to take court-martialed Larry Meadows (Randy Quaid, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW) to prison.

At first Buddusky and Mule plan to get Meadows to prison ASAP and then take the rest of the time allotted for their duty to party on their own. However, the naïve and inexperienced Meadows gets to them and they decide they need to show the kid a good time before he’s locked away for eight years. Buddusky gets Meadows drunk, high and laid and in the process makes Meadows stronger and more assertive.

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With the original John Carpenter version unseen by me, I cannot compare the new version with the first one. With horror movies hot, every old horror film is ripe for a remake with the benefit of new fangled visual effects. But all the CG mist in the world could save this tepid horror rehash that panders to it core teen audience.

Set in a small Oregon fishing town where the ghosts of the founding father still lurk with their killer fog, Elizabeth Williams (Maggie Grace, TV’s LOST) tries to unravel the mystery before the whole town is killed. She has just returned to town after some time away and rekindles her romance with fisherman Nick Castle (Tom Welling, TV’s SMALLVILLE). After his second in command Spooner (DeRay Davis, SCARY MOVIE 4) takes the boat out at night and is attacked by the fog, Elizabeth and Nick discover that old heirlooms that have been washing up on the beach may help them uncover the dark secrets of the town’s past. Other key characters include indie radio host Stevie Wayne (Selma Blair, HELLBOY), mayor Tom Malone (Kenneth Welsh, FOUR BROTHERS), drunken Father Robert Malone (Adrian Hough, X-MEN: THE LAST STAND), Elizabeth’s snobby mother Kathy (Sara Botsford, JUMPIN’ JACK FLASH) and the eerie homeless man Machen (R. Nelson Brown, TAKEN).

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I have a soft spot for animation, which makes me go into animated films with more hope that they are good then any other kind of film. Director Mark Dindal previously made the underrated CATS DON’T DANCE and the thoroughly entertaining THE EMPEROR’S NEW GROOVE. But even Dindal was unable to save CHICKEN LITTLE. However, the film itself is proof that he is not to blame, because the movie feels like a victim of too many cooks stirring the pot. The film never organically flows from one part to the next and suffers mostly from a lack of a consistent tone.

The story chronicles the aftermath of Chicken Little’s infamous “the sky is falling” affair. Chicken Little (Zach Braff, GARDEN STATE) has been under a great deal of ridicule since the event and has lost the respect and support of his father Buck Cluck (Garry Marshall, A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN). So with the help of his friends Abby Mallard (Joan Cusack, IN & OUT), Runt of the Litter (Steve Zahn, HAPPY, TEXAS) and Fish Out of Water, Chicken Little sets out to win his father’s respect by joining the baseball team. However, when the threat of an alien invasion becomes a reality, Chicken Little struggles with whether he should tell his dad or not.

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Mario Bava is the father of Italian horror. His BAY OF BLOOD was a total twisted treat and BLOOD & BLACK LACE is like getting a mystery and a film noir rolled into one film. BLACK SUNDAY, or as it was known in Italy THE MASK OF SATAN, was Bava’s first film as a director.

Basing the film loosely on Nikolai Gogol’s THE VIY, he weaves a tale of a royal vampire witch who plots to come back from the grave to seek revenge on the descendants of her brother who killed her. The opening sequence, like many other scenes in the film, is a textbook example of classic black & white, horror mood and tone. However, Bava began to ramp up the gore and sexuality that would become staples of later horror cinema. In the opening, Princess Asa Vajda (Barbara Steele, TV’s DARK SHADOWS) and her lover Javuto (Arturo Dominci, INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION) are killed with iron maiden masks by Prince Vajda (Ivo Garrani, THE LEOPARD) for being an adulterers as well as vampire witches. Even in black & white, the moment the spikes inside the mask are driven into the princess’ face, we cringe.

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Thirty-seven years after Disney unveiled their masterpiece FANTASIA, the animation master from Italy Bruno Bozetto set out to satirize the famed piece of animated art.

A real life presenter (Maurizio Micheli) introduces the film as a truly revolutionary experiment in animation, after which he receives a phone call telling him that the whole thing has been done before by some guy named Pisney. Undeterred, the presenter soldiers on introducing the audience to the fat, cigar-chomping orchestra master (Nestor Garay), the orchestra consisting of only old women who may not even know how to play their instruments and the animator (Maurizio Nichetti), who has been chained to a wall for the past five years.

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THE PROPOSITION is a dirty, filthy, bloody Western set in the wilds of the Australian outback. Outlaw Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce, MEMENTO) is captured by the new lawman Capt. Stanley (Ray Winstone, SEXY BEAST) and given a proposition — kill his older brother Arthur (Danny Huston, THE CONSTANT GARDENER) by Christmas and he will spare his younger brother Mikey (Richard Wilson, TV’s MCLEOD’S DAUGHTERS) from the hangman’s noose.

As Charlie heads out on his bloody mission, we begin to see how difficult and demanding Capt. Stanley’s job is. He wants to civilize the outback, living his own life with his prim and proper wife, Martha (Emily Watson, BREAKING THE WAVES), like he never left England. However, the harsh climate and bitter conflict between the native Aborigines and the white settlers make civilization near impossible. Capt. Stanley isn’t a brutal colonialist, which we see clearly when he has to deal with the harsh request of the town’s richest citizen Eden Fletcher (David Wenham, LORD OF THE RINGS). In the wild, looking for his brother, Charlie runs upon grizzled and racist bounty hunter Jellon Lamb (John Hurt, THE ELEPHANT MAN), who is also looking for Arthur.

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This edgy thriller presents us with two characters for which our sympathies during the course of the film will flip flop. The fact that Jeff Kohlver (Patrick Wilson, ANGELS IN AMERICA) is a pedophile and 14-year-old Hayley Stark (Ellen Page, X-MEN: THE LAST STAND) is a torturing sociopath makes that a disturbing affair.

Jeff has picked up Hayley in a chat room. She sets up a face-to-face meeting at a coffee shop and before too long she has gotten herself invited to his house. He prepares a drink for her, which she refuses because she’s been taught never to take a drink that she hasn’t seen prepared. It’s good advice and Jeff should have heeded it. Hayley has drugged Jeff and tied him to a chair, taunting him with her search for evidence of his crimes, which may even include murder.

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