An aspiring Irish actor and his family illegally immigrate in the United States with the dreams of the father breaking into the New York City theatrical scene. Once they arrive in the big city, they move into a flop house and try to make it truly their home. While they struggle to fit in their new country, the family finds new friends like the reclusive neighbor, Mateo, who provides help in the most unexpected ways.

During the Boer War, three Australian lieutenants are on trial for shooting Boer prisoners. Though they acted under orders, they are being used as scapegoats by the General Staff, who hopes to distance themselves from the irregular practices of the war. The trial does not progress as smoothly as expected by the General Staff, as the defence puts up a strong fight in the courtroom.

This is a set of chilling tales that come to life on the body of the title character. They are the vehicle. They express his pain and his despair. Once he is tattooed, he loses control of the effect of the stories. They are the stories. The one that has stayed with me the longest is the day after the end of the world tale, which has the saddest of conclusions. Some have even said this is a sick story. What would we do to prevent pain? What would we do to show our love? How could we go on with what we have done? These questions float over this episode. Ray Bradbury loves to take fantasy/scifi above the typical and integrate it with romance (not romantic love). He must have absorbed every ounce of his surroundings during his childhood. Here, Rod Steiger brings these tales to life and makes us think.

Well, this is quite probably one of the most uncategorisable films I've seen - you couldn't possibly call it a comedy, with its beauty salons that moonlight as abortion clinics/brothels, and its disturbingly self-lacerating portrait of the director as a cowardly lecher and cold-blooded murderer. But parts of it are hilarious. Go figure. In brief, the plot concerns Guy Maddin, hockey player for the Winnipeg Maroons, who takes his pregnant girlfriend to the above-mentioned clinic for a termination and then leaves her (literally in the middle of the procedure) for the brothel-keeper's beautiful daughter, played with incandescent and slightly scary intensity by Melissa Dionisio (that surely cant be her real name, can it?) only to discover that she can't allow herself to be touched by a man's hands (an uncharacteristically direct quote from Lon Chaney's 'The Unknown') until her father's murder has been avenged. And then she produced the jar in which she keeps, preserved, her father's hands... After that we get a twist on that old chestnut 'The Hands of Orlac', combined with a surprisingly explicit dose of sexual excess and weird psychology, as young Guy ends up in deep trouble of every sort imaginable, through his own inability to control his lusts. Told in ten chapters of six minutes apiece, this was intended as a gallery installation but it works just fine as a movie. As long as you don't mind a regular dose of jawdropping strangeness and a large splash of shocking, unfathomable directorial masochism.

Smoke is a good example of what independent film should be. A simple story told with simple direction with an outstanding story. As much as the story is interesting, the cast is just as good. William Hurt and Harvey Keitel are excellent. Forrest Whitaker also gives a surprising role with a surprise ending that you will not see coming. Although this movie stars Keitel and Hurt, this is Harold Perrineau Jr's movie. In his mid 20's, Perrineua co-stars with a league of talented and well established actors. Since then, Perrineua has gone on to stars in a series of movies and television series including OZ. A wonderful movie with great conversation, all independent films should have a little bit of "Smoke" in them.

Two former thieves reunite to rob the biggest thief they know -- Moctesuma Valdez, a TV infomercial guru who's made millions selling worthless health products to poor Latino immigrants. When none of their affiliates want to go undercover as day laborers to pull off the heist, the two men turn to the real thing for help.

An original musical film, Across The Universe is a fictional love story set in the 1960s amid the turbulent years of anti-war protest, the struggle for free speech and civil rights, mind exploration and rock and roll. At once gritty, whimsical and highly theatrical, the story moves from high schools and universities in Massachusetts, Princeton and Ohio to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the Detroit riots, Vietnam and the dockyards of Liverpool. A combination of live action and animation, the film is paired with many songs by The Beatles that defined the time.

What if mankind only had one season left on Earth? In one of the most pristine and beautiful landscapes in the world, a team working to exploit the oil resources of Alaska is tormented by an unseen evil. When one crewmember is found dead, a disorientation slowly claims the sanity of the other members of the team as each of them succumbs to an unknown fear.

"Persepolis" is the poignant story of a young girl coming-of-age in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. It is through the eyes of precocious and outspoken nine-year-old Marjane that we see a people's hopes dashed as fundamentalists take power - forcing the veil on women and imprisoning thousands. Clever and fearless, she outsmarts the "social guardians" and discovers punk, ABBA and Iron Maiden.
Yet when her uncle is senselessly executed and as bombs fall around Tehran in the Iran/Iraq war the daily fear that permeates life in Iran is palpable.

The Leningrad Cowboys, a group of Finnish musicians, and their manager, travel to America seeking fame and fortune. As they cross the country, trying to get to a wedding in Mexico, they are followed by the village idiot, who wishes to join the band.

"Point Blank" is an expertly made, fast-moving film, based on the theme of the individual pitted against the large, impersonal organization. Here the central character is an old-fashioned loner of a gunman (Lee Marvin) embroiled with a large-scale, corporate criminal operation behind a respectable-looking 'front'. Without delving into psychology or motivation, the film places emphasis on action and surface appearances, superbly capturing the glossy, depersonalized feel of a 1967 Los Angeles--a nightmare landscape of concrete, glass and coiling freeways.

The skipper (Gary Lewis) of the Scottish trawler PD-100 has worked for more than thirty-two years to buy his fishing vessel but is bankrupt and near to lose his ship to the bank. While in the port of Ostend, Belgium, his first mate and son Sean (Martin Compston) accepts a lot of money to smuggle Chinese illegal immigrants to Scotland to keep the trawler with his father. The crewman Riley (Peter Mullan) helps him in the scheme, and they hide the group in a store below the boatswain store. However, a Chinese teenager hides in the engine room, stealing food and leaving money in the galley. The cook (Steven Robertson), who is a little slow and has issues with sex, finds the stowaway (Angel Li) and helps her. Sean decides to stay longer in the North Sea to get catch and avoid problems with customs, leaving the immigrants in the most subhuman conditions. When one of the Chinese dies, despair is triggered leading the crew to tragic actions.