Artificial-insemination screw-up: a black high-school girl, breaking into the sperm-bank computer, discovers that her real father is not as requested ("black, smart, not too tall") but is instead a white man (worse, a car salesman modelled on Cal Worthington: cowboy duds, circus animals, everbody's buddy). Richard Benjamin directs with an …
Flavio Florencio's documentary follows Morgana Love, a Mexican transgender opera singer, on her quest to win a Bangkok beauty pageant so that she can afford gender reassignment surgery. In Spanish and English.
Drama series continuation starring musician Partha Barua, directed by Imraul Rafat in the regional language of Chattogram. The film also stars Aparna Ghose, Chittralekha Guha, and Nasir Uddin Khan.
Sally Hawkins squeezes her skinny bod and zippy charm into bouffant-haired Rita O’Grady, a shy Ford-plant worker who rallied her English, female colleagues (aided by a union steward, played by Bob Hoskins) to demand equal pay. Their daring, 1968 strike shook up Britain and Detroit. Although Nigel Cole’s movie forklifts …
Terribly fey romantic fantasy by Alan Rudolph. The opening sequence apparently wants to plug in to the Capra-esque Forties, but, although Timothy Hutton makes a good likeness of Henry Fonda or Jimmy Stewart, the high-contrast black-and-white is too arty and artificial for total comfort. Then it's straight up to Heaven …
Bowl of Pablum ladled up from the series of children's books by Ludwig Bemelmans, about twelve orphan girls in Paris, especially the littlest of them (the name rhymes with "rain or shine"), and their vigilant Miss Clavel ("Something's not right!"). It raises serious questions for the fans of Frances McDormand. …
Add another name to the list of talented and charismatic young actresses of color making auspicious debuts of late: Helena Howard, star of director and co-writer Josephine Decker’s simultaneously attractive and repellent mindjob. Attractive because of Howard’s convincing portrayal of the mentally fractured titular teenager: the periods of near-normalcy that …
Almost a French Brief Encounter, with (briefly) a train station. Quietly appealing Vincent Lindon is the construction worker with a fine wife (Aure Atika) and child, drawn to a lonely teacher. She (Sandrine Kiberlain) is what Westerns once called a “schoolmarm,” and the shy, pensive feelings build to her poignant …
A pathological playboy, busy collecting royalties on his invention of the cardboard “coffee collar,” realizes he’s in love when his platonic girlfriend of ten years goes off on a business trip to Scotland and comes home engaged to a duke. (The perfect man if he weren’t a Scot.) A couple …
The star is Brooke Adams, the director is her actor-husband Tony Shalhoub (who also appears on screen), and the scriptwriter is her sister Lynne Adams (who also appears, also). Sort of a Henry Jaglom-y home movie, or home video rather, and sort of a Christopher Guest-y mockumentary, in which a …
When a fortune teller named The Master (Gordon Lam) crosses path with “born psychopath” Siu-tong (Lokman Yeung), he foresees the young man is destined to murder. Using every feng shui trick in the book to change fate itself, the unlikely duo begins a peculiar song and dance, engulfing themselves in …
In a dystopian Switzerland that has fallen under the fascist rule of an evil cheese tyrant, Heidi lives the pure and simple life in the Swiss Alps. Grandfather Alpöhi does his best to protect Heidi, but her yearning for freedom soon gets her into trouble with the dictator’s henchmen. The …
Marilyn Agrelo's documentary on New York City fifth-graders who've been channeled into the stay-off-the-streets-and-stay-out-of-trouble activity of competitive ballroom dancing: "I see them turning into these ladies and gentlemen," one teacher manages to say while fighting back tears. We follow three disparate classes (only one of which will make it through …