First Run Features – UpcomingDiscs.com

Dancing Across Borders

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on January 22nd, 2011

A young Cambodian boy, named Sokvannara “Sy” Sar, is spotted performing a traditional dance by the film’s director and American Dance patron Anne Bass. She immediately takes note of his smooth talent and figures he has massive potential as a classical ballet dancer. Sy is given a rare chance to audition at the School of American Ballet in New York and then proceeds on a unique and fast-paced journey through a new world of dance, in a nation that is completely alien to his homeland.
Read More

Moving Midway

Posted in No Huddle by Archive Authors on February 27th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

Posted by Ken Spivey

Filmmaker Godfrey Cheshire returned to his ancestral home, Midway Plantation, in 2003. When he arrived he found his cousin, Charlie Silver, about to move the southern mansion to make way for a shopping complex. “Moving Midway” is the story of Midway’s past, present journey, and future home.
Read More

Your Unknown Brother

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 31st, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Arnold Clasen reenters society after time away in a Nazi prison camp, and returns to Hamburg and a life of quiet solitary resistance, in the 1981 war-time drama Your Unknown Brother. Clasen immediately reconnects with his old love Renate, and embarks on a turbulent, dangerous friendship with resistance leader Walter, a man of ulterior motives, who is also in bed with the Nazi regime. Clasen starts to suspect Walter when many of his old comrades are seized by authorities. It seems everyone in the resistance, wh…
Read More

Torremolinos 73

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 22nd, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

In Spain of the early 70s, Javier Cámara is Alfredo, an unsuccessful door-to-door encyclopedia salesman. His wife, Carmen (Candela Peña), desperately wants a baby, but he refuses because of their dire financial straits. The publishing house he works for decides to move into making sex films, and its remaining door-to-door men must film themselves having sex with their wives or lose their jobs. Carmen sees this as a good opportunity to get pregnant, and convinces Alfredo to give it a try. The…
Read More

Suspended Animation

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 9th, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

Suspended animation is a story with a lot of promise. Fifteen minutes into the film and it looks like we’re seeing a Misery ripoff with a cannibal twist. From that point on I’m not sure if I’m watching Misery, Deliverance, or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There are some truly suspenseful moments in the film, but they are spaced too far apart with needless muddled plotlines. The film style is eerily reminiscent of the Italian suspense masters like Brava and Argento without the gore. The Spaghetti Nightmares are an obvious …
Read More

Cleopatra’s Second Husband

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 16th, 2002

Buy at Amazon.com

What happens when you take a writer/producer known primarily for music videos and documentaries, give him a modest budget, and a script of vignettes? You get a very artsy David Lynch imitation that I like to call Lynch-Lite. Jon Reiss wants so much to be David Lynch that there are even moments of the Twin Peaks theme in the score. I don’t mind struggling through a piece of film noir if I can eventually find my way to a payoff. Not that there aren’t bright spots and even flashes of cinematic genius here, just not enough.