Ever since his Silver Bear win earlier this year at Berlin Jayro Bustamante's IXCANUL (pronounced eesh-kanool) has garnered about fifteen different awards and distinctions. This good year gave Bustamante, a filmmaker from Guatemala, some much-needed exposure and, hopefully, even-better means to make another film soon. In IXCANUL Maria, 17, lives on the slopes of an active volcano. An arranged marriage is

KILLING THEM SAFELY, a new documentary (100 min.) out in theaters since yesterday, paints a controversial picture of the taser gun industry--namely, one industry since all of the world's taser guns are manufactured by one outfit called Taser International. The film, written and directed by Nick Berardini, raises the proverbial question of whether taser guns are safer than traditional guns. Berardini looks at safety

The storyline of "MacBeth" can be resumed to the following: Macbeth is a man obsessed by ambition. Done!

Scotland is in the throes of civil war, the background goes, and the survival of King Duncan's reign depends on one last battle with the loyal Macbeth commanding his troops [DID YOU KNOW? There are 420 different screen adaptations of the works of Shakespeare, including ones made by Akira Kurosawa and Roman Polanski.]

In 1974 Philipe Petit, the French wirewalker, attempted and achieved the impossible. How often can a human being say that? Yes, people are capable of extraordinary feats, yes, there are always more difficult tasks to complete, races to win, higher summits to conquer, new worlds to discover, unknown chasms to explore, masterpieces to create but… I would venture to say that this man truly did the impossible, the equivalent of which no one

Entrenched in a small village in Italy's Umbria region, under the close supervision of her protective father, young Gelsomina sees little of the outside the world. She doesn't ask too many questions, either. On the farm where she lives with her young and sisters and her parents she helps out in the family's beekeeping business. Her fate appears sealed. And yet, two events will soon inject some much-needed chaos: her family hosts a young man who's right out of juvie, as part of a social rehabilitation program, and a reality show comes to the area to do an on-site taping.

"Ghosts are real. That much I know." So begins Guillermo del Toro’s spellbinding dark fairy tale, CRIMSON PEAK. Set in the late 1900s it follows aspiring fiction writer Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) as she falls for, and marries, a penniless, seductively handsome English Baronet, Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston). Along with his older sister, Lucille (Jessica Chastain), Thomas brings Edith back from

If we posit that a great film is both cinematography and story, EVEREST is not great as it does extremely well in the first area but fares poorly in the second. Obviously, Everest, the mountain, summit of the world, films magnificently. It is mighty, spectacular, awe-inspiring, frightening. It is both threatening and irresistible. Irresistible to the multitude striving to climb to the top or “summit,” to use their word.