Laurens Geels Movies

Venerable Argentinian filmmaker Alejandro Agresti turns his lens to his own childhood in this nostalgic coming-of-age tale. Set in the director's hometown of Buenos Aires circa 1964, Valentin centers around its title character (and ostensible stand-in for the director), a nine-year-old boy (Rodrigo Noya) whose feuding parents have left him to be raised by his sage, eccentric grandmother (Carmen Maura). With his father (Agresti) visiting only occasionally, Valentin is left to look to the other men in the neighborhood for father figures, and to replace his absent mother, he warms to Leticia (Julieta Cardinali), one of his father's many short-term girlfriends. When he tells her personal secrets about his father, however, Valentin jeopardizes their relationship. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

At the Millennium Building in NYC, the elevators have a problem... they just can't stop killing people! Pregnant women, skater dudes -- they're all on the menu for these possessed motorized beasts. As elevator repairman Mark Newman (James Marshal) delves deeper into the mystery, everyone from his boss to the building manager stand in his way. His only help comes from Jennifer Naomi Watts, a nosy reporter that smells a cover-up when she sees it. As the "accidents" pile up, the President and FBI get involved as the heroic couple come face to face with technology gone horribly, horribly wrong. Down is a direct remake (shot for shot at times) of director Dick Maas' early 80's cult flick The Lift. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

This dark drama from the Netherlands won the 1998 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Dreverhaven (Jan Decleir), the most ruthless and intimidating bailiff in Rotterdam, is brutally murdered, and a young attorney, Katadreuffe (Fedja Van Huet), is arrested in connection with the crime. Under questioning, the angry young lawyer reveals a hidden motive for the killing -- he is Dreverhaven's illegitimate son. Katadreuffe's mother, Joba (Betty Schuurman) had an affair with Dreverhaven but refused to marry him, preferring to raise her son on her own, despite her difficult economic circumstances. Eventually, Joba takes in a boarder, Jan Maan (Hans Kesting), and Jan becomes something of a father figure to the boy, urging him to improve himself and pursue new opportunities in business. As a young man, Katadreuffe takes Jan's advice to heart and obtains a bank loan to open a cigar shop. The shop soon fails, and Katadreuffe must negotiate terms with the bank to pay off his debt. The young man discovers that the bank is managed by Dreverhaven and learns that his father has no desire to help him. While obtaining legal advice on his problems with the bank, Katadreuffe becomes interested in the study of law, and after a great deal of struggle, he makes his way through law school and obtains a low-level position with a prominent legal firm. However, his father often appears along the way, berating Katadreuffe and convincing him that he's doomed for failure, until the young man becomes convinced that Dreverhaven controls his entire life and wants nothing more than to destroy him. Karakter was based on a novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk that was a major bestseller in the Netherlands. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In 1966, a famous actor (Peter O'Toole) is taken by a rowboat to a fabulous old hotel on an island in the middle of a lake. He comes to find out that time stands still here -- and the reason is that he is dead. He discovers that all the residents of the hotel are famous but dead people, including Albert Einstein and Ernest Hemingway. It seems that as public interest in a dead celebrity fades away, the celebrity is given smaller and smaller rooms, until finally they are thrown out. Among the famous people that the actor meets is the writer who killed him -- for a good reason. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide

Welcome to The Beverly Hillbillies, Dutch style. Nelly Frijda, Rene Van't Kof, Tatjana Sinic and Huub Stapel star as the low-rent, low-class Flodder family. Through a miracle of scripting, the Flodders move to a prosperous neighborhood. The resulting comedy highlights are all predicated on the old culture-clash gimmick. Flodder was popular enough to inspire two movie sequels (one of them tantalizingly titled Flodders in America), as well as a Dutch TV series, which ran from 1993 to 1995. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide