1981-1990

Synopsis: Writer/Director Clemens Klopfenstein’s beautiful and profound movie Macao focuses on a married couple, Swiss linguists, who hike the Alps searching for rare words still uttered by rural populations. When on his way to a conference, the husband’s plane goes down over the ocean. The wife is advised to give up hope of ever seeing him alive, but her heart tells her otherwise. When he comes ashore on a tropical island-warm blue water, sun on white sands, palm trees-he and the other survivor, the plane’s pilot, are greeted by the smiling dark-skinned native speaking the island’s language. Back home, she waits to hear word from the search team; on the island, he learns a few words of the native language while he awaits rescue…Read More »

Cheech & Chong are invited to a celebrity party/festival in Amsterdam. When they get there, however, it turns out that the guy who invited them has taken off with all the money, and the rest of the hosts have a VERY limited budget. They are actually expecting Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton, so our heroes gets to be Mr. Burt and Mr. Dolly. We follow them around Amsterdam, at their hotel, (still) smokin’ joints and doing shows. (IMDb Plot Summary)Read More »

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A landmark of the nascent Hong Kong New Wave of the early ’80s, this melodrama — directed by Ann Hui — concerns the plight of Vietnamese peasants shortly after the fall of Saigon. The film centers on a Japanese photojournalist named Shiomi Akutagawa (George Lam Chi-cheung) who ventures to Danang to document Vietnam’s attempts at rebuilding after the war. At first he’s bussed around by government officials showing off quaint villages and happy, healthy children. Later, he manages to get permission to wander about the countryside without a government chaperon. Soon he happens upon a young lass named Cam Nuong (Season Ma Si-san) who is from a desperately poor family.Read More »

Manuli is smart enough to be an “anarchytect”, to deconstruct instead of construct, to disembody old legends or old authors giving them and their myths a completely new significance. Is in this spirit that he has constructed his body of work, consisting in some shorts such as Oh Peggy Oh!!!…Peggy Ye Ye (1989)Read More »

A former athlete runs a camp dedicated to reforming juvenile criminals, a tough job with no quick payoffs.Read More »

This highly acclaimed mini series traces the course of the U.S. Civil War from the abolitionist movement through all the major battles to the death of President Lincoln and the beginnings of Reconstruction. The story is mostly told in the words of the participants themselves, through their diaries, letters, and Visuals are usually still photographs and illustrations of the time, and the soundtrack is likewise made up of war-era tunes played on period instruments. Several modern-day historians offer periodic comment and insight on the war’s causes and events.Read More »

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Das sind die Gewitter in der Natur is a fragment of a long gone time. A time that should not be forgotten. Following Wenzel Heindl, a former farmhand who was 80 years old at the time of the shooting. Hobbles through the ruins of his past and is given all the time he needs to tell stories from his life, dominated by war and poverty. It is a very personal film for Werner Fritsch because the paths of the two crossed on the farm of Werner’s parents and Wenzel was an important figure for him in his childhood. As Fritsch himself writes, he heard all kinds of stories from Wenzel and thus learned from him not only how to speak but especially how to tell. A craft that shaped Werner’s life as a writer and filmmaker. It’s not surprising that Werner Fritsch created such an impactful film already 20 years before he began his magnum opus Faust Sonnengesang series.Read More »

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Britannia Hospital, an esteemed English institution, is marking its gala anniversary with a visit by the Queen Mother herself. But when investigative reporter Mick Travis arrives to cover the celebration, he finds the hospital under siege by striking workers, ruthless unions, violent demonstrators, racist aristocrats, and African cannibal dictator and sinister human experiments.Read More »

Mega-promoter Colin Beverly plans to sabotage the New Year’s 1983 concert of small-time operator Max Wolfe. Wolfe’s assistants Neil Allen and Willie Loman find romance while trying to save the drugs, violence, and rock and roll from Beverly’s schemes.Read More »