1981-1990

Alan Bleasdale’s five-part series spin-off of the 1980 TV play The Black Stuff relates the further experiences of unemployed Liverpudlian tarmac layers Dixie, Chrissie, Loggo and Yosser, and their revered older friend, retired longshoreman and union leader, George Malone. As they struggle to make ends meet in a depressed economy, and to hold together their financially battered families, they are harassed by the petty bureaucrats of the DHSS. But the lumbering investigational juggernaut is, both comically and tragically, guided by drivers with only a provisional license.Read More »

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A magnate and his younger wife hire David to teach guitar to their teenage daughter. The wife quickly seduces David, and simultaneously he strikes up an acquaintance with the family’s inquisitive neighbor. One night, David is mugged but rescued from injury by a stranger, Daniel, who also becomes David’s friend and admits to being a hit man. Video tapes of their activities appear in the lovers’ mail; David thinks they’re from the neighbor, Daniel is sure the husband is onto the affair and hired the mugger. After Daniel tells David that he’s been hired to kill the husband, an elaborate manipulation plays out, with murder, suicide, a payoff, more videos, and a surprise pairing.Read More »

In 19th century Denmark, two adult sisters live in an isolated village with their father, who is the honored pastor of a small Protestant church that is almost a sect unto itself. Although they each are presented with a real opportunity to leave the village, the sisters choose to stay with their father, to serve to him and their church. After some years, a French woman refugee, Babette, arrives at their door, begs them to take her in, and commits herself to work for them as maid/housekeeper/cook. Sometime after their father dies, the sisters decide to hold a dinner to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his birth. Babette experiences unexpected good fortune and implores the sisters to allow her to take charge of the preparation of the meal.Read More »

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In Pica Pica Kristersson invites the viewer to be enthralled for an hour and a half by the vicissitudes of magpie life. Opposing himself to the current nature films that tend to highly compress time in order to end up with a concentrated sequence of action-elements Kristersson leaves rhythm and tempo almost completely up to the magpies themselves. With great integrity he filmed the daily, social and emotional life of a species of birds that has many points of contact with human life. Thus, the movie offers us the oppurtunity to view our own everyday existence through other eyes, from a world right above our heads, but yet so far away.Read More »

Based on Klaus Mann’s 1934 novel “Entkommen zum Leben”. Johanna, a young Berliner, flees the Nazis in 1934. She goes to Finland and begins an affair with a man of similar Radical beliefs. His death encourages her to join the resistance in ParisRead More »

In this run-of-the-mill crime drama, Bernard Giraudeau is Daniel Chetman, someone who wants to leave the life of violence he knew in his neighborhood — and cannot do so because his nemesis, a strutting street gangster now involved with organized crime, continues to terrorize the inhabitants of Chetman’s turf. After much spilled blood, a parade of ugly underground types, and various sexual scenes, Chetman reduces the forces of evil to a reasonable level of opposition — but who knows if the neighborhood will be different in the end.Read More »

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In this video release of a 1983 episode from the critically acclaimed PBS series Soundstage, oddball comedian and satirist Andy Kaufman is featured in one of the last performances before his untimely death in 1984. Considered by some critics and fans to be a Dadaist, and known for blurring the borders between his stage persona and his “true” personality, Kaufman inflicted a brand of humor that was unique, sometimes slipping beyond comedy into performance art — or mental illness. Here his format is the late-night talk show, and his sidekick is a marionette of his alter ego, obnoxious dive-lounge comedian Tony Clifton. Also included in the show: Kaufman reprises his Foreign Man character, impersonates Elvis Presley, seems to expose guest Dr. Alex Schorr as a fraud, and apparently has a genuine argument with his former girlfriend Elayne Boosler. — Steve BlackburnRead More »

An interview with Genet.Read More »

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The first “Elegy” by Alexander Sokurov appeared in 1984. The legendary fame of the great Russian singer Fiodor Shaliapin, the fame that was still alive in his homeland, resisted to the official tendency of reproaching him for emigrating from Russia. When Sokurov, whose first films seemed to be buried forever in the closed film archives and whose every new work was stopped in the very beginning, made his “Elegy” — without financing, supported only by the enthusiasm of his team, — the Leningrad Documentary Films Productions tried to legalize the film, but with no success. The answer of the highest cinema officials was: “Shaliapin is not forgiven.” It was the time when Shaliapin had not yet got the “imperial” pardon.Read More »