1981-1990

Quote:
For his first studio picture, filth maestro John Waters took advantage of his biggest budget yet to allow his muse Divine to sink his teeth into a role unlike any he had played before: Baltimore housewife Francine Fishpaw, a heroine worthy of a Douglas Sirk melodrama. Blessed with a keen sense of smell and cursed with a philandering pornographer husband, a parasitic mother, and a pair of delinquent children, the long-suffering Francine turns to the bottle as her life falls apart—until deliverance appears in the form of a hunk named Todd Tomorrow (vintage heartthrob Tab Hunter). Enhanced with Odorama™ technology that enables you to scratch and sniff along with Francine, Polyester is one of Waters’ most hilarious inventions, replete with stomach-churning smells, sadistic nuns, AA meetings, and foot stomping galore.Read More »

Synopsis:
Deborah Ballin is a controversial middle-aged TV journalist, who is campaigning on air on behalf of a battered woman who murdered her abusive husband, claiming justifiable defense against the so-called victim. But her outspoken views championing women’s rights incense one of the studio’s cleaning staff, closet homicidal psycho (and misogynist) Colt Hawker whose deep seated despising all all things female occurred from seeing his Mother throwing boiling oil in the face of his abusive Father when he was a small child (and who’s M.O. is to photograph victims he stabs as they’re spasming to death).Read More »

Quote:
Bill Forsyth put Scottish cinema on the map with this delightfully eccentric culture-clash comedy. Riffing on popular representations of Scottish life and folklore, Local Hero follows the Texas oil executive Mac (Peter Riegert), who is dispatched by his crackpot boss (Burt Lancaster) to a remote seaside village in Scotland with orders to buy out the town and develop the region for an oil refinery. But as business mixes with pleasure, Mac finds himself enchanted by both the picturesque community and its oddball denizens—and Texas starts to feel awfully far away.Read More »

Quote:
A spoof about a filmmaker making a documentary about a once-famous, now almost forgotten British heavy metal band returning to the United States after 17 years for a concert tour.Read More »

Based on a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, City and the Dogs is set in a brutal boys` military academy. Juan Manuel Ochoa plays a tough young cadet who rules a student clique called The Circle, which supplies the other boys with forbidden cigarettes, booze and pornography, and even provides answers to upcoming tests. When Ochoa is caught, he places blame on Eduardo Adriazen, the weakest member of the Circle. Adriazen informs on Ochoa, who subsequently kills him. During the investigation of Adriazen’s death, the academy tries to cover up the crime lest the institution be destroyed by the scandal. The principal whistle-blower, a sensitive young “outsider” (Pablo Serra), is himself discredited because it is he who has been writing the pornography that Ochoa has been selling.Read More »

Director Dino Risi helmed this episodic Italian erotic comedy. The main point of interest in this one is the incredible cast of Eurosploitation starlets in various stages of undress: Laura Antonelli, Gloria Guida and Margaret Lee, with Johnny Dorelli in all ten of the episodes.
Most definitely, not Risi’s best film, but still Risi.Read More »

Summary
The wife of Nasim, an Afghan immigrant in Iran, is gravely ill. He needs money to pay for her care, but his day labor digging wells does not pay enough. A friend connects Nasim to a two-bit promoter who sells tickets to watch Nasim ride a bicycle continuously for a week. The promoter brings in sick and aged spectators, haranguing them to find hope in Nasim’s strength. Aided by his son, who feeds him as he rides, Nasim grinds out the days and shivering nights. Local officials believe this may be a plot and Nasim may be a spy; they try to sabotage him as do those who bet he won’t finish the week. Will desperation alone get Nasim the money? Is any triumph an illusion?Read More »

Capsule by Jonathan Rosenbaum
From the Chicago Reader

Except for The Red Shoes, this shot-by-shot rethinking of a dance performance by the Emile Dubois Dance Group, choreographed by Jean-Claude Gallotta and directed by Raul Ruiz, could be the greatest dance film ever made. Running only 65 minutes, the 1986 film is as much a sensual workout as Ruiz’s Life Is a Dream is an intellectual one; its celebration of pure physicality and movement is as exciting for film lovers as it is for dance enthusiasts. Read More »

The film revolves around the lives of teenagers in Soviet Lithuania. The protagonists of the film are fans of rock’n’roll music which is banned in the USSR and are interested in the hippie movement, secretly listening to the Luxembourg radio. They all live in a house which was formerly a hotel, called “America”. Events of Kaunas’ spring affect them as they are involved. After their attempt to send a letter to the Luxembourg radio, teenagers would become suspects to the KGB.Read More »