1981-1990

A 1982 courtroom drama film which tells the story of a down-on-his-luck alcoholic lawyer who pushes a medical malpractice case in order to improve his own situation, but discovers along the way that he is doing the right thing. Since the lawsuit involves a woman in a persistent vegetative state, the movie is cast in the shadow of the Karen Ann Quinlan case. The movie stars Paul Newman, Charlotte Rampling, Jack Warden, James Mason, Milo O’Shea, and Lindsay Crouse.
Directed by Sidney Lumet, the film was adapted by David Mamet from the novel by Barry Reed and is not a remake of the 1946 film of the same name.
The Verdict garnered critical acclaim and box office success. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Actor in a Leading Role (Paul Newman), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (James Mason), Best Director (Sidney Lumet), Best Picture and Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (David Mamet).Read More »

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Motherland Hotel (Anayurt Oteli) is a 1986 Turkish film directed by Ömer Kavur. It is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Yusuf Atılgan.

Zebercet owns a hotel in a small provincial town. He manages to keep it up with the help of one maid, a little girl who lives with him. One evening, one of the clients leaves the hotel, promising to return in a week. Haunted by the memory of the beautiful unknown, it leaves little to be gained by a little melancholy. Overwhelmed by his impulses, he refuses to take any clients, and closes the hotel.Read More »

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Jean-Luc Godard wrote, directed, and edited this mind-boggling comedy. “The Idiot” (also known as “the Prince” and played by Godard himself) has been guaranteed financing for a film, if he can deliver it within 24 hours. But he encounters all sorts of hilarious problems as he attempts to do so. Meanwhile a pop group (Les Rita Mitsouko) works on a new album. (-DVD cover)

With a tip of the hat to Jerry Lewis, Buster Keaton, Jacques Tati, and (for good measure) Dostoyevsky, Jean-Luc Godard wrote, directed, edited and stars in this mind-boggling comedy. The rambling plot involves a hapless filmmaker (Godard) and his attempt to meet a deadline for delivering a film. From there the movie branches out into an abstract, episodic structure. “…engages even as it baffles…The confusion that results, punctuated by glimmerings of understanding, is the point” (A.O. Scott, The New York Times).Read More »

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The director Gaspard Bazin is preparing a new feature film. For now, he is still in the casting and financing stages. He’s asking the help of Jean Almereyda, a producer once fashionable but now at low ebb, who has more and more difficulties to raise cash for his company. His wife, Eurydice, dreams of being a movie star. Between the two men, a perverse game is starting, Almereyda wishing to please his wife, but the unrepentant seducer reputation of Bazin holds him to require a part for Eurydice…Read More »

In the bleak days of 1983, the Crimson Permanent Assurance, an accountancy staffed by elderly workers much like a slave ship, has been taken over by efficiency-minded corporate types. When they sack an employee, there’s an uprising, and the building is unleashed from its moorings to sail across the (dry) ocean and take on the financial centers of the world, starting with an all-out attack on the large skyscraper housing The Very Big Corporation of America, complete with filing-cabinet cannons, ceiling-fan broadswords, and paper-spindle short-swords.Read More »

Asian warriors take a group of Western women hostage and bring them to their all-female village, leading to a culture clash.

Women Make Movies wrote:

Ulrike Ottinger’s epic adventure traces a fantastic encounter between two different worlds. Seven western women travelers meet aboard the sumptuous, meticulously reconstructed Trans-Siberian Express, a rolling museum of European culture. Lady Windemere, an elegant ethnographer played by the incomparable Delphine Seyrig in her last screen role, regales a young companion with Mongol myths and lore while other passengers-a prim tourist (Irm Hermann), a brash Broadway chanteuse and an all-girl klezmer trio-revel in campy dining car cabaret. Suddenly ambushed by a band of Mongol horsewomen, the company is abducted to the plains of Inner Mongolia and embark on a fantastic camel ride across the magnificent countryside. Breathtaking vistas, the lavish costumes of Princess Ulun Iga and her retinue, and the rituals of Mongol life are stunningly rendered by Ottinger’s cinematography. Dubbed a female Lawrence of Arabia and just as sweepingly romantic, JOHANNA D’ARC OF MONGOLIA is a grandly entertaining, unforgettable journey.Read More »

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Salomé Lerner just finished writing an autobiograpy. She goes to a TV show called “Apostrophes”, hosted by French TV showman Bernard Pivot. Pivot then imagines a film that could be created from her gripping story. A film entirely made of music because after seeing the young pianist Erik Berchot, Salomé believes seeing her long lost brother, who was a musician as well. A brother she had lost along with her parents in 1943. However, the Lerners did in fact escape the gestapo and might have based themselves in Paris…Read More »

Saura is not exactly obscure and in need of featuring, but this movie isn’t watched too often. It has bad reviews, even Vincent Canby wanted more action saying “the Amazon has never flowed so slowly” (the Orinoco is part of the Amazon system). Saura was trying to tell a story about the hispanic world, going to the 500 year anniversary of the conquista. Just like Herzog he has a tale of obsession, but much more down to earth and realistic. Boring almost, not so popular. If you’re a Herzog fan or perhaps even liked 1492, you might suffer stimulus withdrawal symptoms when watching this one. If you like historical detail and a gritty sense of realism, you may not find it a perfect movie but one that goes a long way.
–flipfinkRead More »

A newspaper sends a young reporter into the Russian countryside to make a nice, sensationalist yarn out of some strange stories going around.

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Only vaguely based on Alexei Tolstoy’s novel ‘Oupyr’ (1841), ‘The Vampire Family’ (Semya vurdalakov) is a mixture of striking dreams, fading reality, and most ingenious psychedelic background music, Artemeyv-style (scores by Vladimir Davydenko).Read More »