1981-1990

An amazon reviewer writes:

Stranger Than Paradise not only announced the arrival of an original filmmaker with Jim Jarmusch, but also signaled the arrival of a new wave of American independent cinema along with the Coen brothers’ Blood Simple and Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It. Jarmusch’s film came as a response to the impersonal commercial filmmaking of the Hollywood studios. His film was originally nothing more than a 30-minute short film shot from 40 minutes of extraneous film stock donated by German filmmaker Wim Wenders. Eventually, Jarmusch came into a small sum of money — $120,000 worth — and was able to complete the film.Read More »

Quote:
Wer war Edgar Allan? (Who Was Edgar Allan?). 1984. Austria/West Germany. Directed by Michael Haneke. With Paulus Manker, Rolf Hoppe. Based on the novel by noted Austrian writer Peter Rosei, who draws on Poe’s themes of doubling, shadowing, and the uncanny, this atmospheric mystery, set in Venice over four distinct seasons, follows a German art student suffering from some unnamed illness, existential or otherwise. He is befriended by a shady and secretive German American gentleman, “Edgar Allan,” who seems intent on driving him mad by dogging his every move. Haneke’s Venice is a figment of the (paranoid) imagination, where strange characters make unwanted intrusions and clues are laid out like pieces of an incomplete jigsaw puzzle. In German; 83 minRead More »

Quote:
Described as an answer to Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun, Fraulein tells the story of a German woman and a former French prisoner of war living in 1950s Germany. Instead of playing a role in rebuilding her country, Haneke’s heroine remains preoccupied with her personal affairs. Shot predominantly in black and white (with a color sequence added toward the end), Fraulein asserts Haneke’s place alongside the masters of the New German Cinema.Read More »

Chicago, 1963. As head of the police department’s Major Crime Unit, Lieutenant Michael Torello must deal with the city’s most dangerous criminals. And possibly the most dangerous of all is Ray Luca, a young ambitious street hood who’s out to gain wealth and power by whatever means – including theft, threats, extortion and murder. As Luca begins his ruthless climb up the ladder of organized crime, leaving a growing number of victims in his wake, Torello becomes more and more determined to bring him down.Read More »

Quote:
Brass-balled, Bronx-born auteur Abel Ferrara is one of those two-fisted screen bards that always follows through on each sucker punch, his heart beating with Sam Fuller’s blood. His scorching morality plays and tainted-psyche humanizations are raw nerves exposed and chewed through, like a naked tornado called Hyde to Scorsese’s more calculated risk-taker Jekyll. However, what makes an Abel Ferrara film for me isn’t plot or casts of meaty, dilemma-torn characters. It’s in the gritty city itself, a filmmaking toybox for tones, textures, sounds, music and aesthetic. When Ferrara looks at New York City, he knows its tourist-trap beauty is bullshit and the lurid truth is in the blackened gum on the bottom of the postcard rack. He’s the director who would probably kick my pasty ass all the way to Chinatown if he heard this flowery praise.Read More »

Quote:
Lawrencia Bembenek was a beautiful bride, a 22-year-old blonde who had worked as both a policewoman and a Playboy bunny, when she was arrested in Milwaukee for the murder of her husband’s ex-wife. Though the evidence was circumstantial and none of it implicated Miss Bembenek directly or exclusively, she was sentenced to life in prison. Her husband, who had expressed resentment over having to support his ex-wife, sought a divorce soon after his wife’s conviction. ”Dear Lawrencia,” he wrote to her. ”Goodbye. Good luck – Fred.”Read More »

This short was made for Swedish television and was actually aired in 1986, unlike imdb claims.

Quote:
“This is a surprising and lovely film, and thoroughly engrossing, given its brief length. Shot and framed with exquisite care, it validates a favorite past time and the value of looking at old photographs of family members to gain insight into one’s self.Read More »

Love You till Tuesday was a promotional film designed to showcase the talents of David Bowie, made in 1969. The film was the latest attempt by his manager, Kenneth Pitt, to bring Bowie to a wider audience. Pitt had undertaken the film after a suggestion by Gunther Schnedier, producer of German TV show ‘4-3-2-1 Musik Für Junge Leute’ for the ZDF network.Read More »

Quote:
Made for Bavarian TV in 1983, this documentary traces the life and films of the most popular female star of the late Weimar cinema, Lilian Harvey. From the very beginnings in some films by Richard Eichberg to her eminent stardom together with Willy Fritsch in classics like “Der Kongress tanzt”, her subsequent time in Hollywood and her return to Germany because of her love for director Paul Martin, to her escape from the nazis and her later life, the film gives a fine portrait of the actress and the big changes in the German film industry of the 20s and 30s.Read More »