1981-1990

Probably the best interview with a film director ever.
“This is one of the finest, if not the finest, documentary on Welles’ career. What makes this stand out from the rest is the huge amount of interview footage that shows Welles to be good-natured, open, and incredibly funny. He has lots of great stories about his career (one which involves him attending a party for L.B. Mayer with a rabbit in his pocket – absolutely hilarious) and each one is a joy.

The documentary skips around his career a bit, breaking his career up not chronologically but more by sections of films he directed and films he appeared in. It will make you want to go out and see them all again, and even hunt up the rare ones like “The Immortal Story”.

Also included are good interviews with Charleton Heston, Anthony Perkins, Jeanne Moreau & John Huston. By the way, did you know that Welles turned down a role in “Caligula”? There are more juicy tidbits to be heard.

I don’t believe that this title is available on video in this country (I may be wrong), but it does play from time to time on television. Seek it out! “(imdb)Read More »

Review:
Arturo’s (Arturo Puig) world is peopled by the living and the dead, as well as other figures who can only derive from his overheated imagination. Meanwhile, he is attempting to revive his flagging marriage to Graciela (Graciela Borges) while coping with the demands of his mistress who persistently applies weird colored dyes to her pubic hair. Throughout the movie, no matter what the scene, the action is interrupted by the mugging of a popcorn salesman (Alejandro Urdapilleta) who appears for no discernible reason. This movie was banned by Argentine authorities for its (relatively brief) nudity and depiction of sexual encounters. – Clarke Fountain, All Movie GuideRead More »

synopsis
In this murder mystery, a homicidal maniac goes on a killing spree beginning with his wife. He then kills six of her friends and is preparing to murder a seventh when the intended victim dies naturally. As a substitute, he murders his favorite hooker, leading the police right to him.Read More »

In a tale that is visually stunning in certain segments, director Shuji Terayama (who died before this movie was released) has woven a spell of magic and social reprobation around the forbidden love of two cousins. Su-e (Mayumi Ogawa) and her cousin Sutekichi (Tsutomu Yamazaki), a descendant of one of the village clans, live together but have been forbidden by her father to have sexual contact. Like other villagers, he believes that if cousins have children together, the children will suffer serious birth defects. His remedy is to make Su-e wear a large, ugly chastity belt. Unable to take the ridicule of his fellow villagers, Sutekichi stabs the head of the clan to death and then runs away with Su-e. After some time elapses, the two make their way back to the village, but by then Sutekichi is suffering the effects of his actions…
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This collects nearly all of Truffaut’s extant correspondence, many were lost or simply never kept, a few have been withheld for personal reasons but what does remain still amounts to a very hefty and remarkable body of letters.

Perhaps this is a more enjoyable book to leaf through and let something catch your eye than to read in a strict chronological fashion. That said the early sections that capture the eventful years of Truffaut’s late adolescence do possess quite a narrative thrust of their own: selling your friends most treasured possessions behind his back, a suicide attempt, desertion from the army, military incarceration…Read More »

A loner (Johnson) drives into a small Texas town and gets himself a job at a used car dealership. He gets an idea for robbing a small local bank after he tries to open a new bank account at the same time a fire occurs nearby. The bank was left open while all of the employees went to fight the fire. The manipulative boss’ wife (Madsen) wishes to use him for her own purposes: “I always get what I want, Harry”. He resists, however, as he finds himself falling in love with the accountant (Connelly) at work, who has her own problem to work out.Read More »

Plot / Synopsis
In his 2006 obituary, The New York Times called Walerian Borowczyk “the internationally known filmmaker described variously as a genius, a pornographer, and a genius who also happened to be a pornographer.” And for the final film in his ‘Immoral Trilogy’, Borowczyk created one of the most lushly bizarre erotic tales of our time and perhaps the most ambitious work of his entire career. The setting is Rome, 8 A.D., where the poet Ovid watches over an epoch of forbidden seduction and unnatural acts among maidens, centurions, servant girls and the occasional farm animal. Marina Pierro , Laura Betti, Milena Vukotic and Massimo Girotti star in this sumptuous art/smut classic, now fully restored and presented uncensored.Read More »

Synopsis
Mississippi Burning is a 1988 crime drama film based on the investigation into the real-life murders of three civil rights workers in the U.S. state of Mississippi in 1964. The movie focuses on two fictional FBI agents (portrayed by Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe) who investigate the murders. Hackman’s character is loosely based on FBI agent John Proctor, and Dafoe’s character is very loosely based on agent Joseph Sullivan.Read More »

According to Kiarostami, “Homework” is not a film, but rather a filmed inquiry motivated by the Iranian educational problems his own children brought home every night from school. In the delightful result, young scholars are questioned on camera by Kiarostami himself: backs to the wall, framed in close-up, they face the camera and talk about excessive amounts of homework, the allure of TV cartoons, and the punishment that results from temptation.Read More »