Synopsis:
Francis Li (Chow Yun-Fat) is a lazy, arrogant cop coasting on his badge, more interested in chasing women than catching crooks. His new partner is Michael Tso (Conan Lee, in his “first” role) a determined, ambitious cop who doesn’t hesitate to get reckless if it means closing a case. When a new shipment of cocaine comes into Hong Kong, and with it a corpse, the two are forced together to get to the bottom of it. Their only lead: a beautiful but naive drug mule (Nina Li)Read More »
Woody Allen brings a diverting whimsy and a hopeful innocence to this period roundelay, based upon Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer’s Night and Jean Renoir’s Rules of the Game. Allen plays Andrew, a Wall Street broker and eccentric inventor who is having frigidity problems with his wife Adrian (Mary Steenburgen). Adrian and Andrew are the hosts, at their summer house in the country, of a wedding party for Ariel (Mia Farrow) and Leopold (Jose Ferrer), a famed academic who is Andrew’s cousin. Over the weekend, another couple converges at Andrew’s summer home — the sly, lady-killer of a doctor Maxwell (Tony Roberts) and his date, the deliciously ditzy nurse Dulcy (Julie Hagerty). Through the course of the weekend, sexual partners are exchanged and magical fairy tale moments are shared.Read More »
In his attempts to reconcile a lounge singer with his mistress, a hapless talent agent is mistaken as her lover by a jealous gangster.Read More »
by Hal Erickson
Woody Allen blurs the the boundaries between the real and unreal in this unique comic fantasy. The scene is a small town in the mid-1930s. Trapped in a dead-end job and an abusive marriage, Cecelia (Mia Farrow) regularly seeks refuge in the local movie house. She becomes so enraptured by the latest attraction, an RKO screwball comedy called The Purple Rose of Cairo, that she returns to the theatre day after day. During one of these visits, the film’s main character Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels), pauses in his dialogue, turns towards the audience, and says to Cecelia, “My God, how you must love this picture.” Then he climbs out of the movie, much to the consternation of the rest of the audience and the other characters on screen. Liberated from his customary black-and-white environs, he accompanies Cecelia on a tour of the town, eventually falling in love with her. Meanwhile, the other Purple Rose characters, unable to proceed with the film, carry on a discussion with themselves. Desperately, the RKO executives seek out Gil Shepherd, the actor who played the hero of Purple Rose. Shepherd (also played by Daniels), is sent to Cecelia’s hometown to see if he can repair the damage.Read More »
Description: Fifteen years ago, Alice (Mia Farrow) gave up her fashion career to marry the wealthy Douglas (William Hurt). Now they live in a fancy East Side apartment, with their two kids and several servants. She spends her time shopping, heaving beauty treatments, and being a good wife/mother. Raised a Catholic – her idol is Mother Teresa – Alice feels guilty just for being madly attracted to Joe (Joe Mantegna): a sax player and single father whose kids attend her kids’ school. She is too shy to talk with him. Having a painful back, she goes to Dr. Yang (Keye Luke): a weird acupuncturist-herbalist, who realizes that her problem is caused by her attraction to Joe. Yang gives her a special herb.The next day she uninhibitedly flirts with Joe and they make a date. But later she feels to guilty and scared to keep it. She takes more of Yang’s potions.Read More »
Description: A mute woman gets raped twice coming home from work and decides to take matters into her own hands. She dresses suggestively and roams the streets alone, reaking vengeance upon anyone who tries to take advantage of her. Eventually her secret life spills over into her regular life in the fashion industry.Read More »
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 »
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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 »
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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 »