1991-2000

A good heart and bad luck will get you nothing but trouble. That’s what Ryan discovers – the hard way – when he thought hitting the road would solve all of his problems, instead it was just the beginning. Ryan (Bill LeVasseur, The West Wing) falls into one circumstantial trouble after another. From getting car-jacked at gun-point, being mistaken for a mobster’s son, to a run-in with cheerleaders intent on vigilante justice, Ryan barely escapes one mess before landing in the middle of another. Finally able to go home, Ryan heads back out on the highway. But has his luck really changed, or is there only more trouble in store for our charming hero?Read More »

The lives of two brothers diverge when one’s choice of hustling pool leads him down a darker road.Read More »

Synopsis: A series of unrelated amorous lovers are connected by a chain of desire.

Chain of Desire is a provocative chronicle of contemporary sexual mores, featuring Linda Fiorentino, Elias Koteas, Assumpta Serna, Seymour Cassel and Malcolm McDowell among others. The film was the American entry in competition at the 1992 Montreal World Film Festival.Read More »

This musical drama follows a diverse group of people brought together in a city in Italy.Read More »

imdb:
Alex, a hit man, tries to get out of the family business, but his father won’t let him do so. While seeking the help of a therapist, he meets a sexually charged 23-year-old woman with whom he falls in love.Read More »

Letterboxd review by Wilson ★★★★½
Bernard Rose is an interesting filmmaker, with a strange obsession for adapting Leo Tolstoy. ivans xtc. is his version of the Tolstoy novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich.

Rose has directed another four Tolstoy adaptations, as far as I can see (pretty sure Leo didn’t have a short story about Candyman…), he has also made Anna Karenina (1997), The Kreutzer Sonata, Two Jacks and Boxing Day.

Rose takes the Tolstoy stories and updates them to the modern day, often setting them in sleazy Hollywood. He casts Danny Huston and lets rip.Read More »

A film by Julie Taymor (pre Lion King), made for American Public Television. Never released on video.
Beta vcr recording of TV broadcast.

Film in general is visually quite dark, making for a difficult to record video quality, with lots of visual noise. So quality is not great.Read More »

We see two stories told over four time lines, which wind down to a devastating ground zero collision, as we watch a double tragedy unfold in a small Oklahoma town. The two stories are told out of normal time sequence, showing us brief glimpses of the beginning, middle and end of the two stories in seemingly random order. One story concerns Ainsley DuPree, who meets and marries her prison pen pal Jack. The other story begins with the discovery of a mute and bloody teenager, found wandering and in shock in the middle of the night, and the efforts of the town sheriff to determine what happened to him. As the film unfolds these tales, the viewer is confronted with questions of the existence and mercy of God and the hopelessness of being alone and adrift in an indifferent world.Read More »

Author: sinistre1111 from Kasparhauser, NJ, USA
This is a thoroughly bizarre kung fu action vampire slapstick exploitation movie, essentially an attempt to combine the success of two films, the excellent Chinese hit Mr. Vampire and the international hit The Gods Must Be Crazy (which for reasons unknown to me, was considered “good” and “funny” upon its release in the US). They also threw in a little Bruce Lee montage at the end, no kidding, but don’t worry, they worked it in tastefully-haha! The African bushman from Gods… (yes they got the actual guy) engages in amusing slapstick with a hopping vampire. All the white people are horrible, and the Taoist magician from Mr. Vampire rides an ostrich and saves the day, basically. Somehow this was all worth sitting through, if only for the sake of it being one of the strangest films ever made.Read More »