2001-2010

  • Nicolas Klotz – La Blessure AKA The Wound (2004)

    Drama2001-2010ArthouseBelgiumNicolas Klotz

    Quote:
    Inviting favorable comparison to the overtly political, social realist films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, The Wound is an understatedly affecting, acutely observed, and profoundly sobering portrait of oppression, dehumanization, and exclusion. By incorporating organic, extended plan-sequences and using repeated images of interminable waiting – from Blandine’s detention, to her self-confinement at a derelict tenement, to Papi’s real-time ride through the countryside in the back of day laborer truck – Nicolas Klotz reflects the inherent inadequacy (if not outright failure) of immigration and asylum laws, lax procedural structure, and government-tolerated, often racially motivated policies (and undocumented, obstructive common practices) that willfully hinder or impede the integration and assimilation of immigrants into their adoptive countries. Using the treatment of Blandine’s wound while in French custody as a metaphor for the authorities’ repeated turning of a blind eye to the obvious, visible social problem, the film serves as a harrowing and trenchant exposition on intolerance and systematic marginalization.Read More »

  • Bouli Lanners – Les premiers les derniers AKA The First the Last (2016)

    France2001-2010Bouli LannersComedyThriller

    In a vast windswept landscape, Cochise and Gilou, two inseparable bounty hunters, are on the search for a stolen phone containing some sensitive information. On the way, they cross paths with Esther and Willy, a couple on the run. They arrive in a small isolated town inhabited by deadbeats and failures. Is it possible that, in this godforsaken place, that they will discover the best in human nature?Read More »

  • Hartmut Bitomsky – B-52 (2001)

    2001-2010DocumentaryGermanyHartmut Bitomsky

    Quote:
    ”The B-52 is a very large aircraft,” a crew member says in the straightforward new documentary ”B-52,” which begins a two-week run today at Film Forum. Several clean-cut Air Force personnel give the aircraft’s stats, which include a weight of 184,000 pounds when empty and a wingspan of 185 feet. The plane has been around for what feels like forever, and in this respect it seems like the ordnance version of a great white shark, an enormous and apparently efficient killing machine that hasn’t evolved much since its creation ”over a weekend in a hotel in 1948.” (It was first presented to the military in 1952.)Read More »

  • Makoto Satô – Self and Others (2001)

    2001-2010ArthouseDocumentaryJapanMakoto Satô

    Synopsis
    In 1983, photographer Gocho Shigeo met an early death at the young age of 36. The view we see reflected in Gocho’s photographic images has become more profound over time since his death and has struck a chord in people’s hearts. While focusing on Gocho’s collection of photographs Self and Others, the film also visits places associated with him, creating a collage with the manuscripts, letters, photographs and voice recordings remaining in an attempt to capture “one more gesture”—a theme pursued by Gocho through photographic expression. This film is neither a critical biography nor a monograph on the photographer. Rather, we are offered a new perception. As if mesmerized, the photographs Gocho left behind captivate us in their gaze.Read More »

  • Noam Gonick – Hey, Happy! (2001)

    2001-2010CanadaFantasyNoam GonickQueer Cinema(s)Sci-Fi

    Quote:
    DJ Sabu’s overactive libido leads him into teenaged pregnancy. His mythic quest for two thousand boys ends with Happy, a paranoid UFO-ologist to whom aliens promise to appear (as his love child). Spanky is an evil hairdresser trying to foil Sabu’s mission, he is the self-proclaimed ‘biggest bitch in the world.’ The action unfolds at a series of raves on old garbage hill in an industrial Antonioni landscape peopled with characters right out of vintage John Waters.Read More »

  • Ridley Scott – Blade Runner [The Final Cut] (2007)

    2001-2010ClassicsRidley ScottSci-FiUSA

    SYNOPSIS:
    Los Angeles, year 2019. Cynical ex-cop Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a retired assassin of rogue androids (called “replicants”). His former boss, Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh), presses him into service: he is to kill a group of physically superior replicants that are on the loose after escaping from an “off-world” colony. Deckard visits the Tyrell Corporation, where he encounters mogul Eldon Tyrell (Joseph Turkel) and his assistant, Rachael (Sean Young). Tyrell informs Deckard that Rachael is a new breed of replicant–implanted with memories, she believes herself to be human. Bent on speaking to Tyrell in order to find out what their “termination dates” are, two of the replicants–Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) and Pris (Daryl Hannah)–insinuate themselves into the home of geneticist J.F. Sebastian (William Sanderson), who created the replicant design for Tyrell. In the meantime, two more of the replicants have been disposed of and Deckard has become romantically obsessed with Rachael.Read More »

  • Chris Lavis & Maciek Szczerbowski – Madame Tutli-Putli (2007)

    2001-2010AnimationCanadaChris LavisMaciek SzczerbowskiShort Film

    Storyline:
    ~ Madame Tutli-Putli boards the night train, weighed down by all her earthly possessions and the ghosts of her past.

    She travels alone, facing both the kindness and menace of strangers. As day descends into dark, she finds herself caught up in a desperate metaphysical adventure. Adrift between real and imagined worlds, Madame Tutli-Putli confronts her demons and is drawn into an undertow of mystery and suspense.Read More »

  • Yen-ping Chu – Yi shi er niao AKA One Stone and Two Birds (2005)

    2001-2010ActionAsianChinaComedyYen-ping Chu

    During the reign of Emperor Jia Jing of the Ming Dynasty, the evil court official Yan Song relies on the emperor favoritism towards him, becoming overbearing and domineering. An honest official Zhang Ying Long impeaches Yan Song w/ a “Ten Cimes Five Deceits” against him. But instead he gets flogged 30 times, and banished to a far off frontier Guizhou.Read More »

  • Johan Kling – Darling (2007)

    2001-2010DramaJohan KlingSweden

    Quote:
    A tragic and comic tale about beautiful and self-absorbed Eva, who cheats on her boyfriend, which becomes the starting point of a slow but relentless descent down to the life of ordinary people and a surprising, but doomed friendship.Read More »

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