2001-2010

  • Johnnie To & Ka-Fai Wai – Chuen jik sat sau AKA Fulltime Killer (2001)

    2001-2010AsianCrimeHong KongJohnnie ToKa-Fai Wai

    Quote:
    O (Takashi Sorimachi) is the number 1 assassin in all of Asia. Tok (Andy Lau) wants to dethrone him and become the premier hitman in the world. What these two have in common is that they are in love with the same woman, Chin (Kelly Lin). And Chief Inspector Lee (Simon Yam) wants to catch them both. Thrown into a gauntlet of razor blade shoot-outs and a feeding frenzy of warfare, this film is a story about two men of the most excessive lifestyles competing in a world where men die young and the victor not only walks away with the most money, but with the most valuable reputation. Bursting of style and pimp slapped with full on octane entrenched cinema, Johnny To presents his action masterpiece, “Fulltime Killer.”Read More »

  • Kaaren Kaer – Malev aka Men at Arms (2005)

    2001-2010AdventureComedyEstoniaKaaren Kaer

    “Estonian history gets a topsy-turvy interpretation in this satiric comedy from director Kaaren Kaer. Uru (Ott Sepp) is an adventurous young man who has been getting in touch with his compassionate side while studying at a monastery. When he comes back home to Estonia, he finds things are not as he might have hoped; both France and Germany are trying to lay claim to his homeland, and the nation is preparing itself for a long battle to win its independence. Despite his non-violent philosophy, Uru is drawn into the war to free his people, though it soon becomes evident neither strategy or combat skills are his strong suit. Malev (aka Men At Arms) was written by members of O-Fraktsioon, a noted Estonian sketch-comedy troupe. “
    by Mark DemingRead More »

  • Joachim Lang – Brecht – Die Kunst zu leben (2006)

    2001-2010DocumentaryGermanyJoachim LangPolitics

    The director and writer Joachim Lang makes a great research and presents the life of Bertolt Brecht though footages, pictures, documents and statements of his relatives, friends and acquaintances showing his work and his loves. This documentary is mandatory for those that want to have visual information of this great intellectual.Read More »

  • Albert Pyun – Road to Hell (2008)

    2001-2010Albert PyunFantasyMusicalUSA

    Albert Pyun’s unofficial sequel to the 1984 rock & roll fable Streets of Fire called Road to Hell. Shot entirely on green screen.

    This rare film is a strange thing. Really good and really bad, really pretty and really ugly, art and not art at all. It is entirely its own thing. A truly unique experience.

    A soldier who has been fighting a long war is driven mad because he no longer believes in any purpose or righteous truth behind the killing. He comes home to a surreal world looking for his first and only love from his youth, believing she will rescue him from his demons. On the road to Edge City he encounters two seductive spree killers who oppose his efforts to find his love and the redemption he desperately seeks.Read More »

  • Toshi Fujiwara – Eiga wa ikimono no kiroku de aru: Tsuchimoto Noriaki no shigoto AKA The Life and Work of Noriaki Tsuchimoto (2007)

    2001-2010DocumentaryJapanToshi Fujiwara

    Documentary portrait of the great Japanese documentary maker Tsuchimoto Noriaki made a couple of years before his death. Includes insightful interviews and tremendous clips.Read More »

  • Anja Kirschner & David Panos – The Last Days of Jack Sheppard (2009)

    2001-2010Anja KirschnerArthouseDavid PanosExperimentalUnited Kingdom

    The Last Days of Jack Sheppard is based on the inferred prison encounters between the 18th century criminal Jack Sheppard and Daniel Defoe, ghostwriter of Sheppard’s ‘autobiography’. Set in the wake of the South Sea Bubble of 1720, Britain’s first financial crisis, the film is a critical costume drama constructed from a patchwork of historical, literary, and popular sources. It explores the connections between representation, speculation and the discourses of high and low culture that emerged in the early 18th century and remain relevant to the present day.Read More »

  • Wim Wenders – Don’t Come Knocking (2005)

    2001-2010ArthouseDramaFranceWim Wenders

    Quote:
    With Don’t Come Knocking, Wim Wenders revisits territory, both literal and metaphorical, first explored in Paris, Texas. Not only does he return to the Southwest, but Sam Shepard is back as co-writer. This time, he’s also the star. His Howard Spence is a movie cowboy who’s had enough. One day while working in Monument Valley, he takes off his boots and hops a train to Nevada to see his mother (Eva Marie Saint, lovely as ever). Little does he know that Sutter (Tim Roth), a by-the-books bondsman, is hot on his trail. Next, Spence travels to Montana where a sad young woman named Sky (Sarah Polley) is recovering from a recent death, while an angry young man named Earl (Gabriel Mann), who sounds much like Chris Isaak, plies the troubadour trade. Spence doesn’t know it yet, but they’re the results of a rambunctious past that will soon “come knocking,” as it were. Read More »

  • Claire Denis – White Material (2009)

    2001-2010Claire DenisDramaFrance

    Quote:
    A textured panorama of modern day Africa’s dynamic and volatile cross-cultural landscape, Claire Denis’s White Material is an abstract and elemental, if oddly sterile rumination on colonial legacy and socioeconomic stagnation. Unfolding in episodic flashbacks as second-generation coffee plantation owner, Maria Vial (Isabelle Huppert) scrambles to make her way back home after a forced evacuation of European settlers in light of an escalating civil war, the film structurally interweaves the parallel lives of the Vial family, a band of roving child soldiers scouring the countryside for “white material” trophies from fleeing settlers, and a charismatic military officer turned rebel leader known as the Boxer (Isaach De Bankolé) who has gone into hiding to recover from injuries sustained during a recent skirmish.Read More »

  • Nadine Labaki – Sukkar banat (2007)

    2001-2010ComedyDramaLebanonNadine Labaki

    Plot
    A romantic comedy centered on the daily lives of five Lebanese women living in Beirut. Layal (Nadine Labaki) works in a beauty salon in Beirut along with 3 other women. Each one has a problem: Layal has a relationship with a married man, Nisrine (Yasmine Al Masri) who is no more a virgin, will soon be married, Rima (Joanna Moukarzel) is lesbian and Jamal (Gisèle Aouad) is worried about getting old. Rose (Sihame Haddad), a tailor with a shop next to the salon, is an old lady who devoted her life to take care of her older sister, have found her first love.Read More »

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