Review
By Jane Simon
CHANNEL 4’s Knob Season, which has been running all this week, meets the man who lays claims to an incredible 13 inches. But before you get excited, ladies, you should see the bloke it’s attached to.
Shifty-eyed American Jonah Falcon (right), became a minor celebrity when he was younger but now, at 35, he lives with his mother and resorts to walking the streets of Manhattan in tight silver trousers to get a bit of attention.Read More »
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Dalibor Matanic directs the fast-paced Croatian film noir Fine Dead Girls. Looking for a small place to live together, medical student Iva (Olga Pakalovic) and her girlfriend Marija (Nina Violic) move into an apartment building in Zagreb filled with addicts, abusers, prostitutes, and other creepy characters. Landlords Olga (Inge Appelt) and Blaz (Ivica Vidovic) are no more friendly than the rest of their neighbors, and their delinquent son, Daniel (Kresimir Mikic), is overly attracted to Iva despite his homophobia. Eventually, Marija’s intolerant father tries to sabotage the two girls, leading to a violent conclusion.Read More »
Izzat paints an image of Oslo, Norway’s capital, and its crime-environment in the mid-90’s. We follow Wasim and his involvement in Eastside Crew, the crime-gang mostly consisting of second-generation Pakistanis in Norway. What makes this movie extra special, is the realness of it all. Based on actual events, the film marks a flashy debut for Ulrik Imtiaz Rolfsen, the director.Read More »
synopsis – AMG:
A lonely night watchman finds love but comes to regret it in this offbeat comedy from Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki. Koiskinen (Janne Hyytiainen) works as a security guard at a shopping mall in Helsinki, where he keeps an eye on the place after hours. Koiskinen is a quiet nebbish who doesn’t have much luck with women, and the closest thing he has to a girlfriend is Aila (Maria Heiskanen), a woman who runs a sausage cart Koiskinen frequents after work, though he doesn’t realize she carries a torch for him. Koiskinen is killing time in a shabby café when he meets Mirja (Maria Jarvenhelmi), a beautiful blonde who appears to be interested in him. Koiskinen is immediately smitten and is willing to marry her even before they have their first date, but what he doesn’t know is Mirja’s interest in him is not sincere — she’s working with Lindholm (Ilkka Koivula), a career criminal who has hired her to get some security codes from Koiskinen so they can stage a heist at the mall where he works. However, even after Koiskinen is betrayed by Mirja and becomes the leading suspect in the robbery, he still loves her and can’t bring himself to tell the police what he’s learned about her. Laitakaupungin Valot (aka Lights In The Dusk) received its world premier at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.Read More »
Independent auteur Hal Hartley wrote and directed this satirical exercise in what he calls “fake science fiction.” In the near future, following a violent overthrow of the American government, the United States has come under the rule of the MMM, a Multi-Media Monopoly which runs the country as a business. Every citizen now has a personal bar code, which is used to monitor his or her consumption of practically everything, including sex, now that aphrodisiacs have become the nation’s biggest consumer product. Jack (Bill Sage) and Cecile (Sabrina Lloyd) are two MMM executives who are vying for the same level of advancement within the organization, while William (Leo Fitzpatrick) is a member of the Partisans, a cadre of anti-MMM activists who are attempting to bring down the corporation’s rule, though they are regarded as both dangerous and powerless by MMM’s leaders. In the midst of this situation comes a beautiful woman from the planet Monday (Tatiana Abracos), who knows about Jack’s little secret — he’s a fellow alien hiding out on Earth. The woman has come to Earth to bring Jack back to planet Monday, but given the currently miserable state of Jack’s life, he’s more interested in having a relationship with her than heading back home. The Girl From Monday has its world premiere at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. — Mark DemingRead More »
Marock is the 2005 Moroccan film by the female Muslim director Laila Marrakchi. The movie was very controversial as it deals with a Muslim/Jewish love between two high school mates, Rita and Youri. The film was 2006’s most successful film in Morocco, scoring more than 3 million dirhams at the Moroccan box-office, according to TelQuel.
The film was shown in Moroccan cinemas without being edited or censored.[citation needed] The title Marock is a play on words based on the French name of Morocco Maroc and Rock as in Rock’n Roll.
The universal language of youthful rebellion takes center stage in director Laïla Marrakchi’s tale of a Moroccan Muslim teen who falls for a handsome and progressive-minded Jewish boy. High school is drawing to a close for 17-year-old Rita (Morjana Alaoui) and her carefree friends, and as the footloose girls pound the pavement of Casablanca’s Anfa district, it seems that their summer of fun is already well under way. When Rita meets fun-loving Youri (Matthieu Boujenah) and the pair hit it off, her liberal Muslim family’s open-minds soon begin to close when they discover that their daughter’s new boyfriend is Jewish.Read More »
The Limits of Control is the new movie from filmmaker Jim Jarmusch (Broken Flowers, Down by Law).
The film is set in the striking and varied landscapes of contemporary Spain (both urban and otherwise).
The location shoot there united the writer/director with acclaimed cinematographer Christopher Doyle
(In the Mood for Love, Paranoid Park).
Isaach De Bankolé stars in the lead role for Mr.
Jarmusch; this marks the duos fourth collaboration over nearly two decades, following Night on Earth,
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and Coffee and Cigarettes.
The Limits of Control also features several other actors with whom Mr.
Jarmusch has previously worked, including Alex Descas, John Hurt, Youki Kudoh, Bill Murray, and Tilda Swinton;
and actors new to his films, including Hiam Abbass, Gael García Bernal,
Paz De La Huerta, Jean-François Stévenin, and Luis Tosar.
The Limits of Control is the story of a mysterious loner (played by Mr. De Bankolé),
a stranger, whose activities remain meticulously outside the law. He is in the process of completing a job,
yet he trusts no one, and his objectives are not initially divulged.
His journey, paradoxically both intently focused and dreamlike,
takes him not only across Spain but also through his own consciousness.
Read More »
From Criterion
Cultures and families clash in Mira Nair’s exuberant Monsoon Wedding, a mix of comedy and chaotic melodrama concerning the preparations for the arranged marriage of a modern upper-middle-class Indian family’s only daughter, Aditi. Of course there are hitches—Aditi has been having an affair with a married TV host; she’s never met her husband to be, who lives in Houston; the wedding has worsened her father’s hidden financial troubles; even the wedding planner has become a nervous wreck—as well as buried family secrets. But Nair’s celebration is ultimately joyful and cathartic: a love song to her home city of Delhi and her own Punjabi family.Read More »
After winning top awards in Montreux, Utrecht, and St. Petersburg for THE WAITING ROOM, followed by the Grand Prix at the Mediawave festival in Györ (Hungary) for THE GAS STATION, Jos Stelling completed his Erotic Tales trilogy with THE GALLERY. Stylistically they’re all connected: each is narrated visually without dialogue, each makes merry fun of an embarrassing erotic fantasy in a public place, and each features the same likeable fall-guy – Belgian actor Gene Bervoets – as the hero always ready and willing to strut his manhood like a peacock in heat. In THE GALLERY Gene finds himself the sensual object of a beautiful woman’s desire. So when, suddenly and unexpectedly, she begins to strip for his pleasure … one good turn deserves another … (IMDb)Read More »