Classics

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A thoroughly superb four-part comedy-drama series, The History Man is considered a pivotal literary and television work and one of the most fondly-remembered of all Malcolm Bradbury’s output.

Bradbury had always prided himself on stories concerning, criticising and critiquing academic culture and the proliferation of “new” university campuses which were dotted across the United Kingdom at the time. The History Man featured one such “new” educational establishment, the University of Watermouth, as the platform for the tale of Barbara and Howard Kirk (Geraldine James and Anthony Sher), an exploration of their very modern marriage and considerably radical political views.Read More »

When a star comedian dies, rather than letting anyone know, his comedy writers decide to find and teach an unknown to fill his shoes for a big show the comedian had been scheduled for. But the man they choose – bellboy, Stanley Belt – can’t do anything right, and time’s running out.Read More »

Another in the series The Director’s Place.

Filmmaker John Boorman pulls an “8 1/2”-and a good one-in I Dreamt I Woke Up. In this rambling reflection on Boorman’s life and career, the director appears as himself, while John Hurt shows up as his alter ego. Boorman’s son Charley plays “The Green Man,” a far-from-veiled reference to his starring appearance in his dad’s The Emerald Forest. And Janet McTeer rounds out the cast as an “everywoman”, essaying all sorts of hallucinatory roles. Short (1944) and bittersweet, I Dreamt I Woke Up was filmed in County Wicklow, Ireland; it was first shown in the US at the Telluride Film Festival ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie GuideRead More »

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, finds out that his uncle Claudius killed his father to obtain the throne, and plans revenge.Read More »

Life or Death (Arabic: Hayat ou maut‎) is a 1955 Egyptian film directed by Kamal El Sheikh. It was entered into the 1955 Cannes Film Festival.

IMDB:
A man with cardiac problems, had heart attack and sent his daughter to get the medicine from the drug store, however the pharmacist discovers that he sent the wrong medication, he cooperates with the police to stop a disaster.Read More »

This chamber drama is set in Georgia on the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. A simple peasant family makes its living by selling yogurt which the Magdany widow takes every morning to the town market. Once, in their mother’s absence, the children – six-year-old Mikho and three-year-old Kato – found an abandoned donkey on a road leading to their village. The foundling was fed, tended, and the moment the donkey opened its big, tender eyes, it was named “Lurdja”, which means “blue-eyed”. Surrounded by love and care, the donkey became a big help in the poor household. But this idyll was not to last long…

Winner – Palme d’Or, Cannes IFF, 1956Read More »

Uta’s mother died when she was six years old; her father she never met. She was forced to adopt a traveller’s life when her grandmother died, and now she is a dancer and part of a family of actors who travel from town to town, setting up street performances. A way of escape from this marginal existence arises when she gets the chance to move to tea merchant Hiramatsu’s place, where she is asked to teach his daughter to dance.Read More »

The story of a frozen girl who tries to sell matches during Christmas and dreams about a toy store. The film is based on the 1845 short story of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen.Read More »

The daughter of a Japanese nobleman sells herself as a geisha in order to save her family from poverty and dishonour when her father dies leaving debts. She meets and falls in love with a Russian naval officer, but their romance is threatened by the love of a jealous servant, and by the espionage mission that the officer has been assigned to.Read More »