Classics

Synopsis
Ida and her mother, a single woman, live in Northern Norway during the Nazi occupation. Ida’s mother works as a cook at a POW camp for Russians captured during the fighting in the Arctic. But she is more involved with the Germans than that… The occupying troops were reputedly encouraged to have relations with local women in Norway (as the racial characteristics of Nordic people were favoured by Nazi ideology…) As a result, lots of Norwegian women got involved in relationships and many children were conceived.Read More »

Synopsis:
By a twist of fate, the clumsy, but well-meaning aspiring actor, Hrundi V. Bakshi, is invited to Fred Clutterbuck’s big party, after utterly ruining the set of his latest feature film. However, unbeknownst to the host, Bakshi is present at the gathering, merrily mingling with the hand-picked guests in this magnificent hi-tech villa, where the drinks are flowing, and everybody is in high spirits. But, much to everyone’s surprise, when Bakshi accidentally has his first-ever sip of alcohol, only God knows how this well-thought party will end. What delightful disasters await?Read More »

Synopsis
A semi-documentary on the people of Rio de Janeiro. The camera follows boys from a hillside shanty town who sell peanuts at Copacabana, Sugar Loaf Mountain, and a soccer game. Various subplots, involving characters they meet along the way, are interspersed.Read More »

Quote:
NEW YEAR SACRIFICE is based on the short story by the prolific Chinese author Lu Xun and was recently named one of the top 100 Chinese films of all time by Asia Weekly. In a mountain hamlet in eastern China, a poor woman faces trial after trial. Sold into marriage as a child, she is left a young widow and enslaved by her mother-in-law, who sells her to a poor peasant. Her second marriage turns out to be happy until fate takes away her husband and son. Now seen as a bearer of bad luck, she becomes a social outcast. When the New Year comes, can this poor woman find any hope in this society?Read More »

Based on the novel by Junichiro Tanizaki. Story of the beautiful blind daughter of a wealthy businessman who falls in love with a servant.Read More »

Charley Varrick is a small-time stick-up man who, in tandem with his partner Harman Sullivan (Andrew Robinson), makes plans to rob a small bank in New Mexico. Varrick and Sullivan are expecting a modest payday for a simple heist, but to their surprise they walk away with $750,000 in cash. But it turns out this isn’t entirely good news; the bank was flush with cash because a number of well-connected Mafia chieftains have been using the bank to launder their ill-gotten gains, and they’re determined to get their money back. Before Varrick can figure out a way to return the money, sadistic hired killer Molly (Joe Don Baker) is on his trail, forcing Varrick to outwit both the cops and the robbers if he is to stay alive.

from allmovie.comRead More »

Fuller admitted that he was obsessed by war and that he wouldn’t have made war movies unless he’d seen combat (he did, with distinction). This movie plays like a gutsy draft of his cherished project, The Big Red One, and looks as if it could have influenced Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line (compare the steady destruction of the entrenched Japanese as the men advance on them). Merrill’s men are in Burma on a pitiless mission that we are dragged into emotionally, then almost physically, by Fuller’s up-front direction, as we gradually realize its suicidal nature.Read More »

PLOT:
Ayako becomes the mistress of her boss so she can pay her father’s debt and prevent him from going to prison for embezzlement.Read More »

Quote:
A bit like The Downfall of Osen (Orizuru Osen, 1935), this film centers on a woman who’s a cat’s paw for a gang involved in shady dealings. Okichi, played by Yamada Isuzu, is pulling scams for the sake of her lover. But she falls out with the gang and takes pity on one of the young men whom she victimizes.

I can’t comment on the film after only one viewing, and the fact that Mizoguchi is credited after Takashima suggests that he may have had little input. Still, it’s another tale of a woman who sacrifices herself for more or less unworthy men. Miss Okichi also has some typically Mizoguchian scenes that dwell on chiaroscuro melancholy. Much of the film takes place at night, and this strategy reinforces the somber atmosphere. There are some remarkably opaque long shots and one moment that includes Okichi turning toward the camera in a sort of plaintive challenge.Read More »