Classics

Quote:
Lorenzo, a student at Salamanca in the late 1950s, has just spent a summer in England where he has discovered new ways of life and other horizons as well as meeting and falling in love Berta, the daughter of an exile who has never seen Spain. Upon his return, the traditional atmosphere of his family, routine relations with his friends and his girlfriend, and the tedium of life in the city become more and more overwhelming. He writes to his idealized Berta, still living in England, in a series of letters to try to convey to her what life is like in Spain and his desire to leave his provincial family behind and discover life on his own. Although the lure to break free is foremost on his mind, he decides to marry a young woman from a similar background to live the life of a country squire. However, a trip to Madrid opens up other possibilities.Read More »

Two kids take a book from a trash can. They begin to read the story of a poor neighborhood in Mexico City. Carpenter Pepe “El Toro” (Infante) lives with his daughter Chachita (Munoz) and woos pretty “Chorreada” (Pavon). Around them, a group of fellows live their lives in many ways: a pair of always-drunk women known as “La Tostada” (The Toast) and “La Guayaba” (The Guava); a beautiful woman (Jurado) who always oversleeps; a hooker with pneumonia (La Tisica) with a dark past. Tragedy comes when Pepe is falsely accused of robbery and sent to the jail.Read More »

Quote:
The Shiranui Sea is the second of the Minamata documentaries released by Zakka Films and widely considered to be Tsuchimoto’s masterpiece. If Minimata: The Victims and Their World follows the victims in their struggle for compensation for suffering from Minimata Disease, Japan’s most notorious case of environmental pollution, The Shiranui Sea provides a beautifully lyrical and compelling portrait of their everyday lives and difficulties. It is both a profound expose of how government and industry can undermine the environmental foundations of daily life, and a model for how documentary can humanely reveal human suffering.

“One of the monuments of Japanese documentary”.Read More »

Quote:
While there is now at least a little bit of recognition for the early German and Austrian sound film, the same cannot be said for films from Switzerland. Although Switzerland never had a big film industry, especially not at that time, I assume there might be some real gems to discover, if this film here is any indication.Read More »

A relationship gradually develops between a savvy New York street girl and a good-hearted cab driver–who first meet when she stiffs him for the fare–but other matters keep getting in their way, including financial problems and a murder.Read More »

Synopsis:
Frustrated by his inability to help an African-American patient who hates whites, a psychiatrist (Peter Falk) asks his superior (Sidney Poitier) to release him from the case. The superior relates a case from his own past during World War II when he treated a young Nazi (Bobby Darin) who despised blacks. Explaining the tragic results of the case, the older psychiatrist encourages his younger colleague not to be swayed by the patient’s attitude, to remain objective and to stick with his treatment.Read More »

“Perhaps the most fascinating component of the films directed by Orson Welles was the masterpiece he never lived to complete. Beginning in 1957 and continuing on-and-off for the next 15 years, Welles self-financed and directed an audacious film version of Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” which brought the legendary knight and his rotund aide Sancho Panza out of 16th century Andalusia and into the world of (then-) modern Spain. But despite his genius behind the camera, Welles was remarkably neglectful in maintaining and preserving the footage he created and much of his work was considered lost…and the footage that remained was not properly stored! However, throughout the 1980s and early 1990s the Spanish filmmakers Jess Franco (who served as Welles’ second unit director on Chimes at Midnight) and Patxi Irigoyen tracked down nearly all of the surviving footage, finished the incomplete soundtrack based on Welles’ notes, restored the footage where they could and offered a reconstructed Don Quixote de Orson Welles in 1992…” – Phil Hall, Filmthreat.comRead More »

Synopsis:
During World War II, German Colonel Dankhopf (David Hurst) is captured by the Americans, but before he can be interrogated, an artillery barrage hits the camp. However, Lieutenant Kelly (Clint Eastwood) manages to reach the Colonel, get him drunk, and learn that he is on a secret mission to ship sixteen million dollars of gold to a base in France. Kelly is determined to get the gold, and plans for himself and a few of his fellow soldiers to slip into enemy territory and steal the bullion.Read More »

Quote:
Susumu Hani’s first feature was this gritty pseudo docudrama of juvenile delinquency based upon a collection of papers, ‘Wings That Couldn’t Fly’, written by the inmates of a boy’s prison. The film follows a young man who drifts into petty crime, is arrested, imprisoned, reformed and released. True stories of other inmates are interwoven into his experience to create a startling document of crime and punishment.Read More »