In the 70’s, Bokolo and Mamadou sweepers in the city of Paris, looking for a way to pay for the return home of one of their sick comrades. When they discover an old book of recipes in the trash, the idea came to participate in a televised game of decline precisely the ingredients of the best dishes of French cuisine. They memorize the recipes sauces, puddings and desserts.Read More »
Omnibus film with individual segments directed by Renato Castellani, Luigi Comencini and Franco Rossi; all of them starring the radiant Catherine Spaak as “out of place” women, longing for love, in a Sicillian village, a monastery, and a modern Italian urban setting, respectively.Read More »
Synopsis by Mark Deming
A man discovers that his fantasies and his real life are beginning to look a lot alike in this drama. Richard (Jim Metzler) is battling cancer of the spinal column, and while it’s currently in remission, the disease has left his body in sad shape; Richard is tired, anxious, depressed, and confined to a wheelchair, and while his sister Peep (Kay Lenz) is helping to care for him, Richard is convinced that she’s more interested in making a claim on his estate than protecting his well being. Richard’s friend Duncan (John Ritter), a frequent visitor, is an aficionado of New Age healing and pain-management techniques, and he teaches Richard how to hypnotize himself, willing his mind into a dream state when his discomfort is too much to bear.Read More »
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When brothers Simon and Sergei bungle an important drug deal on behalf of the local crime kingpin, they’re forced to make up for it by retrieving a lost batch of heroin. Trouble is, they have no idea where to begin. This shrewd gangster satire includes some 20 Russian film stars among its ensemble cast, cleverly costuming each big name to leave viewers guessing who’s who.Read More »
Ed Sutton wrote:
A ten year old boy gets tired of life with abusive parents and cashes in his piggy bank and steals a Mustang. He rides off into a surreal America playing “Motorama,” a game sponsored by Chimera Gas Company. He has various encounters with different people, and eventually reaches the Chimera Gas Company where he finds they are not playing by the rules of the game.Read More »
Five years after glasnost, morals in the Soviet Union have become a little lax. The traditional image of the woman as a strong labour force has “cracked” at the same time as the political structure of the country. Three young Soviet women encounter a French filmmaker who is planning the first erotic film since the October Revolution.Read More »
from the DVD:
Greg Watkins’ romantic black comedy A SIGN FROM GOD depicts a semi-fictional day in the life of independent filmmaker Caveh (Caveh Zahedi) and his girlfriend Laura (Laura Macias) as they struggle with a series of challenges and accidents (including eviction from their apartment, possibly pregnancy, and a car crash) while desperately seeking a sign from God about the future of their troubled relationship. Laura’s increasingly pessimistic attitude — she perceives that the cascading negative events of their lives portend a negative “sign” about the relationship — is offset by Caveh’s serene and abiding faith that everything happens for a reason…Read More »
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Alvy Singer, a forty year old twice divorced, neurotic, intellectual Jewish New York stand-up comic, reflects on the demise of his latest relationship, to Annie Hall, an insecure, flighty, Midwestern WASP aspiring nightclub singer. Unlike his previous relationships, Alvy believed he may have worked out all the issues in his life through fifteen years of therapy to make this relationship with Annie last, among those issues being not wanting to date any woman that would want to date him, and thus subconsciously pushing those women away. Alvy not only reviews the many ups and many downs of their relationship, but also reviews the many facets of his makeup that led to him starting to date Annie. Those facets include growing up next to Coney Island in Brooklyn, being attracted to the opposite sex for as long as he can remember, and enduring years of Jewish guilt with his constantly arguing parents.Read More »
