Comedy

The Berlin-set tale of an aimless twentysomething is a delightfully unforced comedy with a sure grasp of character and setting. THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

OH BOY is a charmingly self-ironic portrait of a young man and the city he lives in. Shot in vivid black and white, the film alternates between melancholy and humour, and shows the protagonist’s search for his place in a world where everything yet nothing seems possible. INDIWIRE

Low-Budget ‘Oh Boy’ Beats Epic ‘Cloud Atlas’ at German Film Academy Awards
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
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Quote:
João Vuvu, a widower with no family, except for a son who is doing time for a double murder and an armed bank robbery, lives alone in his own, large, sunny house in an old wealthy neighborhood of Lisbon.
Filmed as he was terminally ill, Come and Go is Monteiro’s minimal goodbye to a cinema—and a city, Lisbon—he loved. “João Vuvu” (Monteiro) is an elderly libertine who spends his days riding the creaking trams up and down Lisbon’s streets, feeding birds the wrong things in leafy-green parks, speaking alternately poetically, philosophically, and illicitly to the poorly paid women who clean his apartment, and discussing art, literature, politics, and more with various strangers and apparitions. Read More »

SYNOPSIS
Reading the other comments on this film I have to say I might view this film differently if I understood the current socio-political climate in Serbia or the mindsets of the peoples living there. While it had definite moments of social commentary and a few political digs thrown in, I watched this movie primarily as a commentary on what people are willing to go through to fit in and to stand up for the people whom they love.Read More »

Synopsis
In the hippie era, the motto used to be “never trust anyone over 30.” In this geriatric romance, the motto might be amended to read “never trust anyone under 60.” Still sprightly and interested in life though they are in their 70s, the two lovers in this film are confined in an unsympathetic “rest home” by their relatives and are only able to meet rarely in a camper loaned to them by some black immigrant workers. When the staff at the home get wind of their affair, they take vigorous action to try and “calm them down” simply to reassert their deadening control over them. Eventually the two of them end their romance, but the woman escapes the rest home and finds freedom in the company of the immigrants.
~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie GuideRead More »

Synopsis:
French colonists in Africa, several months behind in the news, find themselves at war with their German neighbors. Deciding that they must do their proper duty and fight the Germans, they promptly conscript the local native population. Issuing them boots and rifles, the French attempt to make “proper” soldiers out of the Africans. A young, idealistic French geographer seems to be the only rational person in the town, and he takes over control of the “war” after several bungles on the part of the others. (IMDb)Read More »

AMG: One couple’s rocky road toward togetherness is mapped in this comedy drama which melds elements of documentary and fiction. Arin (Arin Crumley) is a struggling independent filmmaker who pays the rent by shooting and editing wedding videos; he loathes the “four-eyed, two-mouthed, eight-limbed” beasts known as couples in love, but he would also prefer to be less lonely than he is. However, Arin is terrified of talking to women, and has a borderline phobia about sexually transmitted disease. On an Internet dating site, Arin meets Susan, (Susan Buice), an artist who wants to pursue a career in painting but in the meantime supports herself by waiting tables at a coffee shop. Susan’s attitudes about romance are only slightly more optimistic than Arin’s, but after exchanging photos and messages, the two sense they have something in common.Read More »

From the Buddhist Film Foundation’s website:
Pema Tseden (The Search, Old Dog) is the first Tibetan graduate of the Beijing Film Academy, and this is his dramatic feature debut. Made on location in a village in the Amdo region, the film follows a young lama assigned for Tibetan New Year to attend to the seven-year-old Living Buddha (tulku) of a mountain monastery. The young lamas try to balance their strict training with explorations of the outside world through the novelty of television, and make some surprising choices. Like all great neo-realist films, The Silent Holy Stones has the immediacy of a documentary, and Tseden delivers a compelling and intimate insider’s view of everyday life in his home town.Read More »

With Slaughterhouse 5 Kurt Vonnegut revealed that humour can be exploited in two ways: to make people roll over the floor laughing and to underscore the graveness of earnest problems. While Antonio Mercero’s Spanish dramatic comedy Planta 4ª (The 4th Floor) doesn’t tackle WWII but “only” possibly terminally ill children, its use of humour is similar. While it would be harsh to nickname the film Slaughterhouse 4 (the young patients of the cancer ward on the titular fourth floor all have at least one amputated limb), it shares with Vonnegut its exploitation of laughter in the face of the incomprehensible, or indeed the only sane way to confront the inexplicable madness of disease and death.Read More »

IMDB Plot summary :
Richard and Philippe live hand to mouth, backing up a gang of Spanish pickpockets on the streets of Paris, posing as policemen who arrest a gang member while the others rifle the pockets and purses of gawkers. When all of the gang except Richard and Philippe are pinched, things look grim. Plus, Richard insists that they take in a wide-eyed immigrant lad, a deaf-mute left behind in the arrests. Philippe suggests a three-person pickpocket trick, using the boy, but when that goes spectacularly badly, they hit rock bottom. Then, at the cinema, the lad finds a solution. It’s time to celebrate.Read More »