Plot
Disappointed by love, Tontolini consults a doctor about the sadness he feels. The doctor prescribes distractions and entertainment as a cure. Tontolini accepts the doctor’s advice and begins the cure by going to café chantants and theaters, where he finds nothing but moving performances that make him even sadder. (European Film Gateway)Read More »
Synopsis
The unlikely relationship between a pregnant high school student and a brooding electronics repairman lies at the center of this droll comedy from writer-director Hal Hartley. Intelligent but unconventional, Maria (Adrienne Shelly) has more to worry about than her pregnancy, as her expectant state drives away her boyfriend and triggers a fatal heart attack in her father. Meanwhile, Matthew (Martin Donovan) has his own problems: an abusive father, a heightened sense of morality that prevents him from taking semi-lucrative television repair jobs, and a suicidal streak that causes him to carry around a potentially deadly grenade. The meeting of these troubled minds at first promises to be beneficial for both, but sours as they are forced to interact with each other’s dysfunctional families. As in all of Hartley’s pictures, the narrative is filtered through an amusingly detached sensibility that some may consider an acquired taste.
~ Judd Blaise, All Movie GuideRead More »
After winning top awards in Montreux, Utrecht, and St. Petersburg for THE WAITING ROOM, followed by the Grand Prix at the Mediawave festival in Györ (Hungary) for THE GAS STATION, Jos Stelling completed his Erotic Tales trilogy with THE GALLERY. Stylistically they’re all connected: each is narrated visually without dialogue, each makes merry fun of an embarrassing erotic fantasy in a public place, and each features the same likeable fall-guy – Belgian actor Gene Bervoets – as the hero always ready and willing to strut his manhood like a peacock in heat. In THE GALLERY Gene finds himself the sensual object of a beautiful woman’s desire. So when, suddenly and unexpectedly, she begins to strip for his pleasure … one good turn deserves another … (IMDb)Read More »
Plot: Comedy-mystery finds Detectives Kelly and Dempsey trapped in a deserted lighthouse with a group of strangers who are being terrorized by a killer octopus AND a mysterious crime figure named after the title sea creature. Written by Marty McKee Read More »
During a traffic jam, a man flirts with another driver.
Jos Stelling (1945) made his debut as a director with Mariken van Nieumeghen in 1974. The film was selected for Cannes in 1975. Since then he has been writing and directing eight feature films. For his short film The Waiting Room (1996) Stelling was awarded a Golden Rose (Press Award) in Montreux, a Golden Gryphon in St. Petersburg as well as his fourth Gouden Kalf (GoldenCalf, the Dutch film award).Read More »
Synopsis (University of California, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive)
Within the framework of a thriller, Hermosillo presents in Matinee a film that is rich in the dreams and ambiguities of childhood. Two precocious provincial boys, enamored of the movies, head out for Mexico City in search of some real-life adventure. They are kidnapped by a gang of gunmen who adopt them as mascots, but also involve them in their cutthroat activities. The criminal escapades are a dream-come-true for the boys, until the police come into the picture and they are forced to betray their kidnappers. The boys are returned to the provinces as hometown heroes–returned to the quiet streets and the dubious thrill of the Saturday matinee. Hermosillo recalls the black humor of Buñuel and the boyhood adventures of Robert Louis Stevenson and Mark Twain; and like them, he rejects the innocence of childhood for something more complex, which, though it is never defined, is the subject of Matinee. Read More »
Quote:
A boy and a girl, both teenagers, want to get away from the world and be alone for a while, so they hide in an abandoned factory on the outskirts. But there they fall in a trap of .their own intention, and get stuck in the cargo elevator. There is no one around to hear them, and nobody knows their whereabouts. Tension arises after each failed attempt to escape, while they also have to deal with the fact that their entire universe is now reduced to a metal box smaller than a room.Read More »
Quote:
In Mike Leigh’s poignant, deceptively modest follow-up to his international triumph SECRETS & LIES, former college roommates Hannah (Katrin Cartlidge) and Annie (Lynda Steadman) meet again for the first time in six years. The reunion takes them back and forth in a journey through time as they reflect on who they were, who they’ve become, and the complicated history that they share together. With a mix of tender humor and piercing human insight, Leigh offers an intimate, quietly affecting portrait of a friendship weathering the ups, downs, and surprises that life brings.Read More »
