Comedy

Lena Dunham got her start making YouTube videos, but she emerged as a major talent thanks to the breakthrough success of this exceptionally sharp comedy, which garnered the twenty-four-year-old writer-director-actor comparisons to the likes of Woody Allen. Dunham plays Aura, a recent college graduate who returns to New York and moves back in with her mother and sister (played by the filmmaker’s real-life mother and sister). Though Aura is gripped by stasis and confusion about her future, Dunham locates endless sources of refreshing humor in her plight. As painfully confessional as it is amusing, Tiny Furniture is an authentic, incisive portrait of a young woman at a crossroads.Read More »

Walter, a German anarchist poet, is short of money after his publisher refuses to give him an advance. He tries various ways of raising money, including shooting one of his mistresses and relying on the life savings of a woman from the country who is fanatically devoted to him. He also has to contend with his long-suffering wife, his fly-obsessed crazy brother, his other mistress and a police murder investigation.

A Review:

This is my favorite Fassbinder movie and this for several reasons. The most important of these is, that the movie has a rhythmical quality from the beginning to the end. Also there are literally hundreds of remarkable quotes inside. It is black humorous, funny and the overacting is terrific. It is amazing how Fassbinder manages to change the mood radically from scene to scene, how he is playing with emotion, speed and dynamic.Read More »

In the last years of the Ottoman Empire, a poor little Anatolian town named Saripinar is hit by a minor earthquake which has neither destroyed nor left it with many casualties. However, a telegraph sent to the central government exaggerates the situation and mentions that the governor of the town has been severely wounded, making the event a nationwide matter. Written by baddahRead More »

Quote:
Woody Allen’s 1969 crime comedy is a mockumentary telling the story of Virgil Starkwell, possibly the world’s worst criminal.

Narrated by Jackson Beck, we find Virgil started out life with petty crime, and never really became successful after that. He meets a pretty girl, Janet Margolin, and falls in love, but the call of easy money keeps drawing him into failed schemes to rob banks. As we see his plans go awry time after time, we also hear from psychiatrists and authority figures, all of whom think they know what is really wrong with Virgil. His parents, ashamed of their son, don disguises to hide their identities- Groucho Marx noses and glasses.Read More »

Between two Thanksgivings two years apart, Hannah’s husband falls in love with her sister Lee, while her hypochondriac ex-husband rekindles his relationship with her sister Holly.Read More »

IMDB’s Plot Summary: A student journalist, for a college paper, visiting friends in contemporary London happens upon the scoop of a lifetime. Along the investigative trail, she finds magic, murder, mystery – and perhaps love, with a British aristocrat.Read More »

AMG: Woody Allen’s romantic drama Vicky Cristina Barcelona stars Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson as best friends Vicky and Cristina. As the movie opens, the pair of twentysomethings travel to Barcelona so that Vicky can work on her post-graduate degree. The two meet the charming artist Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), who offers to take them on a vacation and make love to them. Vicky, being a happily engaged young woman, refuses, but Cristina is eager for this life experience. A love triangle begins to coalesce, and things grow more complicated when Juan Antonio’s passionate, unstable ex, Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz), arrives to stay after a suicide attempt.Read More »

Plot:

An American gangster is exiled from the United States for criminal activity and is sent back to the Greek island where he was born. Once on the island, he is watched by a corrupt local police chief.Read More »

This is probably the best film footage available of Woody’s stand-up routine, including the infamous “Moose” bit. The image quality isn’t great but it’s watchable, and the audio is fine. Here’s a description from TV Party:

‘WOODY ALLEN’ (February 17, 1965, GRANADA)
In this rarely seen half-hour taped for British TV, Woody is able to deliver his night club act without the restraints of American censors. Appearing on a bare stage in front of an appreciative audience, Woody performs many of his classic stories.Read More »