Crime

SYNOPSIS: In this atomic adaptation of Mickey Spillane’s novel, directed by Robert Aldrich, the good manners of the 1950s are blown to smithereens. Ralph Meeker stars as snarling private dick Mike Hammer, whose decision one dark, lonely night to pick up a hitchhiking woman sends him down some terrifying byways. Brazen and bleak, Kiss Me Deadly is a film noir masterwork as well as an essential piece of cold war paranoia, and it features as nervy an ending as has ever been seen in American cinema.Read More »

Synopsis
The great gentleman thief, Arsène Lupin, engages in a series of daring schemes to deprive his wealthy countrymen of rare jewels and priceless paintings. His activities arouse the interest of Kaiser William II of Germany who arranges for Lupin to be kidnapped and brought to his castle. The Kaiser offers Lupin a challenge: to steal a jewel of great value from a secret hiding place. Should Lupin accept the wager? Read More »

Ricky, a dim-witted ex-con, meets Beth, a dim-witted waitress, in an Idaho diner. They take off in his car to Washington and begin an affair. Beth, a lonely romance-novel addict, is hopelessly enamored; Ricky is just in it for the (constant) sex. Beth’s longing to visit California and Ricky’s longing for quick cash leads them into a desperate situation. Director Jost uses a variety of avant-garde visual and narrative techniques, such as montage, collages, split screens and lengthy, tongue-in-cheek monologues to tell the tragicomic story of two complete losers in love.Read More »

When her sister is murdered by a group of goons working for a local mobster, Beth goes on the fritz, donning a wig, taking martial arts lessons, and using a cane to help take on opponents. Soon, she meets her sibling’s murderers face to face, and they’re in for it. Kathy Allen and George Oakley star in this North Carolina revenge opus. No-budget no-frills regional filmmaking at its rawest awaits you in this Charlotte, North Carolina celluloid catastrophe about a woman who becomes an avenging “catwoman” and takes on the mob. With bare titties, godawful acting, hilariously lame “action,” and joyously unconvincing fight scenes, it’s not only a breath-taking wonder from beginning to end, but so utterly simplistic that you’ll need to take notes to follow it. Morganna, the uber-busty stripper for became famous in the 80s as baseball’s “The Kissing Bandit,” appears in a strip club scene.Read More »

There’s a real murder and a real mystery in Woody Allen’s Manhattan Murder Mystery, but these plot pegs are used mainly to allow Allen to explore modern urban relationships. Allen plays a book editor, married to Diane Keaton (who replaced Mia Farrow, for reasons which were well publicized at the time). Keaton is a free spirit, ever willing to try new experiences, but Allen is a wet blanket. When it becomes apparent that a neighbor has killed his wife, Keaton is eager to investigate the mystery, but Allen thinks her suspicions are nonsensical and doesn’t want to leave his apartment. Undaunted, Keaton finds another “Nick Charles” in the form of family-friend Alan Alda, who, along with his enthusiastic wife (Angelica Huston), joins in the investigation. Slightly jealous, Allen reluctantly agrees to go along on Keaton’s clue-hunting expedition–and it is he who discovers the corpse, who as it turned out was killed after Keaton started poking around the apartment building.
— Hal Erickson @ allmovie.comRead More »

After 7 years spent in jail Paul (Paul Lyss) is free again.
With his old crew he celebrates his return.Nothing really changes and soon he finds himself spaced out drunk at some posh party and eventually ends up wielding a big gun.Hand held Camera movements in best Dogma-95 style and nervous cut makes it an interesting 70’s euro crime flick.Read More »

A German film and the debut film by Klaus Lemke from 1967.

Quote:
Torn between a life with an industrialist’s daughter and the jet-set beauty Monica, Frank decides to stake everything on one card. He adapts a gangster life-style based on his American B-movie heroes, as Monica helps him plan to ransom information stolen from the industrialist. The longing for the great adventure drives him to Rome and Acapulco, and finally to his fate on the beaches of the Caribbean Sea.Read More »

Plot Summary :
The mysterious and charismatic Russian-born Nikolai Luzhin is a driver for one of London’s most notorious organized crime families of Eastern European origin. The family itself is part of the Vory V Zakone criminal brotherhood. Headed by Semyon, whose courtly charm as the welcoming proprietor of the plush Trans-Siberian restaurant impeccably masks a cold and brutal core, the family’s fortunes are tested by Semyon’s volatile son and enforcer, Kirill, who is more tightly bound to Nikolai than to his own father.

But Nikolai’s carefully maintained existence is jarred once he crosses paths at Christmastime with Anna Khitrova, a midwife at a North London hospital. Anna is deeply affected by the desperate situation of a young teenager who dies while giving birth to a baby. Anna resolves to try to trace the baby’s lineage and relatives. The girl’s personal diary also survives her; it is written in Russian, and Anna seeks answers in it. Anna’s mother Helen does not discourage her, but Anna’s irascible Russian-born uncle Stepan urges caution.Read More »

Winter, Beirut. On a beach littered with cans washed up from the sea, Lili and Michel meet. Perhaps they know each other from before. As they struggle to piece together the fragments of an uncertain past, memories emerge: an act of terrorism, an explosion and the disappearance of a child, Elena.

Woven throughout these fragments is the deep voice of a Japanese narrator who recounts his own experience of a weeping Beirut, and his 27 clandestine years fighting alongside the Palestinians as a member of the Japanese Red Army. His voiceover shapes Michel and Lili’s story, their fate dictated by the enigma created for them by this narrator who turns out to be legendary Japanese New Wave filmmaker Masao Adachi.Read More »