Drama

For those who were young, living under the delusions of love and soft drugs in Paris, May 1968 – even if the guitar is still playing, they can’t hear it any longer.Read More »

Plot: Joel and Priscilla have been in love since they were children. Mark announces his engagement to her without obtaining her permission. While Joel and Mark are at sea Mark is abandoned in Singapore by the Ship’s Mate Finch who, upon their return, convinces the townspeople that Joel abandoned his brother. Joel escapes jail, takes the ship to Singapore, finds his brother insane with drink and returns him to the ship. There is a mutiny.Read More »

Synopsis:
WBLA is on the air, presenting the live music, the sudsy dramas and the sell-sell-sell of commercial interludes that keep consumers buying and sponsors smiling. But one sponsor, a producer of plumbing supplies, isn’t happy. So WBLA scriptwriter Bill Grimes is bounced from his job, setting in motion this movie’s turn from comedic to darkly tragic. William Haines, two years removed from being Tinseltown’s top male star, plays Grimes in a melodrama noted for its glimpses of live radio production and for a Depression-era ethos that includes peroxide cuties eager to land a job, a sugar daddy or both. The cast includes Hattie McDaniel in a bit role. Are You Listening? Don’t touch that dial. From Warner Brothers! Read More »

Plot: Shelby Barrett (Barbara Stanwyck) rides show horses for wealthy widow “Nicko” Nicholas (Genevieve Tobin)and meets Johnny Wyatt (Gene Raymond), scion of a once-wealthy Long Island Family, but who now goes about the country riding polo ponies for “Nicko.” Despite the efforts of “Nicko” and wealthy Gene Fairchild (John Eldredge), who is in love with Shelby, Johnny and Shelby are married. Shelby is treated frigidly by her snobby-but-broke in-laws, who frown even more when she and Johnny start handling the horses for wealthy neighbors on money Shelby had borrowed from Fairchild without telling her proud-but-broke husband. Matters aren’t helped any when “Nicko” shows up and starts a gossip circuit directed against Shelby. When Johnny is away, Fairchild asks Shelby to help him entertain a wealthy client aboard his yacht. She tries to contact Johnny and fails but accepts the invitation.Read More »

Plot:
Franco, a young man of noble descent, decides to marry Luisa, daughter of a humble clerk, against his grandmother’s will. But a terrible tragedy upsets the life of the newly married couple: their little daughter Ombretta drowns in Lake Como and Luisa goes to the brink of madness…Read More »

Quote:
With minor-key delicacy, Bad Hair (Pelo Malo) focuses on a nine-year-old boy exploring issues of identity and desire that he doesn’t yet understand, and the exhausted mother socially conditioned to suppress his self-discovery. Venezuelan writer-director Mariana Rondon trains an unsentimental eye on these two loving but conflicted figures, viewed in the vivid context of a hostile, overpopulated city. The result is a spare neorealist drama that holds attention and emotional involvement with its deft balance of toughness and sensitivity.Read More »

Dovlatov charts six days in the life of brilliant, ironic writer who saw far beyond the rigid limits of 70s Soviet Russia. Sergei Dovlatov fought preserve his own talent and decency with poet and writer Joseph Brodsky while watching his artist friends getting crushed by the iron-willed state machinery.Read More »

Those who know Japanese cult director Takashi Miike only through his shock and gore films – Ichi the Killer and Audition are both absolute classics of the genre – will be in for a surprise with The Bird People of China. Bird People stands as absolute proof that, although Miike will likely always be best known for his more extreme films, the man has a surprising degree of depth to him and is more than capable of turning out world class serious film.Read More »

To avoid being sued, a film director reluctantly agrees to set up and direct the Good Friday celebrations in a small Tuscan town.
Read More »