Drama

Quote:
The overtly propagandistic, anti-religious plot of The Flower on the Stone (Tsvetok na kamne, Dovzhenko Film Studio 1960–1962) does not look like promising Parajanov material: when a new Komsomol mine and mining community is established in the Donbas region, a member of a Pentecostal cult sends his daughter Christina to recruit new believers. Arsen Zagorny, an upstanding Komsomol member and a talented violinist, falls in love with Christina and crosses paths with Zabroda, the leader of the local cell of the cult. Additional problems crop up in the form of Grigori Griva a local boy prone to hooliganism and drink and his buddy Chmykh, a dissolute accordion player. Grigori learns to mend his ways thanks to the guidance of Pavel Fedorovich Varchenko, the wise and patient director of the mine, and Liuda, the Komsomol organizer with whom he falls in love. The film’s title refers to fossilized plants visible on pieces of coal.Read More »

Quote:
Cinema feeds on stories of love and death, but how often do filmmakers really offer new or challenging perspectives on either? Michael Haneke’s ‘Amour’ is devastatingly original and unflinching in the way it examines the effect of love on death, and vice versa. It’s a staggering, intensely moving look at old age and life’s end, which at its heart offers two performances of incredible skill and wisdom from French veteran actors Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva.

The Austrian director of ‘Hidden’ and ‘The White Ribbon’ offers an intimate, brave and devastating portrait of an elderly Parisian couple, Anne (Riva) and Georges (Trintignant), facing up to a sudden turn in their lives. Haneke erects four walls to keep out the rest of the world, containing his drama almost entirely within one apartment over some weeks and months. The only place we see this couple outside their flat, right at the start, is at the theatre, framed from the stage. Haneke reverses the perspective for the rest of the film. The couple’s flat becomes a theatre for their stories: past, present and future.Read More »

Quote:
Photographer and filmmaker Larry Clark offers another look at the inner workings of urban youth culture in this comedy drama. Jonathan (Jonathan Velasquez) is a teenaged El Salvadorian refugee living in a primarily Mexican-American and African-American neighborhood in South Central Los Angeles. Jonathan and a handful of fellow Salvadorian émigrés who are his best friends stand out like sore thumbs on the block, due less to their national origin than because they’ve rejected the hip-hop music and fashion around them in favor of old-school punk, as favored by the Ramones and latter-day Latino bands such as Suicidal Tendencies. Jonathan and his pals Kiko (Francisco Pedrasa), Eddie (Eddie Velasquez), Porky (Usvaldo Panameno), and Spermball (Milton Velasquez) have a group of their own, and Jonathan, a sweet but streetwise kid who has a way with the girls, is the lead singer. Read More »

A European director is commissioned to make a documentary about Istanbul. He starts to film its everyday life – but soon becomes drawn to the darker, more mysterious side of the city – its past, its secrets, its ghosts. Gradually he succumbs to obsession.Read More »

The Herlihys are a working class family from Chicago whose three children take wildly divergent paths: Brian joins the Marines right out of High School and goes to Vietnam, Michael becomes involved in the civil rights movement and after campaigning for Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy becomes involved in radical politics, and Katie gets pregnant, moves to San Francisco and joins a hippie commune. Meanwhile, the Taylors are an African-American family living in the deep South. When Willie Taylor, a minister and civil rights organizer, is shot to death, his son Emmet moves to the city and eventually joins the Black Panthers, serving as a bodyguard for Fred Hampton.Read More »

Synopsis
Midnight in Paris, Faubourg St Honoré. In one house, a woman suddenly screams and the sound of a gunshot is heard. A short time later, Laurent Lénaud, a young painter, is running away with a suitcase. Arriving at a hotel, he enters a room where a young woman named Rossana is crying. The room is strewn with broken furniture and clothes lie on the floor. Laurent is almost certain that his wife Danielle is to blame for this. Meanwhile, in an expensive apartment a woman is responding to the questions put to her by police officer Bertrand. She is Renée Plèges, the owner of an antiques shop. That evening, she found her daughter Danielle shot dead. Renée explains that Laurent, her son-in-law, wanted to leave Danielle. When she refused to divorce him, he killed her. While Bertrand asks Renée to tell him everything she remembers since the first day she met Laurent, the latter recounts to his mistress Rossana the events that took place before Danielle’s death. Two completely different stories emerge. Then Danielle’s personal diary is found, bringing a third explanation of what took place that evening…Read More »

Quote:
Daniel, loner and hermit, is forced to give overnight shelter to Anna, his neighbor’s niece. The need for affection and human warmth of these two injured people will emerge, turning into a romance. Things get complicated when Anna’s husband appears.

Quote:
Daniel, el Topo, hombre ermitaño e incomunicado, que goza de toda soledad posible. Trabaja como constructor y vive solo, su familia ha emigrado y hace tiempo no tienen contacto alguno. Sostiene una vida vacía y rutinaria, entre el trabajo y su apartamento. Un día los acontecimientos lo obligan a permanecer durante una noche completa con otra persona, una mujer.

Ana llega a la vida de Daniel por casualidad, escapando de un marido que la maltrata y golpea y la ha convertido en un ser lastimado y con necesidad de cariño. Su tío Raúl, vecino de Daniel, le pide a este dejarla dormir por una noche en su casa hasta que él pueda embarcarla hacia su pueblo natal.Read More »

Plot: A young second lieutenant in the hussars, garrisoned in the provinces, recalls a strange adventure. While staying with an old couple he meets Albertine, his hosts’ daughter, falls in love with her and, after wooing her assiduously, makes her his mistress. But then one night she dies in his arms… Read More »

The plot
Based in part on detective-fiction writer Dashiell Hammett’s early experiences as a Pinkerton detective, this moderately-noir film has Hammett (using his little-known first name, Sam) involved in an elaborate extortion plot by his former detective agency mentor, Jimmy Ryan. Ryan shows up at Hammett’s San Francisco digs searching for a mysterious Chinese girl, Crystal Ling. He calls in a marker from Hammett’s days at the detective agency to get his help in finding the girl, who turns out to be a very sexy and shrewd former prostitute and porn star. She has photographs of San Francisco’s most influential citizens engaged in sexual fantasy with her and she means to turn them into a million-dollar payday. The tubercular Hammett must cope with an unfriendly police force, a mysterious gunsel intent on inflicting serious harm, and betrayal by supposed friends; to save the reputations of the powerful while tweaking their collective noses
Written by Joe Jurca, imdb.comRead More »