After seven years in prison, Rudy Vandekerckhove has set himself two clear objectives: get back to work as a washing machine repairman, and – more importantly – become reconciled with the family he had left behind. But despite the help and support of Denise, a retired hairdresser, and his friend Rachid, his plans fail. Just when a reunion eventually comes within sight, the past gets the upper hand again, and Rudy has to take the toughest decision of his life.Read More »
Lucie, 17, lives with her father Hugo, the owner of a nursery in the south of France. Her work and her close contact with nature preoccupies her and takes her mind off her absent mother, who left a year ago without any notice. Lucie and Hugo have grown closer to one another over the past year, although their relationship is becoming as dangerous as it is comforting. Then, one day, Lucie’s mother returns unexpectedly, arousing not only Hugo’s jealousy but also his anger…
Lucie, 17 ans, vit avec son père, Hugo, dans une pépinière isolée du sud de la France. Le travail quotidien au contact de la nature les absorbe et comble le manque de la mère, partie depuis un an sans donner de nouvelles. Cette absence a resserré le lien entre père et fille, doux et étouffant, rassurant et dangereux. Mais un jour, la mère revient, provoquant la jalousie et la colère incontrôlée d’Hugo…Read More »
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Simon Wade is an average young man who goes about his profession as a teacher with the same kind of dedication that he exhibits when taking care of his ailing mother. But, under the seemingly obliging surface of nice-guy Simon there lurks an entirely different side. His unquenchable thirst for fresh blood forces the young teacher to trawl websites in search of suicidal young women, whose blood he can steal.Read More »
AMG: Home Town Story was commissioned as a pro-Big Business tract by General Motors. The story revolves around Blake Washburn, a mildly leftist newspaperman, played by Jeffrey Lynn. Returning to his home town, Washburn turns his journalistic vitriol upon the local business interests. Only after his kid sister Katie (Melinda Plowman), trapped in a cave-in, is rescued by locally produced technology, does Washburn realize the value of the capitalistic system. Home Town Story was fitfully distributed by MGM, then lapsed into obscurity. It might have remained there had it not been for the presence of a young Marilyn Monroe in a supporting part.Read More »
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A haunting love story that spans three decades, Rhino Season is based on the tragic story of a Kurdish poet and family friend of Ghobadi’s who was unjustly incarcerated during Iran’s Islamic Revolution. The victim of a personal vendetta, Sahel (Behrouz Vossoughi) is thrown into prison along with his devoted wife Mina (Monica Bellucci). Inexplicably released after serving a ten-year sentence, Mina is informed by the authorities that Sahel is dead. Heartbroken, she and her two children leave Iran for Istanbul — unknowingly leaving behind her very-much-alive husband, who is forced to stay in prison for another twenty years. Finally released, Sahel sets out to find his wife, the memory of whom was the only thing that had sustained him throughout his agonizing ordeal. But after clinging to an intangible vision for so many years, what is the reality that awaits him now?
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Blancanieves is a 2012 black-and-white silent Spanish drama film directed by Pablo Berger. Based on the fairy tale “Snow White” by the Brothers Grimm, the story is set in a romantic vision of 1920s Andalusia. The film is intended to be an homage to 1920s European silent films. Spain’s submission for the 2012 Foreign Language Oscar, but it didn’t make the shortlist.Read More »
synopsis
Oliver Stone’s first directorial effort for a major studio (and his second horror film after the 1974 Seizure) came shortly after the phenomenal success of Midnight Express, which was based on Stone’s Oscar-winning screenplay. The director turned to Mark Brandel’s obscure thriller “The Lizard’s Tail” as source material for what is essentially a silly psychosexual variant on low-budget horror films like The Crawling Hand. The title appendage belongs (for a while, anyway) to smug, conceited artist Joe Lansdale (Michael Caine), who owes his success to a popular comic strip featuring a macho, Conan-type hero. After Lansdale’s drawing hand is sheared off in a grisly car accident, his career, dignity, self-control and even his sanity soon begin to abandon him as well. His tenuous relationship with his wife Anne (Andrea Marcovicci) falls apart as she takes steps to improve her own self-worth — something she had never had the strength to do before the accident. Bitter and paranoid, Joe begins to lash out in anger at everyone around him … and becomes convinced that his severed hand has come back, wandering in fields and dark alleys and squeezing the life out of everyone it comes in contact with.Read More »
A filmmaker arrives at a crossroads in his life and his art when he learns his mother may be dying in this drama with comedic overtones from director Darezhan Omirbaev. Amir Kobessov (Djamshed Usmonov) is a well-respected filmmaker from Kazakhstan who, both professionally and personally, is suffering from a crisis of confidence. Amir is beginning to wonder if audiences are still interested in his work, and he has a recurring nightmare in which his latest premiere is scotched in favor of a low-budget chop-socky epic. At home, Amir and his wife are not getting along, and both are struggling to keep their marriage afloat. When Amir receives word that his mother is seriously ill, he hops in his car and sets out to visit her in the small village where he was born; along the way, Amir finds himself examining his past as he tries to come to terms with an uncertain future. Jol was screened as part of the Un Certain Regard series at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
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Life, Death, God, Salvation, Revolution? Those living in the abyss have left the worst behind. Dostoyevsky’s “Devils” takes place in the transition between religious belief and materialistic ideology, foreshadowing not only the approaching death of God, but also the collapse of socialism. Written in the 1860’s, the novel opens not only a philosophical panorama of different types of human quest for transcendence, but also establishes such fateful bonds among those involved in the quest that in the end only state terror can prevent widespread annihilation. Beauty and terror mate before dusk.Read More »