Drama

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Madmen control Manila in 2034 after massive volcanic eruptions have plunged Southeast Asia into darkness.Read More »

The lives of a French theater director, her ex-boyfriend, and the two actors playing them intersect dramatically in this tangled and darkly funny roundelay set in the New York theater world.Read More »

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A fragmented account of the life of Jeanne as she sets out on the path of adult life and gradually experiences the harsh realities of a woman’s life in the 19th-century.Read More »

Zola, a Detroit waitress, is seduced into a weekend of stripping in Florida for some quick cash — but the trip becomes a sleepless 48-hour odyssey involving a nefarious friend, her pimp and her idiot boyfriend.Read More »

Synopsis:
Japanese drama from the 1950s, following a proud textile-dying family who continue practicing the traditional art even when most are abandoning it. Eldest daughter Kiwa (Fujiko Yamamoto) fuels the business with her ambition and unquestionable talent, but her attraction to a genetics professor will take her and her family’s practice to an unforeseeable direction…Read More »

Synopsis:
The Man From the Alamo manages to pack a few nuances and surprises in its traditional western plotline. During the siege at the Alamo, John Stroud (Glenn Ford) is chosen by lot to leave the fort and warn the families of the mission’s defenders of the impending arrival of General Santa Ana. But when everyone around him is wiped out by the Mexicans, Stroud has no proof that he was ordered to leave his post, and is therefore branded a coward. He spends the rest of the film performing acts of conspicuous bravery to clear his name–and also tracks down the film’s real villain, Jess Wade (Victor Jory), who robbed the Alamo victims of their possessions after the smoke cleared. Julie Adams, Chill Wills, Hugh O’Brien, Neville Brand, Arthur Space and future soap-opera star Jeanne Cooper round out the cast. — Hal EricksonRead More »

Aldo Fabrizi plays a widowed school janitor with an infant son. The film depicts the joys and sorrows of father and son, as they journey through life. Maybe we could say that this is something like an Italian Goodbye, Mr. Chips; it is certainly no less affecting. Watch for author/director Mario Soldati in a small, but crucial, part as one of the professors at the school, where father and son live, study and work.Read More »

Four first-grade middle school students in the same class are members of a photography club. Before leaving for summer break, the teacher hands out an old-fashioned analog camera to each of them and asks them to take pictures with them as a summer assignment. The assignment topic is the “end of the world.” What does the end of the world mean? What on earth are they supposed to take pictures of? They all have different opinions on it, but as one of the girls suggests, they decide to take a subway to Sinchang Station, the last station on Seoul Metropolitan Subway Line 1. That is the end of the world for these girls. They doze off on the subway, stop for a while due to rain showers, and feel drawn to an unfamiliar world.Read More »

Although Jack Rosenthal’s television plays are peppered with Jewish characters and passing references drawn from the writer’s Jewish roots, only three bring the subject centre stage: The Evacuees (BBC, tx. 5/3/1975), Bye, Bye, Baby (Channel 4, tx. 3/11/1992) and Bar Mitzvah Boy.

Unlike The Evacuees, Bar Mitzvah Boy is not autobiographical, and Rosenthal even played down its Jewishness in a Radio Times interview prior to its first broadcast by stressing the universality of its central theme: “When I was young and reading comics there were always men heroes, actually aged about 15, who were playing football for England or winning wars single-handed. I used to think that when I’m a man I’ll be like that, never indecisive or frightened, but there suddenly comes a point of disillusionment when you realise it is a fallacy”.Read More »