Drama

  • Vincente Minnelli – A Matter of Time (1976)

    1971-1980DramaUSAVincente Minnelli

    Quote:
    Vincente Minnelli’s final film, A Matter of Time (1976), is both a love letter to the prodigious talents of his daughter Liza, and a fond farewell to the Golden Age of Hollywood–the era during which he did his best work, long gone by 1976. The film is based on the Maurice Druon novel, La volupté d’être (Film of Memory, 1954), which in turn was loosely based on the life of early 20th century art patroness and muse Marchesa Luisa Casati. The Contessa Sanziani (Ingrid Bergman) is a Belle Epoque courtesan who, like the real-life Casati, has fallen on hard times and is living in a shabby Roman hotel. Half-mad and enveloped in memories, the Contessa recounts her past triumphs to an impressionable hotel maid, Nina (Liza Minnelli), who imagines herself playing out the Contessa’s fabled life. As the Contessa fades, Nina blossoms….Read More »

  • William Markus – Verta käsissämme AKA Blood on Our Hands (1958)

    1951-1960DramaFinlandThrillerWilliam Markus

    Quote:
    After returning home from being a prisoner of war, Captain Viktor Aaltona (Jussi Jurkka) get a job from his friend, Rolf Bergas (Tauno Palo) with whom he had served. The men trust each other until Viktor meets Rolf’s wife Astrid (Elina Pohjanpää).

    William Markus’s adaptation of a short novel by Mika Waltari, generally considered one of the weakest of the many films based on literary works and original screenplays by Waltari. Like Markus’s previous film, Mirjam (1957), Blood on Their Hands suffers from the near-constant use of overemphatic background, usually without much relation to what’s happening in the scene. Read More »

  • Clarence Brown – Song of Love (1947)

    1941-1950Clarence BrownClassicsDramaUSA

    Quote:

    Undeniably one of Hollywood’s greatest actresses, Katharine Hepburn nonetheless only had one voice. She used it to massive effect but anything that really warranted an utterly different accent tended to make her look horribly miscast. Of all the great actors she was the one who seemed to be horribly miscast most often, whether it be as a Chinese peasant girl, a queen of Scotland or a backwoods hillbilly. Here, playing the nineteenth century pianist and composer Clara Schumann, I expected another horrible miscasting, but found that the film’s very human story utterly engaging regardless what accents are brought to bear.Read More »

  • Kurt Maetzig – Der Rat der Götter AKA Council of the Gods (1950)

    1941-1950DramaGermanyKurt MaetzigPolitics

    1933, the bosses of a large German chemical concern pave the way for Hitler’s rise to power: Thus begins the story line of the feature film Der Rat der Götter (The Council of the Gods), which deals with the history of I.G. Farben. The film adheres throughout to the Communist theory of fascism. Hitler is largely unidimensional: a creature of capital. Thus the story continues: While the directors assist Germany’s military buildup, they continue to cultivate their business dealings with the U.S. company Standard Oil in order to have joint control of the world market. Some directors now carve out careers with the Nazis, while the engineer Dr. Scholz, who comes from a working-class family, has nothing but scientific progress in mind. Read More »

  • Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda – Juju Factory (2007)

    2001-2010African CinemaArthouseBalufu BakupaCongo - Kinshasa (Zaire)Drama

    Kongo is writing a book on the subject of immigrants but while his editor wants a kind of traveler’s book in which ethnic exotic ingredients are offered to a European audience, Kongo has more ambitious ideas – he conceives of the idea of writing a book that follows the paths of Congolese history and its many ghosts. A brave and powerful film, made with single-mind integrity. Filmed mainly in the Congo, the film also provides a slice of life of the contemporary Congolese community in Brussels.Read More »

  • Chris Shaw – Split (1989)

    1981-1990Chris ShawDramaSci-FiUSA

    IMDB:
    Sci-fi story about a man (Timothy Dwight) on the run from a Big Brother-like security force.Read More »

  • Ralph Thomas – Quest for Love (1971)

    1971-1980DramaRalph ThomasSci-FiUnited Kingdom

    After a scientific experiment goes horribly wrong during a demonstration, a scientist finds himself trapped in an alternate reality that bears some similarities to our own, but also has some striking differences. In this other reality the Second World War had never occurred, mankind had not yet traveled into Space and Mt. Everest had not yet been conquered, just to name a few things. Also in this other reality he is no longer a scientist but rather a well known author. He also finds that he is married to a beautiful woman who he instantly falls in love with but who his alternate self never cared for.Read More »

  • Tonino Cervi – La nottata (1975)

    1971-1980ComedyDramaItalyTonino Cervi

    Synopsis
    Susy and Angela, two unprejudiced Milanese girls, meet by chance in a “toilet”, where a distracted bourgeois lady has just forgotten a two million ring; together they take and try to sell it. For this purpose they rely on a young taxi driver, Vito, of southern origin. He first leads them to a receiver, who they find dead; and then, in the house of a transvestite, where a jeweler buys the ring at a fraudulent price. But, after leaving the house, they realize that the money has disappeared. Then all three come across with Marta and Davide, a rich vicious couple that involve them in erotic games. They follow and Vito follows the trends for a while. At dawn, after a momentary quarrel, Susy and Angela separate. Angela spends a disappointing night with Piero, another boy they met in the elegant villa of the spouses, while Susy went to the station to leave Milan. In the morning the two meet again, confessing each other that it was Angela who took the money that seemed gone, while Susy had managed to steal the ring back from the jeweler.(imdb.com)Read More »

  • Mervyn LeRoy – A Majority of One (1961)

    1961-1970ClassicsDramaMervyn LeRoyUSA

    Mrs. Jacoby, a Brooklyn widow whose only son was killed by the Japanese in World
    War II, reluctantly agrees to accompany her daughter, Alice, and her son-in-law, Jerry
    Black, on a trip to Japan, where Jerry is to help negotiate a trade agreement. En route by
    ship, Mrs. Jacoby’s resentment of the Japanese subsides when she meets Mr. Asano, a
    Japanese industrialist whose family also was struck by tragedy during the war. Their
    friendship ends, however, when Jerry suspects that Mr. Asano, who is also a
    negotiating member of the trade committee, is ingratiating himself with his mother-in-law
    for political gain.Read More »

Back to top button