Musical

Andrzej Zulawski’s take on Mussorgsky’s opera. Conducted by Rostropovich.

Quote:
This is the best opera-inspired film I have ever seen. It’s not what we frequently see: a filming of a theater performance. This is a masterpiece of its own, with the force and drama of Mussorgsky’s music, but added with the insight of a professional film-maker. You will see wonderful scenes and color, with some artistic freedom to achieve cinematographic characters that really makes you understand the inner drama of a complex and appealing historic personage.Read More »

Plot:
Aging Cuban musicians whose talents had been virtually forgotten following Castro’s takeover of Cuba, are brought out of retirement by Ry Cooder, who travelled to Havana in order to bring the musicians together, resulting in triumphant performances of extraordinary music, and resurrecting the musicians’ careers.Read More »

The 1985 hijacking by Palestinian terrorists of the Mediterranean cruise ship Achille Lauro culminated in the murder of wheelchair-bound Jewish-American passenger Leon Klinghoffer. Adams’s controversial highly acclaimed opera plays out against the turbulent emotions and violence that are as ancient as Biblical text and as contemporary as today’s headlines.
Award-winning British film-maker Penny Woolcock, working with the composer, has ingeniously teworked the original, using techniques afforded by film to imbue the narrative with realism. Whilst the main action is shot on location in the Mediterranean, actual and recreated archive footage tells the broader story of the characters before and after the hijacking.Read More »

When the lead of the musical he’s putting on quits, Ted Sturgis (Gower Champion) searches for a new headliner. Newcomers Joanna Moss (Helen Wood) and Suzy Doolitle (Debbie Reynolds) do well at open auditions, and Madelyn Corlane (Marge Champion), Ted’s ex and a former starlet herself, is also in contention. As two of the women face personal dilemmas that threaten their participation in the musical, a final audition is held, and when each shines, the lead is chosen in an unorthodox way.Read More »

Quote:
Pseudolus is the laziest slave in Rome and has but one wish, purchase his freedom. When his master and mistress leave for the day he finds out that the young master has fallen in love with a virgin in the house of Lycus, a slave dealer specializing in beautiful women. Pseudolus concocts a deal in which he will be freed if he can procure the girl for young Hero. Of course, it can’t be that simple as everything begins to go wrong.Read More »

Abel Ferrara headlines a film retrospective and a series of concerts in France dedicated to songs and music from his films. Preparations with his family and friends will form the material of this self portrait, showing another side of the director of legendary films Bad Lieutenant, The King of New York and The Addiction. Ferrara is joined on stage by past collaborators, including composer Joe Delia, actor-singer Paul Hipp and his wife actress Cristina Chiriac, for concerts at the Metronum in Toulouse and the Salo Club in Paris in October 2016.Read More »

Plot
The brief life and extraordinary times of American jazz great Charlie Parker is the subject of this Argentinian biography by director Osias Wilenski. One of the greatest saxophonists of all time, Parker was also riddled with serious addictions and mental instabilities that eventually claimed his life in New York at the age of thirty-four. Born in Kansas City, MO, Parker — known as the “Bird” — was addicted to heroin as a teen. As his jazz career took off and he played with some of the biggest talents, like Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, Parker was battling his own demons. This drama moves forward and backward in the saxophonist’s life and does so with more examples of his music than of pithy dialogue. Sergio Renan plays Parker. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, RoviRead More »

A nightclub waiter and a manicurist share the same room, she sleeps there by night and he by day. They’ve never met, but they can’t stand each other. Then one day, they meet by chance…Read More »

Synopsis:
One morning at an isolated mansion in the snowy countryside of 1950s France, a family is gathered for the holiday season. But there will be no celebration at all because their beloved patriarch has been murdered! The killer can only be one of the eight women closest to the man of the house. Was it his powerful wife? His spinster sister-in-law? His miserly mother-in-law? Maybe the insolent chambermaid or the loyal housekeeper? Could it possibly have been one of his two young daughters? A surprise visit from the victim’s chic sister sends the household into a tizzy, encouraging hysterics, exacerbating rivalries, and encompassing musical interludes. Comedic situations arise with the revelations of dark family secrets. Seduction dances with betrayal. The mystery of the female psyche is revealed. There are eight women and each is a suspect. Each has a motive. Each has a secret. Beautiful, tempestuous, intelligent, sensual, and dangerous…one of them is guilty. Which one is it?
— Anthony Pereyra (IMDb)Read More »