USA

  • Elia Kazan – Splendor in the Grass (1961)

    1961-1970DramaElia KazanRomanceUSA

    Quote:
    It’s 1928 in oil rich southeast Kansas. High school seniors Bud Stamper and Deanie Loomis are in love with each other. Bud, the popular football captain, and Deanie, the sensitive soul, are “good” kids who have only gone as far as kissing. Unspoken to each other, they expect to get married to each other one day. But both face pressures within the relationship, Bud who has the urges to go farther despite knowing in his heart that if they do that Deanie will end up with a reputation like his own sister, Ginny Stamper, known as the loose, immoral party girl, and Deanie who will do anything to hold onto Bud regardless of the consequences. They also face pressures from their parents who have their own expectation for their offspring. Bud’s overbearing father, Ace Stamper, the local oil baron, does not believe Bud can do wrong and expects him to go to Yale after graduation, which does not fit within Bud’s own expectations for himself. And the money and image conscious Mrs. Loomis just wants Deanie to get married as soon as possible to Bud so that Deanie will have a prosperous life in a rich family. When Bud makes a unilateral decision under these pressures, it leads to a path which affects both his and Deanie’s future.Read More »

  • Martin Scorsese & Michael Henry Wilson – A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995)

    1991-2000DocumentaryMartin ScorseseMichael Henry WilsonUSA

    Quote:
    Martin Scorsese describes his initial and growing obsession with films from the 1940s and 50s as the art form developed and grew with clips from classics and cult classics.Read More »

  • Jim Fields & Michael Gramaglia – End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones (2003)

    2001-2010CultDocumentaryJim FieldsMichael GramagliaUSA

    Quote:
    In 1974, the New York City music scene was shocked into consciousness by the violently new sound of a band from Queens: The Ramones. Playing in a seedy Bowery bar to a small group of fellow struggling musicians, the band struck a chord of disharmony that rocked the foundation of the placid mid-1970s music scene. Tracing the history of the band over three decades, END OF THE CENTURY is a vibrant, candid document of one of the most influential groups in the history of rock.Read More »

  • Andrew Douglas – Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus [+commentary] (2003)

    2001-2010Andrew DouglasDocumentaryPerformanceUSA

    Quote:
    Searching for The Wrong-Eyed Jesus is a captivating and compelling road trip through the creative spirit of the the Southern U.S. Director Andrew Douglas’s film follows “Alt Country” singer Jim White through a gritty terrain of churches, prisons, truck stops, biker bars and coal mines. This is a journey through a very real contemporary Southern U.S., a world of marginalised white people and their unique and home-made society. Along the way are road-side encounters with modern musical mavericks including The Handsome Family, Johnny Dowd, 16 Horsepower and David Johansen; old time banjo player Lee sexton; rockabilly and mountain Gospel churches – and novelist Harry Crews telling grisly stories down a dirt track.Read More »

  • Spencer Gordon Bennet – The Secret Code (1942)

    1941-1950ActionDramaSpencer Gordon BennetUSA

    IMDB:
    A police detective goes undercover and joins a gang of Nazi agents using explosive gases and artificial lightning to sabotage the war effort, whom he battles in disguise as The Black Commando.Read More »

  • Spencer Gordon Bennet – Manhunt of Mystery Island (1945)

    1941-1950ActionSci-FiSpencer Gordon BennetUSA

    Plot summary for
    Manhunt of Mystery Island
    A young couple journeys to Mystery Island to rescue the girl’s father, who is being held prisoner by the evil Captain Mephisto, a pirate from 200 years ago who uses his Transformation Machine to travel forward in time and disguise himself as one of the four owners of Mystery Island. Written by AnonymousRead More »

  • Mark Rappaport – L’année dernière à Dachau (2020)

    2011-2020DocumentaryExperimentalMark RappaportUSA

    Quote:
    Near Munich, in Bavaria, Germany, is the Schleißheim Palace, where French filmmaker Alain Resnais shot his film Last Year at Marienbad in 1960. Nearby is the Dachau concentration camp, where thousands of people were killed between 1933 and 1945. An essay about the present and the past, beauty and horror, life and death.Read More »

  • John English – Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc. (1941)

    1941-1950ActionCrimeJohn EnglishUSA

    Quote:
    Reviewing the serial it is still one of Republic’s best efforts, made at the peak of their creativity. Jim Harmon and Donald Glut have referred to “Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc.” as “The Best of Dick Tracy” since a lot of the action and cliffhanger footage is made up from the three previous serials. In essence, Republic took what they considered the most exciting scenes from earlier serials, and strung them together with a strong storyline. Unlike most of the post war serials that were constructed out of earlier serials, this one is not hampered by all of the reused footage.Read More »

  • Jonas Mekas – Sleepless Nights Stories (2011)

    2011-2020DocumentaryExperimentalJonas MekasUSA

    Quote:
    This film originated from my readings of the One Thousand And One Nights. But unlike the Arabian tales, my stories are all from real life, though at times they too wander into somewhere else, beyond the everyday routine reality.

    There are some twenty-five different stories in my movie. Their protagonists are all my good friends and I myself am an inseparable part of the stories. The storyteller of the Arabian Nights was also part of his or her tales.

    Some of the people in the movie you’ll recognize, some not. The fact that some of them you’ll recognize has no bearing on the stories: after all, we all recognize John Wayne or Annette Bening, but in their stories they are no longer the people we know.Read More »

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