USA

A film crew follows three grieving participants of Miami’s annual T Ball, where folks assemble to model R.I.P. T-shirts and innovative costumes designed in honor of their dead. T screened at Sundance Film Festival 2020 and won the Golden Bear for best short film at Berlinale 2020.

“When you do things with your hands, it heals you in places lower than where you cry from,” she says and makes a costume out of crisp bags for her late son. Because he loved crisps. T is a film and a ball and a ceremony for the ones that have been lost and those who have lost someone. It is a manifestation of grief, anger and the spiritual power of creativity.Read More »

“Before Michael Mann set the big screen alight with the brilliant, epic Heat, he rehearsed the story in this made-for-TV version. Heat was a tour de force, with the scuzzy, spacey metropolis of LA as backdrop to a titanic battle between charismatic cop (Pacino) and taciturn tough guy robber (Pacino. This dynamic is hardly replicated in this earlier TV version – and if LA Takedown shows anything, it’s that a compelling story and talented director really do require stellar talent to generate the requisite screen effect. Intended as the pilot for a TV series, this tough and energetic story went straight to video in the UK, but achieved minor cult status, and is well worth watching for the differences to the remake, as well as the similarities. The central cop character Vincent Hanna (Plank) is retained, and the emphasis is on him as he pursues the bank robber. What is lacking is the density of characterisation and the myriad subplots. Still, it would be unfair to dismiss the film. Judged as a TV movie, it has merit, it’s just that the other elements are more modest.” – Channel4Read More »

An unidentified flying object crash-lands on Earth and is taken into custody by the United States government. The occupant of the “flying saucer” turns out to be a cat-like alien named Jake. Using a special collar, he is able to communicate with humans. The cat tries to have American scientists help him find some Org 12 so that his ship may rendezvous with his fleet. After determining that “Org 12” is gold, Jake uses his collar’s powers to affect the outcome of various sporting events, including horse races and pool games, to win money to buy the needed gold and repair his saucer.Read More »

Brief Synopsis:
A hot-shot reporter risks his life to land an interview with a notorious crook.

Quote:
Hot Summer Night is an out-of-the-ordinary crime yarn from the TV/radio production team of Morton Fine and David Friedkin. Unemployed journalist William Joel Pertain (Leslie Nielsen) hopes to reestablish himself by capitalizing on a recent wave of bank robberies. Pertain has a “lead” to the gang’s leader Tom Ellis (Robert Wilke), and intends to parlay this into a hot news story. Instead, he places the lives of himself and his wife Irene (Colleen Miller) in dire peril. Of interest is the fact that the villain is portrayed with a modicum of sympathy, while the reporter comes off as a bit of a jerk. — Hal EricksonRead More »

Quote:
An alien virus’s brief pit stop in the new American West, starkly documented by Michael Crichton and Robert Wise. A satellite crashes in a New Mexico burg, soon the place is filled with bodies whose circulatory systems have turned to powder — these are the best sequences, full of hushed dread and unnerving use of widescreen dead spaces (the camera focuses on the placid, dusty face of a fallen villager, then tilts up to frame a couple of researchers approaching in hazmat suits and a helicopter whirring against a cobalt sky). The scientific team is rounded up: Exposition-dispenser Arthur Hill, surgeon James Olson (who gets a crush on the computer’s female voice), splenetic researcher Kate Reid, and veteran doctor David Wayne (“A hippie! He’s going to a love-in,” his suspicious wife cries as he packs for the secret mission).Read More »

Plot Synopsis by Sandra Brennan
In this off-beat, tuneful psychological thriller, an ailing pregnant woman is in the hospital when she inadvertently eavesdrops on a conversation between a pianist and his wife. Later, after losing her baby, the woman’s husband convinces her to convalesce in a nice country house he has rented. Later she learns that the house is owned by the pianist whose wife died. The poor confused girl then begins believing that she has been possessed by the spirit of the musician’s late wife.Read More »

-Synopsis-
A musician struggling to cope with his split from his lover and muse begins to suspect his past is being erased in this unnerving film starring members of Chicago band, Paper Thick Walls. As songs Liam and Lauren recorded together disappear from tapes and mutual friends deny they know him, Liam hits the road on a desperate journey to prove to himself and everyone else that he’s not insane.Read More »

Actress Patricia Clarkson narrates this documentary dramatizing the unique history of American film criticism. In addition to eliciting the thoughts and opinions of such respected film critics as Jonathan Rosenbaum, J Hoberman, Andrew Sarris, Roger Ebert, Kenneth Turan, Lisa Schwarzbaum, and A.O. Scott, the filmmakers also speak with internet-based critics like Harry Knowles and Karina Longworth, who offer a fresh perspective on the ongoing battle between upcoming on-liners and their print publication counterparts.Read More »

Synopsis:
Filmmakers (and brothers) Albert and David Maysles follow four employees of a company that makes expensive, ornate, illustrated bibles as they attempt to sell the items door-to-door to less-than-interested customers, who are mainly poor or lower-middle-class Catholics with little money to spend on pretty Bibles.Read More »