Rosa (Virna Lisi), Vic (Tony Franciosa) and their boat captain (Alf Kjellin) are searching for sunken treasure. They hire Mark (Frank Sinatra) as their diver and begin their treasure hunt. Mark soon spots a long-buried German U-boat, and the plan to search for gold quickly turns into a scheme to use the submarine to rob the HMS Queen Mary. After enlisting the help of a mechanic (Richard Conte), the foursome set their plan in motion while Vic and Mark battle for Rosa’s affections.Read More »
Stomping back to merry olde England, Bloodthirsty Butchers is a claustrophobic mess. Sweeney Todd slaps around his mistress, wife, and…second mistress. Sweeney Todd maims his barbershop victims, then gives the bodies to the local bakery. Sweeney Todd deals out marriage advice. Badly. Filled with horribly tight compositions, goofy sex (shoulders only, thanks), infrequent energy, and tiresome bitching and yelling, Bloodthirsty Butchers is a hump in the road. All women are depicted as pawns of evil. Milligan’s sets (a couple of blank rooms) and budget hit the dirt, moreso than usual. Attempts at violence are limp. When a search for highpoints leads to a neon-tipped boob in a pie and a rare light-hearted ending, trouble is afoot. All hate. No heart.Read More »
Synopsis:
When someone gets killed during a bank robbery by Deans, half-breed Billy Two Hats and their partner, the robbers flee. Sheriff Gifford tracks the robbers, killing one of them and capturing Billy. Deans escapes, but during a successful plot to free Billy from the Sheriff, Deans is shot, leaving him unable to walk or ride a horse. Billy, not wanting to abandon his friend, builds an Indian cot to drag Deans behind the horse. With the Sheriff hot on their trail, Deans and Billy try to stay one step ahead of the many obstacles which threaten their lives and freedomRead More »
Synopsis:
Professor David Pollock is an expert in ancient Arabic hieroglyphics. A Middle Eastern Prime Minister convinces Pollock to infiltrate the organization of a man named Beshraavi, who is involved in a plot against the Prime Minister. The nature of the plot is believed to be found in a hieroglyphic code. Beshraavi’s mistress, Yasmin Azir is a beautiful mystery who becomes intertwined in the plot. Pollock needs her help, but she repeatedly double crosses him in one escapade after another, he can’t decide on who she is working for. Ultimately working together, Pollock and Yasmin decipher the message and set out to stop an assassination of the Prime Minister.Read More »
Synopsis:
While taping a football game, cameraman Harry Hinkle (Jack Lemmon) ends up slightly injured after a collision with star player “Boom Boom” Jackson (Ron Rich). When Hinkle’s scheming brother-in-law, lawyer Willie Gingrich (Walter Matthau), catches wind of the incident, he wants Hinkle to feign paralysis to scam the insurance company. Hinkle agrees to the plan, if only to win back his ex (Judi West). But Hinkle’s growing friendship with a guilt-ridden Jackson has him questioning the ploy.Read More »
Synopsis (tribecafilm.com)
Perhaps Steven Soderbergh’s most innovative film to date (and that’s saying something), Bubble was the first movie to be released simultaneously in theaters and on cable with a DVD release that followed four days later. Bubble follows Martha, a lonely, dumpy woman who strikes up an easy friendship with Kyle, a younger co-worker. A new attractive employee, Rose, disrupts the dynamic between the two, and a murder soon changes the lives of the three doll factory workers irrevocably. Soderbergh uses a muted color palette and non-professional actors in this remarkable film to instill an unshakable feeling of the uncomfortably realities that lie just beneath the surface of ordinary life.Read More »
Synopsis
A comedy-drama about a Black American female philosophy professor and her insensitive, philandering, and flamboyant artist husband who are having a marital crisis. When the wife goes off on an almost unbelievable journey to find “ecstasy”, her husband is forced to see her in a different light.Read More »
When a proud noble refuses to kiss the hand of the despotic King James in 1690, he is cruelly executed and his son surgically disfigured into a permanent grin. The son can only make a living as a travelling circus clown – The Laughing Man!Read More »
Toronto International Film Festival writes:
Exorcist author William Peter Blatty intended for his adaptation of his own novel Twinkle, Twinkle, “Killer” Kane to be directed by William Friedkin; when studios rejected the script, Blatty put up half the budget himself, convinced the Pepsi-Cola conglomerate to provide the balance, and stepped behind the camera to make his directorial debut. Set near the end of the Vietnam War, The Ninth Configuration takes place in a spectacular castle that has been commandeered as a mental hospital for military veterans.Read More »