USA

Synopsis:
In this documentary on the Rastafarians in Jamaica (homeland of the Rastafari par excellence — the late Bob Marley), director Alan Greenberg interviews some Jamaicans whose conversations suggest that the smoking of ganja, the worship of Haile Selassie (the former Ethiopian emperor) as a god, and the goal of Jamaican self-realization is their own kind of unified field theory. A young, poverty-stricken teenager listens to the reggae music on his radio as though it will magically lead him to a better future, and a pineapple cutter living in the “baddest” area of the island dreams of fomenting tourism in his exotic surroundings. The May, 1981 funeral of Marley himself brought Christian and Rastafarian beliefs together in tribute to the island’s hero, providing one of the most poignant vignettes in the Land of Look Behind.Read More »

Plot
Mike and Danny fly a crop duster, but because of Danny’s gambling debts, a local sheriff seizes it. Trying to earn money, they hitch-hike to the World’s Fair in Seattle. While Danny tries to earn money playing poker, Mike takes care of a small girl, Sue-Lin, whose Uncle Walter has disappeared. Being a ladies’ man, he also finds the time to court a young nurse, Diane.Read More »

Quote:
This is one of the few times at MGM Lucy was given a chance to exploit her full comedic range, and she goes at it with gusto. From the moment she makes her whirlwind entrance looking absolutely gorgeous in a white wedding gown, she commands the screen whenever the camera is on her. In fact, though the movie ostensibly “stars” Van Johnson and Esther Williams, the bland leads take a back seat to the lively pairing of Lucy and Keenan Wynn, as her somewhat morally corrupt boyfriend. Forget comparisons to “Libeled Lady”; “Easy to Wed” is of a different era, and much more slapsticky, and, as noted, Lucy is a gem whether getting drunk and playing the piano or evincing true pathos as a wronged woman. She has rarely been photographed more appealingly, either.Read More »

SYNOPSIS: In 1895, amateur inventor Joe Belden, a resident of Willow Falls, Indiana, is scorned by almost everyone in town, except his mother, his best friend, Ben Parrot, and his sweetheart, Liz Bullitt. Joe’s latest, and most ambitious, invention is a gasoline-burning horseless carriage he is building in his mother’s barn. He is overjoyed when his “gasomobile” finally starts up, but his jubilation is short-lived as the barn soon catches fire. After the volunteer fire department, which is headed by Joe, finally puts out the fire, the worried pharmacist, Horace Antler, refuses to sell Joe more gasoline, and Harvey Bullitt, Liz’s gruff father, angrily tells him to stay away from her. Read More »

Quote:
Taylor Mead plays the president of the United Status, who, when he isn’t at the White House—a dilapidated Victorian—conducts his top-secret affairs on a deserted beach. Robert Downey Sr.’s first feature is a rollicking, slapstick, ultra-low-budget 16 mm comedy experiment that introduced a twisted new voice to the New York underground.Read More »

Largely a personal document of life over the course of a summer in Buenos Aires, “The Impossible Flowers” collides the voices of close friends, everyday imagery, and quotations taken from a range of diverse literary sources into a single, intimate stream of consciousness.Read More »

Synopsis:
Pit violinist Claudin hopelessly loves rising operatic soprano Christine Dubois (as do baritone Anatole and police inspector Raoul) and secretly aids her career. But Claudin loses both his touch and his job, murders a rascally music publisher in a fit of madness, and has his face etched with acid. Soon, mysterious crimes plague the Paris Opera House, blamed on a legendary “phantom” whom none can find in the mazes and catacombs. But both of Christine’s lovers have plans to ferret him out.Read More »

Quote:
Of the cities in the world, few are depicted in and mythologized more in film and television than the city of Los Angeles. In this documentary, Thom Andersen examines in detail the ways the city has been depicted, both when it is meant to be anonymous and when itself is the focus. Along the way, he illustrates his concerns of how the real city and its people are misrepresented and distorted through the prism of popular film culture. Furthermore, he also chronicles the real stories of the city’s modern history behind the notorious accounts of the great conspiracies that ravaged his city that reveal a more open and yet darker past than the casual viewer would suspect.Read More »

arsenal-berlin.de wrote:
Filmed in a middle school gymnasium in suburban Japan, GOSHOGAOKA takes as its ostensible subject the exercise routines and drills of a girls baskettball team. The film consists of six ten minutes takes, shot with a fixed camera at court level in which the various cadences of chanting voices and bodily movements digress into distinct studies. Taken together they construct a subtle and multi-layered social portrait, a portrait framed within a study of choreographed movement (the routines etc.) and therefore one in which documentary values soon become inseparable from aesthetic ones.Read More »