USA

  • George Cukor – Edward, My Son (1949)

    1941-1950DramaGeorge CukorUSA

    Quote:
    What will a father do to give his son everything?

    Obsessed with the desire to give his only son the best of everything, a man destroys his whole world in this riveting drama starring Spencer Tracy and Deborah Kerr (in an Academy Award-nominated performance*). When the boy is five, his father (Tracy) commits arson to pay for a vital operation. This fateful step launches a rocketlike career of business success. In the process he ruins his partner, destroys his wife’s love for him and then her will to live, and finally faces jail himself for what turns out to have been an empty dream. Based on the play by Robert Morley and Noel Langley. *1949: Best Actress.

    — WAC case synopsisRead More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – Spellbound [+Extras] (1945)

    1941-1950250 Quintessential Film NoirsAlfred HitchcockClassicsMysteryUSA

    Synopsis: The head of the Green Manors mental asylum Dr. Murchison is retiring to be replaced by Dr. Edwardes, a famous psychiatrist. Edwardes arrives and is immediately attracted to the beautiful but cold Dr. Constance Petersen. However, it soon becomes apparent that Dr. Edwardes is in fact a paranoid amnesiac impostor. He goes on the run with Constance who tries to help his condition and solve the mystery of what happened to the real Dr. Edwardes.Read More »

  • Jack Garfein – Something Wild (1961)

    Drama1961-1970ClassicsJack GarfeinUSA

    Criterion wrote:
    A complex exploration of the physical and emotional effects of trauma, Something Wild stars Carroll Baker, in a layered performance, as a college student who attempts suicide after a brutal sexual assault but is stopped by a mechanic (Ralph Meeker)—whose kindness, however, soon takes an unsettling turn. Startlingly modern in its frankness and psychological realism, the film represents one of the purest on-screen expressions of the sensibility of the intimate community of artists around New York’s Actors Studio, which transformed American cinema in the mid-twentieth century. With astonishing location and claustrophobic interior photography by Eugene Schüfftan, an opening-title sequence by the inimitable Saul Bass, and a rhythmic score by Aaron Copland, Jack Garfein’s film is a masterwork of independent cinema.Read More »

  • Samuel Fuller – Fixed bayonets! (1951)

    1951-1960Samuel FullerUSAWar

    Fixed Bayonets! (1951) is a war film written and directed by Samuel Fuller and produced by Twentieth Century-Fox during the Korean War. It is Fuller’s second film about the Korean War. In his motion picture debut, James Dean appears briefly in the film.Read More »

  • Richard T. Heffron – Trackdown (1976)

    1971-1980ActionCrimeRichard T. HeffronUSA

    SYNOPSIS: IMDB review:
    “Rugged Montana rancher Jim Calhoun (an earnest and effective performance by Jim Mitchum) searches the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles for his naive 17-years-old runaway sister Betsy (the comely and appealing Karen Lamm), who has become entangled in a dangerous world of drugs, vice, and prostitution. Director Richard T. Heffron, working from a taut and involving script by Paul Edwards, relates the gripping story at a brisk pace, makes excellent use of authentically gritty urban locations (sleazy bars and clubs, grimy back alleys, Hollywood Boulevard in all its grungy neon glory), maintains a tough seamy tone throughout, and stages a couple of last reel action set pieces with real skill and verve (a sequence involving two elevators is both original and very exciting).Read More »

  • Kirby Dick & Amy Ziering Kofman – Derrida [+Extras] (2003)

    2001-2010DocumentaryKirby Dick and Amy Ziering KofmanPhilosophyPhilosophy on ScreenUSA

    Quote:
    One of the most influential and iconoclastic figures of the 20th century, French philosopher and father of “deconstruction” Jacques Derrida has single-handedly altered the way we look at history, language, art, and film. In the spirit of Derrida’s work, acclaimed filmmakers Kirby Dick (SICK: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF BOB FLANAGAN, SUPERMASOCHIST [torrent available here]) and Amy Ziering Kofman have created an innovative and entertaining portrait by questioning the very concept of biography itself. Featuring a mesmerizing score by Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (THE LAST EMPEROR), DERRIDA is a playful and provocative glimpse at a visionary thinker as he ruminates on everything from SEINFELD to the sex lives of ancient philosophers.Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

    1951-1960Alfred HitchcockThrillerUSA

    Synopsis:
    Ben McKenna (James Stewart), his wife Jo (Doris Day) and their boy Hank ride a bus bound for Marrakech. When the boy accidentally yanks the veil off a Moroccan woman, a smooth talking Frenchman diffuses the situation. Ben reveals that he’s a doctor, attended a medical convention in Paris and is visiting North Africa for a change of scenery. The Frenchman invites the couple to dinner, but Jo confides to her husband that she finds the man suspicious.Read More »

  • Howard Hawks – The Big Sky (1952)

    1951-1960ClassicsHoward HawksUSAWestern

    Red River is the most legendary of Howard Hawks’ western epics. Less well known is The Big Sky, a Kirk Douglas vehicle which evokes the Western frontier of the 1830s.

    In Red River, John Wayne leads the first big cattle drive, thousands of miles north to the railroad. In The Big Sky, French merchant Jourdonnais (Steven Geray) becomes the first keelboat captain to journey up the wild, unexplored Missouri river, to trade for furs with the Blackfeet Indians.
    Hawks takes his time, with even a musical number or two helping to develop his characters.Read More »

  • Benh Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) (HD)

    2011-2020Benh ZeitlinDramaFantasyUSA

    Quote:
    Hushpuppy, an intrepid six-year-old girl, lives with her father, Wink, in the Bathtub, a southern Delta community at the edge of the world. Wink’s tough love prepares her for the unraveling of the universe; for a time when he’s no longer there to protect her. When Wink contracts a mysterious illness, nature flies out of whack, temperatures rise, and the ice caps melt, unleashing an army of prehistoric creatures called aurochs. With the waters rising, the aurochs coming, and Wink’s health fading, Hushpuppy goes in search of her lost mother. Written by Sundance Film FestivalRead More »

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