USA

  • Stanley Kramer – Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)

    1961-1970ComedyDramaStanley KramerUSA


    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Joey Drayton brings her fiancé, Dr. John Prentice, home to sunny San Francisco to meet her affluent parents. Their liberal persuasions are now put to the test, for although the young man is an ideal choice (he’s highly and internationally respected in the medical field, and he’s impeccably mannered, handsome, well dressed and of a respectable California family), he’s black. The film, which covers one busy day in the Drayton home, is essentially a drawing-room comedy, a series of cross-conversations between the young doctor and the girl’s parents, and finally between all sets of parents and offspring. A simple dinner is extended to include the doctor’s parents, who fly up from Los Angeles for the evening, and the crusty but benevolent old Irish priest, a friend of the family. Thus, the title of the film . . .

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  • Robert Altman – Nashville (1975)

    1971-1980DramaMusicalRobert AltmanUSA

    Quote:
    Robert Altman’s brilliantly freewheeling satire on the country and western music industry made little impression on the American box office in 1975. This was the year, remember, when a giant shark in Jaws inaugurated the modern blockbuster era. But three decades on, Nashville feels like one of the outstanding accomplishments of ‘New Hollywood’. 24 characters – including singers, musicians, agents, publicists, journalists, and assorted wannabees and hangers-on – converge on the capital of Tennessee, as a confused nation prepares to celebrate its bicentenary.Read More »

  • William Keighley – Big Hearted Herbert (1934)

    1931-1940ClassicsComedyUSAWilliam Keighley

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Plot: A clumsy, bumbling plumber finds his true calling as a successful manufacturer of bathroom facilities.Read More »

  • William Nigh – Across to Singapore (1928)

    1921-1930DramaRomanceUSAWilliam Nigh

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Plot: Joel and Priscilla have been in love since they were children. Mark announces his engagement to her without obtaining her permission. While Joel and Mark are at sea Mark is abandoned in Singapore by the Ship’s Mate Finch who, upon their return, convinces the townspeople that Joel abandoned his brother. Joel escapes jail, takes the ship to Singapore, finds his brother insane with drink and returns him to the ship. There is a mutiny.Read More »

  • Gary Hustwit – Helvetica (2007)

    2001-2010DocumentaryGary HustwitUSA



    Quote:
    There was a joke at Sight & Sound of old, that the designer was holding up the layouts because he needed to ‘kern the folios’ – that’s to say, he was recalibrating the space between the numerals informing us what page we’re on. See for yourself how needful a task this might be – and welcome to the micropolitics of the division of labour in the print-based communications industry, where what the words say is only a part of where brain-time is spent. Helvetica is a san-serif typeface – like the adjacent credit matter, rather than this sentence, it lacks those nice little spikes at letter-ends – and what’s lovely about Gary Hustwit’s documentary is that it not only gets across the passions, absurd and detailed, that shape this world (passions about effects few of us can name and some never notice at all) but also sketches a timeline in changing technologies and fashions over a half-century.Read More »

  • Harry Beaumont – Are You Listening? (1932)

    1931-1940DramaHarry BeaumontUSA

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Synopsis:
    WBLA is on the air, presenting the live music, the sudsy dramas and the sell-sell-sell of commercial interludes that keep consumers buying and sponsors smiling. But one sponsor, a producer of plumbing supplies, isn’t happy. So WBLA scriptwriter Bill Grimes is bounced from his job, setting in motion this movie’s turn from comedic to darkly tragic. William Haines, two years removed from being Tinseltown’s top male star, plays Grimes in a melodrama noted for its glimpses of live radio production and for a Depression-era ethos that includes peroxide cuties eager to land a job, a sugar daddy or both. The cast includes Hattie McDaniel in a bit role. Are You Listening? Don’t touch that dial. From Warner Brothers! Read More »

  • Robert Florey – The Woman in Red (1935)

    1931-1940ClassicsDramaRobert FloreyUSA


    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Plot: Shelby Barrett (Barbara Stanwyck) rides show horses for wealthy widow “Nicko” Nicholas (Genevieve Tobin)and meets Johnny Wyatt (Gene Raymond), scion of a once-wealthy Long Island Family, but who now goes about the country riding polo ponies for “Nicko.” Despite the efforts of “Nicko” and wealthy Gene Fairchild (John Eldredge), who is in love with Shelby, Johnny and Shelby are married. Shelby is treated frigidly by her snobby-but-broke in-laws, who frown even more when she and Johnny start handling the horses for wealthy neighbors on money Shelby had borrowed from Fairchild without telling her proud-but-broke husband. Matters aren’t helped any when “Nicko” shows up and starts a gossip circuit directed against Shelby. When Johnny is away, Fairchild asks Shelby to help him entertain a wealthy client aboard his yacht. She tries to contact Johnny and fails but accepts the invitation.Read More »

  • Stanley Donen – Charade (1963)

    1961-1970ComedyMysteryStanley DonenUSA



    Plot:
    Romance and suspense ensue in Paris as a woman is pursued by several men who want a fortune her murdered husband had stolen. Who can she trust?

    Review:
    Stanley Donen’s Charade occupies a special place among sixties thrillers. In an era of spy films resplendent with macho-driven eroticism (the James Bond series), cynicism (Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer series), or farcical irreverence (Casino Royale; the Flint movies, with Charade costar James Coburn), it was the only successful take on the genre to place a woman at its center.Read More »

  • Jerry Schatzberg – Scarecrow (1973)

    1971-1980DramaJerry SchatzbergUSA

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Quote:
    Max, an ex-con drifter with a penchant for brawling is amused by Lion, a homeless ex-sailor, and they partner up as they head east together.Read More »

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