Synopsis: Akira Kurosawa’s lauded feudal epic presents the tale of a petty thief (Tatsuya Nakadai) who is recruited to impersonate Shingen (also Nakadai), an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. When Shingen dies, his generals reluctantly agree to have the impostor take over as the powerful ruler. He soon begins to appreciate life as Shingen, but his commitment to the role is tested when he must lead his troops into battle against the forces of a rival warlord.Read More »
Synopsis: This historical epic dramatizes the Battle of Peking, a turning point of the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900. When Dowager Empress Tzu-Hsi (Flora Robson) orders the Boxers, a group of Chinese secret societies, to massacre foreigners within China, a group of ambassadors, their families and staff hole up in a diplomatic compound. Major Matt Lewis of the United States Marine Corps (Charlton Heston) leads the defense while romancing Russian baroness Natalie Ivanoff (Ava Gardner).Read More »
In the late 60s, Dhofar rose up against the British-backed Sultanate of Oman, in a democratic, feminist guerrilla movement. Heiny Srour and her team crossed 500 miles of desert and mountains by foot, under bombardment by the British Royal Air Force, to reach the conflict zone and capture this rare record of a now mostly-forgotten war. The People’s Liberation Army — barefoot, without rank or salary — freed a third of the territory, while undertaking a vast program of social reforms and infrastructure projects — schools, farms, hospitals, and roads were built, while illiterate teenage shepherdesses became more forceful feminists than Simone de Beauvoir or Germaine Greer, and 8-year-old school children learned to practice democracy with more maturity than so many adults. A still-topical portrait of a liberated society and an exploration of the role of oil in U.S. and British involvement in the Middle East, The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived was the first film by an Arab woman to screen at Cannes, where it was nominated for four awards. (Film Forum)Read More »
John Garko is a fun-loving leader of a bunch of oddball G.I.s whose mission is to steal the German’s…
FIVE FOR HELL (1969) ITALY
Director – Gianfranco Parolini (Frank Kramer)
“Gianni (John) Garko is a fun-loving leader of a bunch of oddball G.I.s whose mission is to steal the German’s secret attack plans from a villa behind enemy lines, where they run into a brutal Nazi commander (Klaus Kinski).”Read More »
A group of survivors in a lifeboat from a torpedoed neutral ship on its way to Portugal pick up a seventh survivor . He is the captain of the U-boat that is responsible for the sinking of the ship.Read More »
Quote: Western frontiers of the USSR, 1942. The region is under German occupation, and local partisans are fighting a brutal resistance campaign. A train is derailed not far from the village, where Sushenya, a rail worker, lives with his family. Innocent Sushenya is arrested with a group of saboteurs, but the German officer makes a decision not to hang him with the others and sets him free. Rumours of Sushenya’s treason spread quickly, and partisans Burov and Voitik arrive from the forest to get revenge. As the partisans lead their victim through the forest, they are ambushed, and Sushenya finds himself one-to-one with his wounded enemy. Deep in an ancient forest, where there are neither friends nor enemies, and where the line between treason and heroism disappears, Sushenya is forced to make a moral choice under immoral circumstances.Read More »
Quote: In November 1939, Georg Elser’s attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler fails, and he is arrested. During his confinement, he recalls the events leading up to his plot and his reasons for deciding to take such drastic action.
Quote: The German director Oliver Hirschbiegel impressed viewers the world over with his brutal and psychologically astute 2001 film “The Experiment,” but it was with 2004’s “Downfall,” a spectacularly effective picture about Hitler in his last days, that he not only made his reputation as a world-class filmmaker but also inadvertently created an Internet meme.Read More »
Synopsis: Desiring another officer’s new wife, a military police lieutenant fabricates evidence of treason that consigns the innocent man to torture and a firing squad. The lieutenant rapes the wife, but is haunted by bad dreams which after he is assigned to a battalion with the victim’s brotherRead More »
Synopsis: Action takes place in a factory producing cables for barrage balloons shortly after the critical September days in 1938. British Intelligence try to discover the production secrets and one of their agents is very active in the factory. The agent plays on the vanity of the owner’s secretary, takes advantage of losses at the gaming tables of one of the firm’s employees and blackmails another. The son of the owner is led astray by the female accomplice of the British agent. The secretary’s courage together with the son’s patriotism finally unmasks the entire plot…Read More »
