• Lina Wertmüller – Un complicato intrigo di donne, vicoli e delitti AKA Camorra (A Story of Streets, Women and Crime) (1985)

    1981-1990CrimeDramaItalyLina Wertmüller

    Quote:
    The vicious drug-related killings of young pre-teen boys are the fuel that moves this mystery-actioner into high gear.
    After Annunziata (Angela Molina) opens up a hostel with her friend Antonio (Daniel Ezralow), she is saved from being raped by a Camorra boss because the gangster gets suddenly killed. The killer escapes before Annunziata is able to see who it was. Following this murder are several others, and always with the same “signature” — a syringe in one of the testicles of the victims. Everyone suspects a drug war is on because the slain men are cocaine-heroin pushers. In a subplot, Annunziata’s young son is forced to run drugs (underage children cannot be prosecuted), making him the next candidate for murder. As the drug dealers continue to be killed off, the identity of the killer – or killers – slowly becomes obvious.Read More »

  • Julie Taymor – The Tempest (2010)

    2001-2010ClassicsDramaJulie TaymorUSAWilliam Shakespeare

    Adaptation of Shakespeare’s play. Prospera, the female form of the male role in the original story, is banished from Milan by her brother. She finds herself stranded on an island with her four-year-old daughter and the beast Caliban. After 12 years of isolation, she gets the chance to take her revenge on her sibling, by causing a storm that wrecks his ship and strands those on board. Show lessRead More »

  • Maya Deren – Witch’s Cradle (1944) (HD)

    1941-1950ExperimentalMaya DerenShort FilmUSA

    Quote:
    “In 1944 Maya made a film at the Peggy Guggenheim Art of this Century Gallery with Marcel Duchamp called Witches Cradle. Deren used the camera, as she envisioned medieval witches and magicians did, to ‘defy’ time and space through the disappearance and reappearance of objects. Based on an article written by the Frenchman Charles Duits, colleague of Andre Breton and an extra in Ritual in Transfigured Time, Deren compared these medieval witches and magicians to the surrealists, and had a brief association with the movement. She resisted the label attached to her work and defended her position in scholarship and on tour for lecture/demonstrations.” (algonet.se)Read More »

  • Tetsuji Takechi – Ukiyoe zankoku monogatari aka Ukiyo-e Cruel Story (1968)

    1961-1970EroticaJapanTetsuji Takechi

    Quote:
    Sayo has just celebrated her sixteenth birthday when she attends a temple festival. On her way back she sees a large cherry tree which is infamous for the legend of dead white horse. When her fiancé returns from war and visits her he comes across a white horse which he takes in.Read More »

  • Leslie Fenton – Streets of Laredo (1949)

    1941-1950Leslie FentonUSAWestern

    Quote:
    Streets of Laredo is a streamlined and Technicolorful remake of Paramount’s 1936 box-office champ The Texas Rangers. William Holden, William Bendix and MacDonald Carey star as roguish outlaws Jim Dawkins, Wahoo Jones and Lorn Remming. After rescuing a little girl named Rannie Carter from a wicked tax collector, Dawkins and Jones decide to switch to the right side of the law; Remming, however, has other ideas. Years later, Rennie has grown up quite prettily into Mona Freeman, while Jim and Wahoo have become scrupulous members of the newly-formed Texas Rangers. Jim is in love with Rennie, but she has eyes for the still-crooked Lorn — at least until Lorn proves to be the louse that the audience knew he was from the first reel.Read More »

  • Charles Matton – La pomme ou L’histoire d’une histoire AKA Apple or the Story of a Story (1965)

    1961-1970AnimationArthouseCharles MattonFrance

    A family’s life is transformed into an object of art.Read More »

  • Robert Siodmak – Pièges AKA Personal Column (1939)

    1931-1940FranceMusicalRobert SiodmakThriller

    When 11 young Parisian women mysteriously disappear, the police recruit Adrienne Charpentier, the friend of the latest victim, to investigate. The only thing which seems to link the disappearances is that each of the victims replied to a small ad in the newspapers. In answering a number of ads herself, Adrienne meets some suspicious individuals, but they all turn out to be innocent. Then she meets a cabaret performer, Robert Fleury, who instantly falls in love with her. Soon after marrying Fleury, she discovers damning evidence that inculpates him as the murderer of the missing women…Read More »

  • Maya Deren – Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946)

    1941-1950ExperimentalMaya DerenShort FilmUSA

    Quote:
    Ritual in Transfigured Time is like a dream, meaning that the various sequences don’t seem to have any connection to each other unless you try to approach this film in a different way and not as a conventional hollywood movie.

    The main character in the film is Rita Christiani who after a strange scene with Maya Deren herself who disappears startling Rita, appears in this ball with ladies and gentlemen dancing. This film has one of the most beautiful scenes in a Maya Deren’s film when Rita Christiani while she’s dancing she appears to float in the air.Read More »

  • Fumio Kamei – Ikiteite yokatta AKA It Is Good to Live (1956)

    Amos Vogel: Film as a Subversive ArtDocumentaryFumio KameiJapanShort Film

    From Amos Vogel’s Film as a Subversive Art:
    This is one of the first documentary films about the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It coldly records the lingering effects of the bomb on the victims decades later. In a succession of realistic, shocking sequences, their lives, difficulties, and camaraderie are examined. The very objectivity of incidents, scenes, and faces makes the film the more terrifying.Read More »

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