The late filmmaker Leo Hurwitz created this documentary tribute to his deceased wife Peggy Lawson by mixing both actual footage of historical events, clips from his own films, and personal remembrances of her life. Lawson was a partner in Hurwitz’s cinematic endeavors and shared his commitment to political and social change. Hurwitz brings up images from the Great Depression, from the persecution of union organizers and laborers in the 1930s, through his blacklisting in the ’50s, and the demonstrations against the Vietnam War in the following decade. These years of turbulence are contrasted with scenes from nature, images of Lawson, and attempts to convey what she meant to him. These two aspects — private and public — are woven together to form the main theme of this very personal documentary, winner of an International Film Critics prize. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie GuideRead More »

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In 1987, Woody Allen was at the height of his fame and adulation: he had just made one of his most popular and acclaimed films, Hannah and Her Sisters, and his relationship with Mia Farrow was the stuff of very carefully crafted legend. Promoting his new film, September, he was profiled for 60 Minutes talking about his work, his life, Farrow, and the upcoming birth of their first child. Like all 60 Minutes profiles, this one lasted about 20 minutes on air.Read More »

Members of the American Federation of Labor, the Atlantic & Gulf Coast District of the Seafarers International Union commissioned budding filmmaker and magazine photographer Stanley Kubrick to direct this half-hour documentary. Originally released in October of 1953, this short was the director’s first film in color. More of an industrial film than a documentary, it basically served as a promotional tool to get sailors to join the union. Since then, it has been released on home video for curious fans of the director. In addition to directing, Kubrick was cinematographer and editor. Presumably, he took the job of making The Seafarers in order to finance his first feature film, Fear and Desire, which was released in the same year.Read More »

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Soderbergh has brought us SPALDING GRAY’S FINAL MONOLOGUE with the film, “And Everything Is Going Fine”. He compiles what is essentially a final autobiographical testament of Gray’s life using rare footage of his TV interviews, recordings of his theatrical monologues, and even some footage taken personally by Gray with his family members. A simple mash-up of such footage gives Gray the oppourtunity to bring us one final monologue- from the grave- speaking about himself, just as he loved to do…for our pleasure, and his sanity!!! He truly was the best monologist, one-man-show and storyteller to ever grace the stage. Read More »

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In post-war West Germany, the charming Von Bohm is appointed a city’s new Building Commissioner. His morality is tested when he unknowingly falls in love with a brothel worker, Lola, the paid mistress of a corrupt property developer.Read More »

As with Chytilová’s other work, the story of a young train driver was the result of compromises the director had won in defiance of Barrandov’s dramaturges. The studio had offered her the project as there was little interest in the material in view of the tough winter exterior shoot. The director rewrote Josef Šilhavý’s screenplay, turning a ‘consolidation’ story of university students finding a new meaning of life among railway workers into a bitterly amusing parable about contemporary Czechoslovakia. This meant the film’s production faced dangers not only from the unpredictable elements but also censorship and studio pressure.Read More »

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Jalsaghar opens to the shot of a large, ornate, candlelit chandelier, precariously swaying from the momentum of its cumbersome weight. It is a vestige of the fading grandeur of Huzur Biswambhar Roy’s (Chhabi Biswas) cherished jalsaghar – the elegant entertainment room where guests listen to the performance of traditional musicians amid eroded columns and peeling plaster. In early twentieth century India, it is also a symptom of Roy’s aristocratic obsolescence. Roy lounges on his empty rooftop terrace, overlooking his inherited property, now worthlessly reduced to marshland, staring idly into space, smoking his hookah pipe. Read More »

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The strains of Debussy’s “Afternoon of a Faun” waft through this amusing comedy about an aging lecher’s ever-optimistic pursuit of the fair sex, for fair sex, or better. The “faun” wakes up to a new day of happy hunting because the proof of the pudding is irrelevant, it is the joy of finding the ingredients that matters. Whether out on the streets or at his job in an office, he does not relent in his hopeful approaches to mainly young women, who mainly ignore him. No one is more aware of his skirt-chasing than an older companion in the same office who has loved him from the beginning. And the big question is, will the late-blooming Don Juan come to his senses?Read More »

Tunisia, summer 2011. The holiday to Southern country ends in disaster for Fares, Meriem and their 10-year old son Aziz when he is accidentally shot in an ambush. His injury will change their lives as Aziz needs a liver transplant, which leads to the discovery of a long-buried secret. Will Aziz and their relationship survive?Read More »