In post-industrial Ohio, a Chinese billionaire opens a new factory in the husk of an abandoned General Motors plant, hiring two thousand blue-collar Americans. Early days of hope and optimism give way to setbacks as high-tech China clashes with working-class America.Read More »
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Directed by the Japanese king of kooky-cool, SABU, Hold Up Down has it all: bank robbers dressed in skin-tight Santa suits, the subway busker that looks like he is straight out of Woodstock, the suicidal church minister-turned-truck driver, a couple of twisted policemen – oh, and a key to a whole lotta cash.
SABU exploded on the Japanese film scene in 1986, first as an actor and later, taking a more firm role behind the camera as both director and scriptwriter with the acclaimed Dangan Runner in 1995. Hold Up Down is SABU’s second collaboration with all-male J-pop group V6 (they first starred in his previous Hard Luck Hero), which serves as a gentle reminder that, in Asia, pop stars who also act can find their CD sales actually increase (as opposed to the norm in this part of the world which seems to have the opposite effect)..Read More »
synopsis:
Kenichi Asakura is an uptight, hyper-square salesman. One day, three bank robbers
commandeer his van. They are in hot pursuit of their fellow robber who has snatched the
money. Unfortunately for the bank robbers, Asakura never drives over 40 km/h speed limit
even under the extreme situation.Read More »
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Aleksander Sokurov brings the treasures of the Hermitage back into the light by making films about artists and their paintings. He has chosen the painter Hubert Robert, who spent a long time in Italy, and whose preference was for creating ancient ruined landscapes and naturalistic portrayals of times past. He was successful with the wealthy, who bought his works from him. The camera pans across the paintings while Sokurov speaks of a happy era, when the artist was at one with the spirit of the times, and agreed with the taste of his clients. Just how far removed from us this is, is shown by pictures of a “Nô” performance which are inter-cut on the screen. No words are necessary to describe what everybody knows todayRead More »
THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; ‘ The Gay Sisters,’ Featuring Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Geraldine Fitzgerald and Donald Crisp, at Strand
T. S.
Published: August 15, 1942
The New York Times
What a long, gray and pretentious film “The Gay Sisters” is! Another pointlessly caustic inquiry into the lives of the eccentric off-spring of a once grand family, the new film at the Strand not once offers the slightest reason to warrant the telling of its involved and trivial story. Read More »
Synopsis:
The Ushant archipelago is a group of small islands situated off the coast of Brittany at the northwest extremity of France. Each year, four fishermen from the most populated island Ushant set up camp for three months on the uninhabited islet of Bannec to gather and process seaweed, producing a valuable soda-rich resource for factories along the coast. JeanMarie and Ambroise, the two youngest members of the four, fall out when the latter drops his friend’s last bottle of wine. Ambroise finds himself ostracised when Jean-Marie accuses him of stealing his pocket knife and then develops a fever when infection sets in on a hand wound. Read More »
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Between 1958 and 1960 Walter Hess and Manny Kirchheimer shot black and white 16mm film from Wall Street to midtown New York to the Delaware River. They documented the activities at a huge construction site, street life in Hell’s Kitchen, New York harbor traffic, and rare glimpses of nature. Then the footage was left unedited. In 2017 Kirchheimer (DISCOVERY IN A PAINTING, TALL: THE AMERICAN SKYSCRAPER AND LOUIS SULLIVAN, STATIONS OF THE ELEVATED) took up the challenge of editing it. Once the picture was set he searched for music and sound effects that would mesh with the surrealism of the material. The result is a dynamic and compact symphony of a city.Read More »
Synopsis
The soundtrack to a radio soap opera set in a luxury hotel is acted out by characters who are riding a ramshackle bus from Bangkok to a small town in Thailand’s Northeast. When the bus stops, the drama in the characters’ real lives can be seen. In different cirumstances, it’s not hard to imagine the characters – a young small-town girl (glamorous model), an older woman (hi-so boutique owner), an illegal Burmese immigrant (hotel waitress), half-Thai backpacker (handsome hotel owner), soldier (ladyboy hostess) and dodgy businessman (dodgy businessman) – assuming the lives of their larger-than-life soap opera alter egosRead More »
While on his daily route as the driver of the local school bus, Michio Nishiumi sees his own infant son kidnapped from the vehicle by a masked assailant with a gun. A ransom is demanded, but the boy dies. Michio wants and needs his revenge.Read More »