• Mark Rappaport – L’année dernière à Dachau (2020)

    2011-2020DocumentaryExperimentalMark RappaportUSA

    Quote:
    Near Munich, in Bavaria, Germany, is the Schleißheim Palace, where French filmmaker Alain Resnais shot his film Last Year at Marienbad in 1960. Nearby is the Dachau concentration camp, where thousands of people were killed between 1933 and 1945. An essay about the present and the past, beauty and horror, life and death.Read More »

  • Alan Bleasdale & Philip Saville – Boys from the Blackstuff (1982)

    1981-1990Alan BleasdaleDramaPhilip SavilleTVUnited Kingdom

    Alan Bleasdale’s five-part series spin-off of the 1980 TV play The Black Stuff relates the further experiences of unemployed Liverpudlian tarmac layers Dixie, Chrissie, Loggo and Yosser, and their revered older friend, retired longshoreman and union leader, George Malone. As they struggle to make ends meet in a depressed economy, and to hold together their financially battered families, they are harassed by the petty bureaucrats of the DHSS. But the lumbering investigational juggernaut is, both comically and tragically, guided by drivers with only a provisional license.Read More »

  • John English – Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc. (1941)

    1941-1950ActionCrimeJohn EnglishUSA

    Quote:
    Reviewing the serial it is still one of Republic’s best efforts, made at the peak of their creativity. Jim Harmon and Donald Glut have referred to “Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc.” as “The Best of Dick Tracy” since a lot of the action and cliffhanger footage is made up from the three previous serials. In essence, Republic took what they considered the most exciting scenes from earlier serials, and strung them together with a strong storyline. Unlike most of the post war serials that were constructed out of earlier serials, this one is not hampered by all of the reused footage.Read More »

  • Krisztina Goda – Kaméleon AKA Chameleon (2008)

    2001-2010DramaHungaryKrisztina GodaThriller

    While cleaning offices at night, George learns a lot about the employees by examining what they leave behind, carefully choosing his targets, always disillusioned women whom he seduces, methodically taking their money. An artist of manipulation, with a generous dose of humor and the ability to assume different personalities, George begins to work in a psychologist’s practice, where he learns of Hanna, a 30 year-old dancer who was hurt in a car accident and the daughter of a millionaire. The ideal victim if love doesn’t get in the way.Read More »

  • Michel Deville – Péril en la demeure AKA Death in a French Garden (1985)

    1981-1990CrimeDramaFranceMichel Deville

    Quote:
    A magnate and his younger wife hire David to teach guitar to their teenage daughter. The wife quickly seduces David, and simultaneously he strikes up an acquaintance with the family’s inquisitive neighbor. One night, David is mugged but rescued from injury by a stranger, Daniel, who also becomes David’s friend and admits to being a hit man. Video tapes of their activities appear in the lovers’ mail; David thinks they’re from the neighbor, Daniel is sure the husband is onto the affair and hired the mugger. After Daniel tells David that he’s been hired to kill the husband, an elaborate manipulation plays out, with murder, suicide, a payoff, more videos, and a surprise pairing.Read More »

  • Laurent Heynemann – Les Mois d’Avril Sont Meurtriers aka April Is A Deadly Month (1987)

    1961-1970CrimeCultFranceLaurent Heynemann

    summary & review from filmsdefrance.com :
    “Fred is a police inspector charged with investigating the murder of an informer, whose dismembered remains were found in rubbish bags. After the recent tragic death of his daughter, Fred allows his work to absorb him and he becomes obsessed with bringing his prime suspect to book… “

    “This dark thriller is more than anything a study in the destructive power of guilt and solitude. The two main characters, the police inspector, Fred, and Gravier, the suspect he constantly hassles, are trapped in their own introspective worlds, isolated and corrupted by their contempt for an outside world they have lost faith in. This intense character study is the film’s focus throughout, and their interaction is played out with the subtlety and uncertainty of a chess game.Read More »

  • Jazmín López – Si yo fuera el invierno mismo AKA If I Were the Winter Itself (2019)

    2011-2020ArgentinaDramaJazmín López

    Four friends meet on a remote estate to create a cinematic re-enactment of three iconic works that embodied the social and artistic revolution of 50 years ago: LA CHINOISE (1967) by Jean-Luc Godard, INEXTINGUISHABLE FIRE (1969) by Harun Farocki and the performance UNTITLED (FACIAL HAIR TRANSPLANTS) (1972) by Ana Mendieta.

    A mysterious and soulful exploration of the complexity of mourning and letting go of a love that is lost.Read More »

  • Gaspar Noé – Carne (1991)

    1991-2000ArthouseDramaFranceGaspar Noé

    After a dreadful incident coupled with an ungovernable paroxysm of violence, a butcher will fall into a downward spiral that will burn to the ground whatever dignity still remained in him.Read More »

  • Edgar Reitz – Heimat-Fragmente: Die Frauen (2006)

    Drama2001-2010ArthouseEdgar ReitzGermany

    Quote:
    “There is a time for sewing up and a time for tearing apart. That’s an old proverb of my mother’s”. The wise little saying is nothing less than a piece of “Heimat”. Or not really, since the words of a young woman from the Hunsrück, working as a tour guide in Munich even though she can’t tell the Frauenkirche from the Stadtmuseum, fell victim to the scissors. For Edgar Reitz the time for sewing together has begun again. Eight hours left over from the Heimats have turned up again, the montage film “Heimat –Fragmente” arising from them lasts 146 minutes and had its premiere last weekend at the Venice Biennale. The more work you turn on the lathe, the more shavings you get, and it’s not surprising that they are of good wood. Read More »

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