• Mike Hodges – Black Rainbow (1989)

    1981-1990HorrorMike HodgesThrillerUnited Kingdom

    Quote:
    Mike Hodges (Flash Gordon, Get Carter) wrote and directed this supernatural chiller as a meditation on the human race s ability to destroy the world, a gothic tale of suspense and the occult, guaranteed to send shivers down your spine. Martha Travis (Rosanna Arquette, Pulp Fiction, Crash) is a travelling clairvoyant on the road with her sceptic father (Jason Robards, Once Upon a Time in the West, Magnolia). During a séance Martha communicates a message from a dead man to his wife in the audience. Shocked the wife insists her husband is still alive. Later that evening the husband is killed by a ruthless assassin. As Martha foresees more and more tragic events journalist Gary Wallace (Tom Hulce, Amadeus, Animal House) follows the pair in pursuit of a hot story with catastrophically eerie results. Sent direct-to-video by its struggling distributor on initial release, Black Rainbow unfairly never got the exposure it deserved, newly restored from the original negative audiences can now discover the darkness at the end of the rainbow, as never before.Read More »

  • Harmon Jones – Bullwhip (1958)

    1951-1960AdventureHarmon JonesUSAWestern

    Steve Daley is in the Abilene jail waiting to be hanged when Judge Carr brings Cheyenne O’Malley into his cell and says that Daley can go free if he marries the girl without knowing her name. She must have a husband to claim an estate. Daley agrees and gets a letter of pardon from the Judge, who plans to kill him, but Daley, with the help of his friend Podo escapes the jail and the Judge’s hired killer, “Slow” Karp. Daley sets out to find his new bride but is captured and taken to the mansion of John Parnell who tells Daley that Cheyenne is actually a half-breed who runs a fur-trading company and needed a husband because of provisions in her father’s will. Parnell is also a fur-trader but he wants Daley to take over Cheyenne’s business so he and Daley can work together. Daley agrees, trails the wagon train and takes over but not before Cheyenne bull-whips him…Read More »

  • Grzegorz Warchol – Lubie nietoperze AKA I Like Bats (1986)

    Comedy1981-1990Grzegorz WarcholHorrorPoland

    Izabella, a young beautiful woman, works at her aunt’s shop in a small town in Poland. She uses her hands to create unique small objects for the shop, but in the nights she has the strange habit to feed bats. She also gives the shape of a bat to many of her handmade objects. Police are after a sex maniac killer who rapes and kills women in the woods. Marceli, a man who loves Izabella, tries to protect her telling her that he could walk with her on her way home but she rudely refuses. She doesn’t like him at all. Her aunt tries hard to change her mind but Izabella believes she can protect herself alone. The serial killer attacks her and when he asks for a kiss she’ll give him the kiss of death with pleasure…Because she’s actually a vampire woman!Read More »

  • Ted V. Mikels – The Doll Squad [+commentary] (1973)

    1971-1980ActionExploitationTed V. MikelsUSA

    An elite army of female assassins…in a race against time and death to save the world from a hideously diabolical mass destruction at the hands of a madman no one had ever seen! The alternative title makes this B-movie offering from drive-in stalwart Mikels sound a lot more interesting than it is, especially when you consider that the cast includes Tura Satana, the stripper star of Russ Meyers Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! But she is wasted as a member of Yorks team of women agents. Though they are as gobsmackingly naive as Charlies similarly styled Angels, they try to save the world from an impotent villain played by Ansara, Cochise in 50s TV show Broken Arrow. Unfortunately, it is desperately lacking any of the verve Meyer typically injected into his product, though it does boast a surprisingly likeable, laidback score from Nicholas Carras.Read More »

  • Michael Campus – Z.P.G. AKA Zero Population Growth [+ Commentary] (1972)

    1971-1980CultMichael CampusSci-FiUSA

    In the not too distant future, a very smoggy and overpopulated Earth government makes it illegal to have children for a generation. One couple, unsatisfied with their substitute robot baby, breaks the rules and gets in a lot of trouble.Read More »

  • Nicholas Meyer – The Day After (1983)

    Drama1981-1990Nicholas MeyerSci-FiUSA

    ”The Day After,” ABC’s much-discussed vision of nuclear Armageddon, is no longer only a television film, of course; it has become an event, a rally and a controversy, much of it orchestrated. Part of the controversy has to do with whether ”The Day After” makes a political statement, which it does, although the statement is muddy, and part of the controversy has to do with how we confront the nuclear abyss. Champions of the film say it forces us to think intelligently about the arms race; detractors say it preaches appeasement. In fact, both sides have something going for them in their arguments, even if the champions of the film, for the moment, are being heard more clearly than the detractors. ”The Day After” will be seen on ABC at 8 o’clock tonight.Read More »

  • Elene Naveriani – Me Mzis Skivi Var Dedamicaze AKA I Am Truly a Drop of Sun on Earth (2017)

    Drama2011-2020Elene NaverianiGeorgiaRomance

    Original title: მე მზის წვეთი ვარ დედამიწაზე (Me Mzis Skivi Var Dedamicaze)

    Quote:
    Tbilisi, Georgia, nowadays. April aged 34, just spent a night in jail for prostitution. She is now resuming her work in the run down night life hub in the underground of a luxury hotel. There she meets Dije, a young Nigerian immigrant. He entrusts her his journey to Tbilisi. Originally, believing he was headed for Georgia, USA, he finds himself trapped in an extreme alienation in a country offering no perspective. An odd love emerges between these two human beings while they try to survive together on the margins of society.Read More »

  • Jean-Claude Guiguet – Faubourg St Martin (1986)

    1981-1990ArthouseDramaFranceJean-Claude Guiguet

    Synopsis:
    Imagine a slightly dilapidated three star hotel in the tenth arrondissement run by a very distinguished lady with moral fibre and panache, Mrs. Coppercage. Alongside tourists visiting Paris, Mrs. Coppercage rents three rooms to three women at a monthly rate. Each woman is marked by life, yet they go on as best they can, never closing their eyes to the world around them, or to the men who impatiently await them. Faubourg Saint Martin opens as a love story and ends like a song as shots ring out and punctuate the chorus.Read More »

  • Joyce Chopra – Smooth Talk [+Extras] (1985)

    1981-1990DramaJoyce ChopraRomanceUSA

    Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival 1986

    Fifteen-year-old Connie Wyatt (Laura Dern) may be too young to drive, but she’s already driving the boys crazy. Her suspicious mother (Mary Kay Place) wants to keep her safely at home, but free-spirited Connie would rather while away the languid summer days hanging out with her friends and flirting with boys at the local burger stand. But when she flirts with an older, handsome and predatory stranger (Treat Williams), she isn’t prepared for the frightening and traumatic consequences.Read More »

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