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Set during the turbulent post-war years, Fukasaku’s original 1975 film charts the rise and fall of real-life gangster Rikio Ishikawa (Tetsuya Watari, Outlaw Gangster VIP). Shot through with the same stark realism and quasi-documentarian approach as Fukasaku’s earlier Battles Without Honor and Humanity, Fukasaku nonetheless breaks new ground through his portrayal of a gangster utterly without honor or ethics, surviving by any means necessary in a world of brutal criminality.Read More »
Synopsis
Snow covered mountains in Japan. Every night, a fisherman makes his way to the market in town. His 6 year old son is awoken by his departure and finds it impossible to fall back to sleep. In the sleeping household, the young boy draws a picture he then slips into his satchel. On his way to school, still drowsy, he strays off the path and wanders into the snow…Read More »
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Two ordinary inner-city kids dare to dream the impossible – professional basketball glory – in this epic chronicle of hope and faith. Filmed over a five-year period, Hoop Dreams follows young Arthur Agee and William Gates as they navigate the complex, competitive world of scholastic athletics while striving to overcome the intense pressures of family life and the realities of their Chicago streets. The Criterion Collection is proud to present this landmark documentary chronicling two remarkable families who challenge the American dream.Read More »
Tony Curtis will amaze and astound you with one of his best performances as Harry Houdini, “the man of 10,000 tricks.” Houdini has nothing up its sleeve, but the charismatic Curtis and Janet Leigh (“Hollywood’s Most Exciting Young Lovers,” proclaims the film’s original trailer, the sole bonus feature on this disc), as Houdini’s wife, Bess, levitate this conventional, albeit enormously entertaining 1953 biopic that follows the legendary magician and escape artist from his days as a sideshow attraction to international stardom.Read More »
António Variações was a unique man. He was born in a small village in Amares, in the north of Portugal. At an early age, unhappy with his life working at a local factory, he came to Lisbon to stay with some relatives. But he was different and he wanted more. He wanted to travel and see the world and he emigrated, starting to work as a barber. But his love for music and performance was so strong that he came back so he could sing in his own language, even if with his looks and outfits he was a victim of prejudice. And even without knowing anything about music he fought for his right to do it the way he believed it was best.Read More »
Working in defiance of a lifelong ban on filmmaking, dissident director Mohammad Rasoulof delivers a piercing drama about a subject he knows well: the costs of living under a repressive, brutal government. Winner of the Golden Bear, the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival, There Is No Evil is a film of four chapters; each tells a different story related to the death penalty in contemporary Iran.Read More »
Shot on the otherworldly beaches of Morocco in silvery black-and-white 16mm Scope, Ben Rivers’ A Distant Episode (named for the Paul Bowles short story inventively adapted in Rivers’ feature The Sky Trembles…, also screening in Wavelengths) transforms behind-the-scenes footage into a dreamy film fragment depicting sci-fi incursions into a mythic landscape.Read More »
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American director Richard Linklater returns to the tale of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) that he began seventeen years ago in Before Sunrise (1995) with 2013’s Before Midnight. Set nine years after the events of Before Sunset (2004), this is an eloquently scripted dissection of a now middle-aged couple’s relationship. Reflective in tone, we open to Jesse reluctantly sending his son back to the States, before heading off to an idyllic Greek villa he and his wife have been staying in. The glowing couple appear happy, with Jesse writing yet another novel, Céline starting a new job in Paris and twin gold-ringleted daughters of their own.Read More »
An associate burns down a wax museum with the owner inside, but he survives only to become vengeful and murderous.Read More »