• Richard Linklater – Before Midnight (2013)

    Drama2011-2020Richard LinklaterRomanceUSA

    Quote:
    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 »

  • André De Toth – House of Wax (1953)

    USA1951-1960André De TothClassicsHorror

    An associate burns down a wax museum with the owner inside, but he survives only to become vengeful and murderous.Read More »

  • François Ozon – Frantz (2016)

    2011-2020DramaFranceFrançois OzonWar

    Quote:
    Screwball comedy master Ernst Lubitsch took a rare stab at straight drama with 1932’s “Broken Lullaby,” the tense story of a soldier who attempts to make amends with the family of a man he killed in World War I. Preeminent French director François Ozon also wanders into unconventional territory with “Frantz,” his astonishingly beautiful and inquisitive remake of Lubitsch’s film, using it as a springboard for a profound look at alienation and grief.Read More »

  • Bertrand Tavernier – La passion Béatrice AKA The Passion of Beatrice (1987)

    1981-1990Bertrand TavernierDramaFrance

    Quote:
    Somewhere in France during the Middle Ages. Béatrice is impatient to see her father return from English captivity. She doesn’t expect however that the father whom she loves from distance will be the most hateful person who will submit her and her family to abuse and humiliation.Read More »

  • Júlia Murat – Histórias que Só Existem Quando Lembradas AKA Found Memories (2011)

    2011-2020ArthouseBrazilDramaJúlia Murat

    In a cloistered village in the country, time seems to have stopped. When a photographer named Rita arrives from outside, the initially reticent townsfolk open up to her. Only the village priest continues to find Rita’s presence worrisome, especially when she begins asking about the locked cemetery.Read More »

  • Daniel Díaz Torres – Alice in Wondertown AKA Alicia en el pueblo de Maravillas (1991)

    1991-2000ComedyCubaDaniel Díaz TorresPolitics

    Inspired by Lewis Carroll’s classic tale, Daniel Díaz Torres’s ALICE IN WONDERTOWN is both an absurdist comedy and an allegory with a dark political undercurrent. Alice is a drama teacher who goes on a cultural mission to a small town where the most bizarre occurrences are commonplace. Mirrors become doors, circus animals walk the streets, and it seems anything can happen – and everyone except Alicia seems resigned to the situation. She discovers before long that the town’s population is made up of officials and workers who have been fired for violating rules, minor or illusionary, and now cannot find their way out of this strange town.One of the most controversial films in the history of Cuba, ALICE IN WONDERTOWN was banned by government authorities from Cuban theatres shortly after its release, threatening the independence that the Cuban film industry hitherto had enjoyed.Read More »

  • Steno – I tartassati AKA Fripouillard et Cie AKA The Overtaxed (1959)

    1951-1960ClassicsComedyFranceSteno

    Since the IRS has ordered new taxes, all traders in the village are tormented. Only Torquato Pezzella, a wealthy merchant of rain does not give in to despair general. To escape the contributions it has offered a tax advisor, the very respectable Curto Hector, who is in reality an ignorant on the subject. Still, Pezzella that has so far managed to avoid the taxes through the valuable advice of his new partner. Until one day an inspector of the brigade versatile, the formidable Topponi Fabio decides to check himself the accounting of this individual who is enriched by eye and does not report to the state. The note is difficult to digest; home Pezzella owes more than fifteen million in contributions. However, an unexpected event will upset all the data …Read More »

  • Dan Curtis – House of Dark Shadows (1970)

    1961-1970Dan CurtisHorrorThrillerUSA

    Young David Collins has gone missing from his home on the Collinwood Estate. While others try to find him – he in reality playing a prank in just hiding – incidents occur not only on the estate but in town, where some have been victimized by some unknown creature who has left a pair of puncture wounds in their neck. Those that have not survived have literally been drained of their blood by the creature. Following the start of these incidents, a long lost relative of the Collins from England, Barnabas Collins, arrives at the estate, the rest of the family knowing he being who he says he is by the uncanny resemblance to his namesake, who lived approximately one century ago and whose portrait hangs in the main house.Read More »

  • Anne Fontaine – Nettoyage à sec AKA Dry Cleaning (1997)

    1991-2000Anne FontaineComedyDramaFrance

    From Stephen Holden review: “La Nuit des Temps, a mildly racy nightclub in the center of the sleepy French town of Belfort, is the equivalent of Pandora’s box in Anne Fontaine’s haunting erotic fable “Dry Cleaning.” Here is where Jean-Marie Kunstler (Charles Berling) and his wife, Nicole (Miou-Miou), a proper, buttoned-up French couple who have been married for 15 years, find themselves one evening watching a slithery gold-lamé-clad brother-sister drag act called the Queens of the Night lip-synch to Sylvie Vartan records.Read More »

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