• Ingmar Bergman – Efter repetitionen AKA After the Rehearsal (1984)

    1981-1990ArthouseDramaIngmar BergmanSweden

    Quote:
    With this spare chamber piece, set in an empty theater, Ingmar Bergman returned to his perennial theme of the permeability of life and art. Lingering after a rehearsal for August Strindberg’s A Dream Play (a touchstone for the filmmaker throughout his career), eminent director Henrik (Erland Josephson) enters into a frank and flirtatious conversation with his up-and-coming star, Anna (Lena Olin), leading him to recall his affair with Anna’s late mother, the self-destructive actress Rakel (Ingrid Thulin). The sharply written and impeccably performed After the Rehearsal, originally made for television, pares away all artifice to examine both the allure and the cost of a life in the theater.Read More »

  • Ray McCarey – The Falcon’s Alibi (1946)

    1941-1950CrimeMysteryRay McCareyUSA

    Plot:
    A wealthy woman’s secretary, fearing that she will be blamed if her employer’s jewelry is stolen, hires the Falcon as guardian.

    The Falcon is blamed when the jewels are stolen and murders ensue.Read More »

  • Paul Guilfoyle – A Life at Stake (1954)

    Drama1951-1960Film NoirPaul GuilfoyleUSA

    An out-of-work architect meets a married woman who has a business proposition for him. The architect begins to suspect the woman’s interest in him is not just financial and may actually be deadly.Read More »

  • Alain Guiraudie – Ce vieux rêve qui bouge aka Real cool time (2001)

    2001-2010Alain GuiraudieFrancePoliticsQueer Cinema(s)Romance

    “Ce vieux rêve qui bouge est sans doute le meilleur film du festival de Cannes”, (Jean-Luc Godard, mai 2001)

    From Time Out Film Guide
    A young guy turns up at a rundown factory to dismantle some kind of machine before the place closes in a week. In the process, he gets to talk to the understandably morose staff about how they plan to face the future. About work, economics, class, sex, money, happiness and a whole lot more, this unassuming, sometimes funny and always surprising film has been hailed by Godard – perhaps the most sensible thing he’s done in years. It’s near perfect, without an ounce of narrative fat or stylistic gristle, and utterly relevant.Read More »

  • Alain Guiraudie – Du soleil pour les gueux AKA Sunshine for the Scoundrels (2001)

    2001-2010Alain GuiraudieArthouseFranceQueer Cinema(s)

    The earlier of Guiraudie’s two medium-length films looks forward to both No Rest for the Brave and The King of Escape with its tale of a young woman who falls in love with a gay shepherd. During their wanderings, they cross paths with a bandit – played by the director himself – as well as the bounty hunter who’s pursuing him. Sunshine for the Scoundrels announces Guiraudie’s fascination with loners and oddballs, his extravagant imagination and his affection for the rough landscape of France’s Massif Central, whose ruggedness gives the film the flavor of an eccentric Western.Read More »

  • Norbert Carbonnaux – Le temps des oeufs durs (1958)

    1951-1960ComedyFranceNorbert Carbonnaux

    Summary
    Garage attendant Louis Stainval is a shy daydreamer with no money. One day, he wins a large sum of money via the national lottery and decides to spice up his life. He prevents a failed artist named Raoul Grandvivier from killing himself and takes him home. Here, Louis meets Raoul’s beautiful daughter Lucie and immediately falls in love. So that he can go on seeing Lucie, Louis pays frequent calls on Raoul, ostensibly to buy his paintings. The paintings are so bad that Louis just throws them into the river Seine. Because he has found someone to buy his work, Raoul begins to believe that he is a serious painter. This misunderstanding will cause a great deal of trouble…Read More »

  • Frank Wisbar – Anna und Elisabeth (1933)

    1931-1940DramaFrank WisbarGermanyThird Reich Cinema

    IMDB says:
    Anna a young girl is thought of having the ability to heal people mysteriously. Elisabeth a middle aged aristocratic woman, is disabled and puts all her hopes in meeting Anna and having her disability heal by her.Read More »

  • Peter Tscherkassky – The Exquisite Corpus (2015)

    2011-2020AustriaExperimentalPeter TscherkasskyShort Film

    Synopsis:
    The Exquisite Corpus is based on various erotic films and advertising rushes. I play on the “cadavre exquis” technique used by the Surrealists, drawing disparate body parts constellating magical creatures. Myriad fragments are melted into a single sensuous, humorous, gruesome, and ecstatic dream.Read More »

  • Jean Yarbrough – Abbott & Costello: The Naughty Nineties (1945)

    1941-1950AdventureComedyJean YarbroughUSA

    Abbott and Costello’s The Naughty Nineties offers a million laughs and a nickel’s worth of plot. Most of the film takes place aboard a 19th century showboat, owned by kindly Captain Sam (Henry Travers). Bud Abbott plays the showboat’s leading man Dexter Broadhurst, while Lou Costello is handyman Sebastian Dinwiddie. A group of slick gamblers (Alan Curtis, Rita Johnson and Joe Sawyer) cheat Captain Sam out of his boat, turning the place into a floating gambling palace, but Dexter and Sebastian foil the villains and save the day. The film is a virtual encyclopedia of wheezy but still hilarious comedy routines, many of them devised by veteran Laurel & Hardy and Three Stooges gagman Felix Adler. The film’s highlight is a full-length performance of Abbott and Costello’s verbal classic “Who’s on First?”-and if one listens very closely, one can hear the cameramen and crew members laughing!
    — Hal Erickson (AllMovie)Read More »

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