Synopsis:
When Miami, Florida became national headquarters for a ten billion dollar crime syndicate ruled by crime-czar Tomy Brill (Luther Adler), whose chief henchman is Ted Delacorte (John Baer), a citizen’s committee enlists the aid of a reformed gangster Mick Flakk (Barry Sullivan), a widower with a ten-year-old son, pretends to move in on Brill’s rackets. Brill’s henchmen beat up a woman,Holly Abbott (Beverly Garland), whom Flagg has befriended to get the dope on Flagg’s plans, he orders the police to raid the syndicate’s gambling-club. Brill counters by having Flagg’s son, Gil Flagg (David Kasday), kidnapped.Read More »

H.M.S. Avenger is headed into battle against the French fleet during the Napoleonic Wars, and the dark shadow of two recent mutinies in the English fleet concern Captain Vere. He relies on his cruel and often sadistic Master-at-Arms John Claggert to maintain what he believes to be tenuous order and discipline aboard the ship. When a new seaman, Billy Budd, is pressed into service from a passing merchantman, his innocent, happy-go-lucky attitude quickly endears him to both his messmates as well as the ship’s officers. However, his charismatic naivete seems to bother Claggert, whose perverse depravity makes him resent Billy’s good-natured purity, especially after the teenager’s promotion to fore-top captain. The mean-spirited Claggert unfairly plots to put him on report and ultimately perjures himself when he accuses Billy of conspiring to mutiny.Read More »

Exit Elena Flickers With Ordinary Madness
“The comedies of John Cassavetes cut deeper,” Thom Andersen explains in Los Angeles Plays Itself, “because he had an eye and an ear for ordinary madness—those flickers of lunacy that can separate us from our fellows.” Nathan Silver’s Exit Elena adopts many working methods typical of a Cassavetes production—shot almost entirely in Silver’s family home, the film stars his girlfriend (Kia Davis, who is superb), his mother (Cindy Silver), and himself—but its affinity with a film like Love Streams, its closest likeness,runs deeper than their shared independent sensibility.Read More »

Jed Potter looks back on a love triangle conducted over the course of years and between musical numbers. Dancer Jed loves showgirl Mary, who loves compulsive nightclub-opener Johnny, who can’t stay committed to anything in life for very long.Read More »

“Marking a stylistically and philosophically turn away from the earlier features, The Sand Rose is Reis and Cordeiro’s most abstract, conceptual and literary work. The film’s collage structure gathers texts from multiple sources – including Kafka and Montaigne – and crafts a world of theatrical artifice far from the documentary inspired naturalism of Ana and Trás-os-Montes. Reis and Cordeiro’s least known film has lingered in obscurity and never recovered from the unfairly negative reviews that resulted in its severely limited release. Reis died less than two years later, just as he and Cordeiro were about to begin an ambitious adaptation of Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Parámo.” —Harvard Film ArchiveRead More »

Synopsis:
Young Prince Valiant, son of the exiled King of Scandia, journeys to Camelot to become a knight at King Arthur’s Round Table. He hopes to help his father reclaim his throne from the pagan Viking usurper Sligon and restore the Christian faith to their homeland. On his journey he stumbles upon a mysterious Black Knight plotting with Sligon’s representatives to overthrow Arthur. Barely escaping with his life, Valiant encounters Sir Gawain, one of the most illustrious knights of the Round Table, and an old friend of his father’s, who tutors the young Viking in the skills needed to be a knight. Valiant and Gawain’s pupil-mentor relationship is complicated by their romantic involvement with Princess Aleta and her sister Ilene, daughters of the King of Ord. If Valiant is to restore his father’s throne and prevent the coup d’etat against Arthur, he must uncover the true identity of the Black Knight.Read More »

German review by Spiegel Online wrote:
Der Autorenfilmstar Christian Petzold, der schon die ‘Kreise’-Episode geschrieben und gedreht hat, hat diesen ‘Polizeiruf’ als so kunst- wie lustvollen Assoziationsstrom in Szene gesetzt. […] Mit romantischem Grimm und grimmscher Romantik zielt […] Petzold aufs kollektive Unterbewusstsein der Zuschauer und arbeitet sich durch alle Facetten des Wolfs-Topos – inklusive einer Ermittlerin, die mit rotem Mantel, vernebeltem Blick und naivem Interesse doch sehr an eine der größten Heldinnen der Gebrüder Grimm erinnert. Dabei bewahrt sich Christian Petzold seinen von aller Gefühlsrhetorik befreiten Stil. In lakonischen Dialogen holt er Angstbilder hoch, die in uns allen schlummern.Read More »

Synopsis:
One day Kyoko watches television and sees a man turning himself in to the police after murdering a family. Something within Kyoko connects with the man, as she recognizes a similar soul. Despite the worries of the killer’s lawyer, she approaches the killer and the two start corresponding…Read More »

Synopsis:
The American missionary Megan Davis arrives in Shanghai during the Chinese Civil War to marry the missionary Dr. Robert Strife. However, Robert postpones their wedding to rescue some orphans in an orphanage in Chapei section that is burning in the middle of a battlefield. While returning to Shanghai with the children, they are separated in the crowd, Megan is hit in the head and knocked out, but is saved by General Yen and brought by train to his palace. As the days go by, the General’s mistress Mah-Li becomes close to Megan and when she is accused of betrayal for giving classified information to the enemies, Megan asks for her life.Read More »