• João César Monteiro – O Utimo Mergulho AKA The Last Dive (1992)

    1991-2000ArthouseJoão César MonteiroPortugal

    Quote:
    What young Samuel (Dinis Neto Jorge) was doing at that time of night on the deserted quay, nobody will ever know for sure. In fact, when Mr. Eloi (Henrique Canto e Castro), an old retired sailor, approached him, he was staring at the waters of the Tagus. Tired as he was of his days, Mr. Eloi could not have thought any other way: Samuel was there to put an end to his life. And when Samuel, symbolically or not, invites him to share his last dive, Eloi, as a last resort, stops him from throwing himself in the river and, saying that Heaven can wait, takes him on a tour of the city. So the two characters go off for two long nights of roving during the Saint Anthony festivities.Read More »

  • Hideyuki Hirayama – Warau kaeru AKA The Laughing Frog (2002)

    2001-2010ComedyHideyuki HirayamaJapan

    Synopsis
    A woman has a fine life with rewarding work, a nice house, and a serious boyfriend in the lowlands of Japan. In walks her long lost husband who years ago disappeared and abandoned her. The wife allows her lost husband to secretly live in her house. More specifically, he lives in the wife’s closet. The closet has a peep hole, so he does nothing day and night but watch his wife live her life.Read More »

  • Vincente Minnelli & Busby Berkeley – Cabin in the Sky (1943)

    1941-1950Busby BerkeleyFantasyMusicalUSAVincente Minnelli

    Synopsis:
    Chronic gambler and carouser “Little” Joe Jackson is shot by Domino Johnson at Jim Henry’s gambling club over an outstanding gambling debt. Little Joe’s wife, the God-fearing Petunia Jackson, prays not only for her husband’s mortal life, but also his eternal soul as she’s afraid that if he dies now, he, despite not being an evil man, won’t make it into heaven. As Little Joe is close to death, he is visited by agents of both the Lord and of Lucifer. They make a deal with him: they will give him six months to atone for the errors of his human life.Read More »

  • Robert Parrish – Cry Danger (1951)

    1951-1960Film NoirRobert ParrishUSA

    Todd Wiener writes:
    In his directorial debut, former editor Robert Parrish skillfully illuminates screenwriter Bill Bowers’ equally acerbic and droll Cry Danger into an underappreciated noir gem.

    Even though this Jerome Cady story was originally purchased by Humphrey Bogart’s Santana Pictures, the film ended up being the only release by Olympic Productions. The tersely pitch-perfect Dick Powell portrays protagonist ex-convict Rocky Mulloy who returns to Los Angeles to find the gang that framed him for a crime he did not commit. Aided by a hard-drinking, crippled ex-marine (brilliantly realized by Richard Erdman), Mulloy sets up home-base at a Bunker Hill trailer camp that is home to his ex-girlfriend Nancy, played by the graceful Rhonda Fleming. Fleming, who was on loan from David O. Selznick’s company for this project, underwent an emergency appendectomy that initially held up the film’s very tight twenty-two day shooting schedule.Read More »

  • Robert Florey – Danger Signal (1945)

    1941-1950Film NoirRobert FloreyUSA

    Quote:
    A mysterious artist – and psychopath – named Ronnie Mason, steals a dead woman’s wedding ring and money and leaves a fake suicide note. The woman’s husband, Thomas Turner, when questioned by the local police, believes his dead wife might have been seeing Mason behind his back. He also believes his wife was murdered, but in the absence of other evidence, the police list it as a suicide and drop the case.Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – Sabotage [+Extras] (1936)

    1931-1940Alfred HitchcockMysteryThrillerUSA

    Synopsis:
    Mr. Verloc is part of a gang of foreign saboteurs operating out of London. He manages a small cinema with his wife and her teenage brother as a cover, but they know nothing of his secret. Scotland Yard assign an undercover detective to work at the shop next to the cinema in order to observe the gang.Read More »

  • Jesper Jargil – De ydmygede AKA The Humiliated (1998)

    1991-2000DenmarkDocumentaryDogma FilmsJesper Jargil

    Quote:
    Rarely is a making-of doc so perfectly matched in tone or storyline as the subject of its gaze, but The Idiots and The Humiliated are furiously intertwined, in a mindgame kind of way that seems quite — Von Trier-ian? Filmmaker Jesper Jargil accepted an assistant director post on The Idiots under the condition that he be allowed to make his own film about the film, and the result is as personal and scarring as Von Trier’s masterwork. Using the same DV cameras as Von Trier was using, Jargil covers the actors and director living in the same communal space (much as the film’s characters do), and as Lars pushes his actors to the brink of emotional endurance, he himself goes bonkers in a paranoid, hypochondriachal fit — and the viewer is left feeling as if the whole production is the brainchild of a semi-mad cult leader intent on instantly capturing on tape every neurosis he wishes to purge in the real world. Unprecedented and ultra-rare, The Humiliated is an intimate meta thrill ride.Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – Saboteur (1942)

    1941-1950Alfred HitchcockClassicsThrillerUSA

    Synopsis:
    Los Angeles aircraft worker Barry Kane evades arrest after he is unjustly accused of sabotage. Following leads, he travels across the country to New York City trying to clear his name by exposing a gang of fascist-supporting saboteurs led by apparently respectable Charles Tobin. Along the way, he involves Pat Martin, eventually preventing another major act of sabotage. They finally catch up with Frank Frye, the man who actually committed the act of sabotage at the aircraft factory.Read More »

  • Felix de Rooy – Desiree (1984)

    1981-1990ArthouseCaribbean CinemaDramaFelix de RooyNetherlands

    Set in Brooklyn, New York this Dutch film is based on a true story that appeared on a New York newspaper in 1980. Desirée lives in the past. A series of flashbacks expose us to her psychologically troubled childhood very much affected by a promiscous mother. Her present life evolves around three people: her employer Mrs. Resnick, Freddy, her lover and Father Siego, leader of the church “The True Confessors”. Desirée’s relationship with each one of these characters is at the origin of her falling apart. Freddy is an insecure black man who finishes their love affair with a sad note, Father Siego is the leader of a rigid narrow-minded religious sect and Mrs Resnick is a racist, prejudiced white woman who feels black people are inferior and incapable of living their own live. Rejected by all because of her pregnancy, Desirée blames her child as the source of evil. She is then possessed by evil and wants to exorcise it. The only way is to get rid of her daughter…Read More »

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