• Emmanuel Mouret – Changement d’adresse AKA Change of Address (2006)

    2001-2010ComedyEmmanuel MouretFranceRomance

    Quote:
    New to Paris and looking for accommodation, French hornist David (Emmanuel Mouret) is approached in the street by Anne (Frederique Bel), and invited to inspect a share apartment for friend – which turns out to be herself. She seems attracted to David but she tells him she has a boyfriend. David starts tutoring the shy and silent Julia (Fanny Valette), daughter of bourgeoisie mum (Ariane Ascaride), and tells Anne he’s smitten. But as they exchange romantic confidances, they end up sleeping together, only to quickly apologise next morning. Anne even offers to help David woo Julia, starting with a weekend at her mum’s shack by the beach, where a chance meeting with restaurateur Julien (Dany Brillant) sets off a new round of romantic complications.Read More »

  • Mario Soldati & Carlo Borghesio – Due milioni per un sorriso (1939)

    1931-1940Carlo BorghesioComedyItalian Cinema under FascismItalyMario Soldati

    PLOT:
    Giacomo Perotti, who made his fortune in America, returns to Italy rich and wealthy. He wants, above all else, to find the woman who in his youth one day smiled at him, making him fall in love.
    This nostalgic and utopian dream is the chance for a shady entrepreneur to persuade him to finance a film in memory of the episode of his distant youth.
    Perotti accidentally meets a young professor who strangely resembles a lot to him when he was young and puts him in charge of the artistic direction of the film. During the casting for the leading actress, the young professor meets a typist, falls in love with her, and would like to make her the star of the film.
    But the shady producer has in mind another actress…Read More »

  • Fernando Fernán Gómez – El Viaje a ninguna parte aka Voyage to Nowhere (1986)

    1981-1990ComedyDramaFernando Fernán GómezSpain

    The spirit, hopes, and failures of a troupe of itinerant performers in the 1950s create a poignant, humorous leitmotif in this drama by Fernando Fernan-Gomez. The story of the wandering players is told in flashbacks, as Carlos Galvan (Jose M. Sacristan) reminisces about the good times while under therapy with a psychiatrist in a senior citizens’ home. Carlos and his lover Juanita (Laura del Sol), his teenage son, his father, and a few other actors try to eke out a living by putting on shows in small towns and villages. No one has very much money, but life is lived to the hilt, and Carlos himself has some pretty tall tales.Read More »

  • Gilles Deroo & Marianne Pistone – Mouton AKA Sheep (2013)

    2011-2020ArthouseFranceGilles DerooMarianne Pistone

    From Variety

    Films that truly surprise are the rarest of the rare, and while “Sheep” also perplexes, its originality and intriguing docu-style approach make it impossible to dismiss as just another arty experiment. Debuting helmers Marianne Pistone and Gilles Deroo have crafted a prose poem on the randomness of life itself, at first focusing on a young man working as a prep chef and then, quite suddenly, introducing a freak event that changes the course of the picture and steers it down unexpected paths. “Sheep” should get a boost from Locarno’s tyro film award, heralding fest interest and deserved cult status. Sheep, or rather Mouton, is the nickname of the main character, real name Aurelien (David Merabet). Read More »

  • Jack Arnold – High School Confidential! (1958)

    1951-1960CrimeDramaJack ArnoldUSA

    Quote:
    A tough kid comes to a new high school and begins muscling his way into the drug scene. As he moves his way up the ladder, a schoolteacher tries to reform him, his aunt tries to seduce him, and the “weedheads” are eager to use his newly found enterprise, but he has his own agenda. After an altercation involving fast cars, hidden drugs, and police, he’s accepted by the drug kingpin and is off into the big leagues. A typical morality play of the era, filled with a naive view of drugs, nihilistic beat poetry, and some incredible ’50s slang.Read More »

  • Bertolt Brecht & Erich Engel – Mysterien eines Frisiersalons AKA Mysteries of a Barbershop (1923)

    1921-1930Bertolt BrechtComedyErich EngelGermanySilentWeimar Republic cinema

    Karl Valentin plays a journeyman in a barber shop who prefers to stay in bed than to take care of his (already heavily bearded) customers. When he’s at work, he removes boils with hammer, chisel and pincers, turns long-haired men into skin-heads and chops off people’s heads.Read More »

  • Alfred Viola & Roy Boulting – Mr. Forbush and the Penguins (1971)

    1971-1980Alfred ViolaDramaRoy BoultingUnited Kingdom

    Synopsis:
    ‘Life for Richard Forbush, brilliant biology student and conceited philanderer, is one long round of eat, drink and be merry. But his decision to accept a six-month research post in the Antarctic, making the first detailed study of a penguin colony, changes all that… Living in Shackleton’s derelict hut, Forbush is alone at the frozen edge of the world, his only links to civilisation a two-way radio and letters to his elusive, would-be girlfriend, Tara, in London. Through an often ferocious winter in the company of the penguins, he grows increasingly attached to his hardy, endearing subjects – learning profound lessons in endurance and humility.’
    – TMDBRead More »

  • Joanna Hogg – Unrelated (2007)

    Drama2001-2010Joanna HoggUnited Kingdom

    Quote:
    Because it has no conventional action or schematic story, “Unrelated,” Joanna Hogg’s dyspeptic portrait of upper-middle-class Britons on a summer holiday in Tuscany, is the antithesis of popcorn entertainment. The guests, who span two generations, convene in a spacious rented villa equipped with a large swimming pool and caretakers. The movie observes their leisure activities with a chilly documentary objectivity.Read More »

  • Kihachi Okamoto – Zatôichi to Yôjinbô AKA Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo (1970)

    1961-1970ActionJapanKihachi OkamotoMartial Arts

    Synopsis:
    This film brings together two of the greatest characters created in Japanese cinema. Zatoichi (Shintaro Katsu) is the blind swordsman who goes back to a village that he remembers as peaceful and tranquil. It has been two to three years since his last visit and he longs to get away from the constant attacks that plague him on a daily basis, as he has a price on his head. But all is not as he remembers. When he arrives to his beloved village, he finds it is torn between a father and son that have their own gangs involved in their own family feud. As a result, the village is torn between the two men as the son seeks his father’s gold (which may or may not exist).Read More »

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