A torrent of sexual obsession, revenge, and betrayal is unleashed under one roof in this venomous melodrama from South Korean master Kim Ki-young. Immensely popular in its home country when it was released, The Housemaid is the thrilling, at times jaw-dropping story of the devastating effect an unstable housemaid has on the domestic cocoon of a bourgeois, morally dubious music teacher, his devoted wife, and their precocious young children. Grim and taut yet perched on the border of the absurd, Kim’s film is an engrossing tale of class warfare and familial disintegration that has been hugely influential on the new generation of South Korean filmmakers.Read More »

“On January 8, 1988, when I was ten years old, my parents decided to go on vacation and leave me with my brothers Santiago and Andrés who were 17 and 14 years old. That day I went to a friend’s birthday party and they were to pick me up in the afternoon. Night fell and dawn found me still waiting and watching at the window. They never arrived.” Read More »

Three years after the original “Danger Man” series concluded, it was revamped and continued in a longer format. (1 hour/episode instead of 30 minutes). John Drake was now a Special Security Agent for M9, getting his exotic assignments exclusively from Her Majesty’s Secret Service. This version of the series introduced far more Bond-like gadgets, from exploding tie-pins to tape-recording shavers, and emphasized fast action. Written by Marg BaskinRead More »

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When a mysterious stranger muscles into two rival yakuza gangs, Tokyo’s underworld explodes with violence. Youth of the Beast (Yaju no Seishun) was a breakthrough for director Seijun Suzuki, introducing the flamboyant colors, hallucinatory images, and striking compositions that would become his trademark.Read More »

google translate:
At the heart of the film is a real fact: a football match between a team of German invaders and our prisoners of war. This happened in Kiev in 1942. The price of victory for the Soviet team is death. In the event of the victory of the Germans, freedom was promised to the Russians …- The prize for the heroic-patriotic decision of the sports theme at the 1st WCF of sports films in Moscow (1966)Read More »

“Wind From the East” (“Le Vent D’Est”) is a very deep and highly political discussion about communism, capitalism, art, revolution, intellectualism, Maoism, USSR, tradition, paradigms, poetry… It’s hard to put it in terms of “it’s about…”, since the sequence of images is not based in any form of traditional narrative. In fact, it’s the very opposite of it, its essence sprouting from the need of subversion, a need directly connected to the social/historical/political/artistic context of the 60’s and 70’s: to show things in a different way leads the viewer to see differently, therefore to think differently. A experimental cut, poetic even, given the metaphorical quality of the images. The frontiers of film language fades and encounters those of other art forms, not to weaken the film unity nor its message, but to strengthen them both.Read More »

Moss Hart’s best-selling autobiography provided the basis for this colorful backstage story. The film depicts Hart as a struggling young playwright in 1929, searching for a sympathetic impresario. Although his manuscript is rejected by a Broadway tycoon, a less prominent manager finally agrees to produce it – on the condition that Hart will get George S. Kaufman, a leading comedy writer, to collaborate on the final script. Hart sets out to convince Kaufman of his play’s value, and so begins one of the most famous partnerships in the American theatre. Read More »

IMDB:
Superb!, 30 June 2005
10/10
Author: P_Cornelius

A terrific show, Danger Man. Just how terrific was it? Several of the scripts were recycled for use in color episodes of The Saint. But the originals in Danger Man are the best. As for Patrick McGoohan, he has never surpassed his role in this series. And, yes, that statement applies to his over-hyped and underwhelming portrayal as Number Six in The Prisoner. All the Danger Man episodes, including the earlier run of 30 minute episodes, are available on DVD. And that’s probably the only way anyone will ever see them in this day and age, as even cable channels are now becoming averse to running black and white hour long dramas from forty or more years ago. Read More »

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Based on a pair of novels by Vilhelm Moberg, Jan Troell’s 3-hour epic follows a Swedish family of farmers (and assorted other family members and villagers) as they make the arduous journey to the promised land of America. That’s not entirely an accurate summation, however. The movie is halfway over before they even get on the boat. The first hour and a half details their living conditions, and feels a bit like Pelle the Conqueror. Mid-19th-century Swedish peasants laboring to little avail, under the thumbs of cruel landowners, struggling to harvest enough to survive, undereducated and impoverished. The voyage over is even worse, plagued by lice, maggots, scurvy, seasickness, short tempers, poor food, cramped quarters, and death. It’s not until the last quarter of the movie when we get to America, which is a comparatively sunny portion of the movie… although still beset by language barriers, lack of guidance, and the realization that the country isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.Read More »