Quote:
Crusading publisher Austin Spenser (Sidney Blackmer) wants to prove a point about the insufficiency of circumstantial evidence. Spencer talks his prospective son-in-law Tom Garrett (Dana Andrews) into participating in a hoax, the better to expose the alleged ineptitude of conviction-happy DA (Philip Bourneuf). Tom will plant clues indicating that he is the murderer of a nightclub dancer, then stand trial for murder; just as the jury reaches its inevitable guilty verdict, Spencer will step forth to reveal the set-up and humiliate the DA. Somewhat surprisingly, Tom eagerly agrees to this subterfuge. Unfortunately, an unforeseen event renders their perfectly formed scheme useless. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt was the last American film of director Fritz Lang.Read More »
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Fritz Lang – Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)
1951-1960CrimeFilm NoirFritz LangUSA -
Jordan Belson – Re-entry (1964)
1961-1970ExperimentalJordan BelsonShort FilmUSAQuote:
“In Re-entry he successfully synthesizes the Yogic and the cosmological elements in his art for the first time by forcefully abstracting and playing down both of them…” P. Adams SitneyRead More » -
Lucrecia Martel – Zama (2017)
2011-2020ArgentinaDramaLucrecia MartelBased on the novel by Antonio Di Benedetto written in 1956, on Don Diego de Zama, a Spanish officer of the seventeenth century settled in Asunción, who awaits his transfer to Buenos Aires. Read More »
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Larry Cohen – Perfect Strangers (1984)
1981-1990Film NoirLarry CohenThrillerDescription:
This Low Budget neo-noir crime thriller involves Johnny, a hitman (Brad Rijn), whose contract hit on a gangland rival is witnessed by a three year old boy, playing in his backyard. Johnny’s initial motivation to “eliminate” the one witness to the crime (under orders of his mob boss) becomes conflicted by his growing romantic involvement with the boy’s mother, Sally (Anne Carlisle).Read More » -
Stephan Komandarev – Posoki AKA Directions (2017)
2011-2020BulgariaDramaStephan KomandarevThrillerDIRECTIONS is a road movie through the dystopia that is present day Bulgaria, a country that remains optimistic, mainly because all the realists and pessimists have left.
At a meeting with his banker, a small business owner, who drives a cab to make ends meet, discovers the bribe he will have to pay to get a loan has doubled. The ethics board that reviewed his complaint about extortion now wants its share of the action. At his wit’s end, he shoots the banker and then himself.
The incident sparks national debate on talk radio about how despair has taken over civil society. Meanwhile, six taxi drivers and their passengers move through the night, each in hope of finding a brighter way forward. “Read More »
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Sharunas Bartas – Peace to Us in Our Dreams (2015)
2011-2020DramaLithuaniaSharunas BartasPlot Summary:
A mild-mannered father, his restless daughter and his supine companion spend some time in a country cottage at the tail end of summer in Peace to Us in Our Dreams, from Lithuanian auteur Sharunas Bartas (A Casa, Seven Invisible Men). Though no one would mistake the latest effort from this Cannes regular for a Michael Bay movie, Dreams isn’t only composed of the director’s signature long takes and thus seems to move at a speed at least a cut above a snail’s pace. Add to that the fact the last 30 or so minutes are almost chatty — if still sotto voce —and it becomes clear we’re miles away from the Bartas of a film such as Few of Us, the 1996 Un Certain Regard entry that earned him comparisons to Tarkovsky and featured no dialogue at all. Still, a film in which characters don’t say much for the first hour will forever remain on the arthouse fringe, more likely to pop up at cinematheques and festivals than in any type of offshore commercial release.Read More » -
Alejandro Jodorowsky – The Panic Fables Mystic Teachings and Initiatory Tales (2017)
2011-2020Alejandro JodorowskyComicsMexicoThe complete series of filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s spiritual comics, translated into English for the first time
• Contains all 284 of Jodo’s Panic Fables comics, published weekly from 1967 to 1973 in Mexico City’s El Heraldo newspaper
• Includes an introduction describing how the Panic Fables came to be
• Explains how he incorporated Zen teachings, initiatory wisdom, and sacred symbology into his Panic Fables, as well as himself as one of the characters
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Pedro Pinho – A Fábrica de Nada AKA The Nothing Factory (2017)
Drama2011-2020Pedro PinhoPoliticsPortugalWhen management begins to sell off equipment at a factory that makes elevator parts, the workers become nervous about their job security. As they weigh their options, including a strike and a tongue-in-cheek suggestion at an armed response, the workers are forced to continue showing up at work.Read More »
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Béla Tarr – Öszi almanach AKA Almanac of Fall (1984)
1981-1990ArthouseBéla TarrDramaHungaryHédi is the wealthy landlady of a house in which resides her money-demanding son János, her nurse Anna and Anna’s boyfriend Miklós, and the elderly and financially troubled teacher Tibor. A large, claustrophobic apartment is the setting for this intense chamber drama that is one of Béla Tarr’s most revered films. In this dense setting, the inhabitants of the apartment reveal their darkest secrets, fears, obsessions and hostilities.Read More »








