• George A. Romero – Night of the Living Dead [+commentaries] (1968)

    USA1961-1970George A. RomeroHorror

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    Quote:
    Shot outside Pittsburgh on a shoestring budget, by a band of filmmakers determined to make their mark, Night of the Living Dead, directed by horror master George A. Romero, is a great story of independent cinema: a midnight hit turned box-office smash that became one of the most influential films of all time. A deceptively simple tale of a group of strangers trapped in a farmhouse who find themselves fending off a horde of recently dead, flesh-eating ghouls, Romero’s claustrophobic vision of a late-1960s America literally tearing itself apart rewrote the rules of the horror genre, combined gruesome gore with acute social commentary, and quietly broke ground by casting a black actor (Duane Jones) in its lead role. Stark, haunting, and more relevant than ever, Night of the Living Dead is back.

    Night of the Living Dead was restored by the Museum of Modern Art and The Film Foundation. Funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation and the Celeste Bartos Fund for Film Preservation.Read More »

  • Ralph Bakshi – American Pop (1981)

    1981-1990AnimationRalph BakshiUSA

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    A 1981 American animated musical drama film starring Ron Thompson and produced and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film tells the story of four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians whose careers parallel the history of American popular music.
    The majority of the film’s animation was completed through rotoscoping, a process in which live actors are filmed and the subsequent footage is used for animators to draw over. However, the film also uses a variety of other mixed media including water colors, computer graphics, live-action shots, and archival footage.
    – WIKIPEDIARead More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – The Birds (1963)

    1961-1970Alfred HitchcockClassicsHorrorUSA

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    Quote:
    A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people.Read More »

  • Philip Kaufman – The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (1972)

    USA1971-1980Philip KaufmanWestern

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    The gangs of Jesse James and Cole Younger join forces for a bungled robbery of the bank in Northfield, MN.

    Quote:
    In 1876, the Missouri legislature issues a pardon and amnesty to the James and Younger gangs despite many people considering them outlaws. The pardon is because they protected the homesteaders of Clay County against the marauding railroaders, who wouldn’t let anyone or anything get in their way of building the railroad where they wanted. However, the railroad companies and banks still consider them outlaws and will take matters into their own hands if they come across the gangs. Prior to the pardon, Cole Younger had contemplated robbing the First National Bank in Northfield, Minnesota – what is considered the largest bank west of the Mississippi – but has now decided against it. Circumstances, including learning that Jesse James and his gang are going ahead with the robbery behind his back, and that the railroaders issuing a war against them which also includes bribing the legislature to revoke the pardon, make Cole change his mind. But right from the start – even during the planning stages – things don’t go quite according to script, which may be an omen for things to come. Written by Huggo @ IMDB
    Read More »

  • Kenji Misumi – Goyôkiba aka Hanzo the Razor: Sword of Justice (1972)

    1971-1980ActionAsianJapanKenji Misumi

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    Hanzo Itami is an incorruptible Edo officer who learns that an infamous killer has fled from his island prison. Hanzo begins tracking him down using his unorthodox interrogation techniques. Read More »

  • Manoel de Oliveira – Le soulier de satin AKA The Satin Slipper (1985)

    1981-1990ArthouseFranceManoel de Oliveira

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    Quote:

    The Satin Slipper is a near seven hour metafictional trans-continental theatrical epic, realised by Manoel de Oliveira from the staged period drama of Paul Claudel. It is weighty, inspiring, and exquisitely beautiful. The movie opens with two quotes, which frame the film, regarding the mysterious ways of God, the second of which, “etiam peccata”, “even sins”, is a reference to St Augustine, who added this to a then famous phrase, giving, “Omnia cooperantur in bonum, etiam peccata”, which is to say that everything happens for the glory of God, even sin.

    The opening scene contains an exhortation by a dying priest, that his brother, Don Rodrigo, who has given up his studying for the priesthood, in favour of an exploration of power, for yoking the world to his will, be led back onto the path of righteousness, and that his sins be Augustinian in nature. Rodrigo’s journey provides a skeleton for the movie, which however contains numerous supplementary stories and messages.Read More »

  • Samuel Fuller – White Dog (1982)

    1981-1990CrimeDramaSamuel FullerUSA

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    Quote:
    Samuel Fuller’s throat-grabbing exposé on American racism was misunderstood and withheld from release when it was made in the early eighties; today, the notorious film is lauded for its daring metaphor and gripping pulp filmmaking. Kristy McNichol stars as a young actress who adopts a lost German shepherd, only to discover through a series of horrifying incidents that the dog has been trained to attack black people, and Paul Winfield plays the animal trainer who tries to cure him. A snarling, uncompromising vision, White Dog is a tragic portrait of the evil done by that most corruptible of animals: the human being.Read More »

  • Nagisa Ôshima – Taiyô no hakaba AKA The Sun’s Burial (1960)

    Drama1951-1960CrimeJapanNagisa Oshima

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    In Osaka’s slum, youth without futures engage in pilfering, assault and robbery, prostitution, and the buying and selling of identity cards and of blood. Alliances constantly shift. Tatsu and Takeshi, friends since boyhood, reluctantly join Shin’s gang. Shin’s an upstart and moves his gang often to avoid the local kingpin. Hanoko is a young woman with ambitions: first she’s in the blood business with her father, then she joins forces with Shin. She soon breaks off that partnership, even though she’s taken the sensitive Takeshi under her wing. Double crosses multiply. Those with the closest bonds become each others’ murderers…Read More »

  • Murat Düzgünoglu – Neden Tarkovski Olamiyorum… AKA Why Can’t I Be Tarkovsky (2014)

    Drama2011-2020ComedyMurat DüzgünogluTurkey

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    Why Can’t I Be Tarkovsky? (Neden Tarkovski Olamiyorum…) by Murat Düzgünoğlu (2014, 95 min.). Bahadır, an aspiring 35-year-old director, earns his living making cheap television films inspired by the stories behind Anatolian folk songs. His dream is to make films like his idol, Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, though it seems that everything stands between him and his ambition.

    This low-key, tragicomic story presents us with a glimpse of the life of Bahadir, director of TV movies, who dreams of making artistically ambitious films like those of his idol, Andrei Tarkovsky.Read More »

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