David Cairns wrote:
I’ve now seen the film, and I thought it was excellent. Imperfect, yes, but fascinating and unique. The closest comparison I can come up with is Strange Cargo, Frank Borzage’s weird religious allegory which deals with a gang of convicts escaping from a tropical prison island, finding salvation along the way. But The Passing of the Third Floor Left brings its rogues’ gallery into contact with the numinous in a modern London hotel.

What both films have in common is Jesus, encorpsified (to use Flann O’Brien’s word) as a convict in the Borzage and as a myseterious tenant in Berthold Viertel’s film. More to the point, embodied by the august personage of Conrad Veidt, whose presence makes Viertel’s expressionist touches seem wholly legitimate and rooted in the old world of Caligari.Read More »

Based on the Pulitzer prize winning Broadway play, Street Scene is a study in the daily lives of people who communicate in a street and reside in the surrounding apartment complexes. Mrs. Murrant is dealing with issues of infidelity, Rose, her daughter is conflicted with her advancement in life and leaving the neighborhood, Rose’s father, a hard-working man who is never around, Sam Kaplan as a caring and concerned neighbor; and the rest of the idlers and gossipers that make up the rest of the street and the focus of their daily existence.Read More »

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LUCKY follows the spiritual journey of a 90-year-old atheist and the quirky characters that inhabit his off the map desert town. Having out lived and out smoked all of his contemporaries, the fiercely independent Lucky finds himself at the precipice of life, thrust into a journey of self exploration, leading towards that which is so often unattainable: enlightenment. Acclaimed character actor John Carroll Lynch’s directorial debut, “Lucky”, is at once a love letter to the life and career of Harry Dean Stanton as well as a meditation on mortality, loneliness, spirituality, and human connection. -luckythefilm.comRead More »

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During the summer of 1960, the idiosyncratic residents of a one-street Dutch suburb collide in intertwining stories of desire and frustration.Read More »

Synopsis:
Thirteen women who were schoolmates send to a swami for their horoscopes. Little do they realize that Ursula, a half-breed Asian, is using her hypnotic powers over the swami and them to lead them or their families to their deaths. It seems that she too went to their school, but was forced to leave by their bigotry, and is exacting revenge. Will she be stopped in time to save Laura’s son, Bobby? Read More »

A young man and a woman meet in the bath of a resort in Atami one evening. The young man then attempts to swoon the woman while in the meantime enjoying the city sights of the vacation town, all accompanied by a sensual jazz score.Read More »

A cat’s inquisitive look interferes with the pleasurable sensations of a boy while masturbating.
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In Portugal, a father, a mother and a daughter’s daily lives are being subsumed by the effects of the economic crisis.

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Colo, a new film by Alce Films from Writer/Director Teresa Villaverde was screened at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival in Competition. The film utilized an unorthodox approach. After the opening scene of over-the-sholuder close-ups and Hollywood style medium close-ups on reverse angles, deep focus long-shots were utilized. Often times the frame pulled out rather than pushing in – a more typical filmmaking technique.Read More »

Synopsis:
Adapted from The Paul Street Boys, an autobiographical novel by Ferenc Molnar, GLORY is an unusually sensitive evocation of the pain of youth and the senselessness of war. Frail Nemecsek, a lonely boy who yearns to belong, worships Boka, the self-sufficent, charismatic leader of a well-organized gang, decked out in uniforms and sporting their own flag. The perennial outsider sees his chance to win a respected place in Butler’s army when their flag is stolen and war breaks out with another gang.Read More »