• Hisao Kurosawa – A Message from Akira Kurosawa: For Beautiful Movies (2000)

    1991-2000Akira KurosawaArthouseDocumentaryHisao KurosawaJapan

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    A Documentary in 10 parts covering the filmmaking of Kurosawa around the theme of making the perfect movie or as he says: A Beautyful Movie.

    Kurosawa on filmmaking.

    Chapter 1 – The seed of a film
    Chapter 2 – Screenplays
    Chapter 3 – Storyboards
    Chapter 4 – Filming
    Chapter 5 – Lighting
    Chapter 6 – Production design
    Chapter 7 – Costumes
    Chapter 8 – Editing
    Chapter 9 – Music
    Chapter 10 – Directing
    Read More »

  • Agnieszka Holland – Olivier, Olivier (1992)

    Drama1991-2000Agnieszka HollandFranceThriller

    Description: Based on a true story. The story is set on the sweeping French countryside where Serge Duval, a veterinarian, lives with his wife, Elisabeth and their two young children. One day, their beloved son Olivier vanishes mystically, without a trace. Unable to accept the loss of her favourite child, the mother, Elizabeth, redirects her anguish and guilt at everyone. Little by little the fragile family falls apart. Six years later Olivier suddenly appears again, now as a teenage boy living on the streets of Paris, but is he really their missing son?Read More »

  • J. Stuart Blackton – The Enchanted Drawing (1900)

    1891-1900J. Stuart BlacktonShort FilmSilentThe Birth of CinemaUSA

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    The Enchanted Drawing is a short film made in 1900. It was directed by J. Stuart Blackton, an American film producer of early silent films, the founder of Vitagraph Studios and an early animator.

    Upon a large sheet of white paper a cartoonist is seen at work rapidly sketching the portrait of an elderly gentleman of most comical feature and expression. After completing the likeness the artist rapidly draws on the paper a clever sketch of a bottle of wine and a goblet, and then, to the surprise of all, actually removes them from the paper on which they were drawn and pours actual wine out of the bottle into a real glass. Surprising effects quickly follow after this; and the numerous changes of expression which flit over the face in the sketch cause a vast amount of amusement and at the same time give a splendid illustration of the caricaturist’s art.Read More »

  • Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince – Roundhay Garden Scene & Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge (1888)

    1881-1890Louis Aimé Augustin Le PrinceSilentThe Birth of CinemaUnited Kingdom

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    Roundhay Garden Scene is an 1888 short film directed by French inventor Louis Le Prince. It was recorded at 12 frames per second and is the earliest surviving film.

    According to Le Prince’s son, Adolphe, it was filmed at Oakwood Grange, the home of Joseph and Sarah Whitley, in Roundhay, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England on October 14, 1888.
    It features Adolphe Le Prince, Sarah Whitley, Joseph Whitley and Harriet Hartley in the garden, walking around and laughing. Note that Sarah is walking backwards and that Joseph’s coat tails are flying.Read More »

  • Jean-Pierre Melville – Le Samourai [+Extras] (1967)

    Arthouse1961-1970CrimeFranceJean-Pierre Melville

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    SYNOPSIS
    In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays a contract killer with samurai instincts. A razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American gangster cinema and 1960s French pop culture—with a liberal dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology—maverick director Jean-Pierre Melville’s masterpiece Le Samouraï defines cool.Read More »

  • Maria Beatty – Ecstasy in Berlin, 1926 (2004)

    2001-2010ArthouseEroticaMaria BeattyQueer Cinema(s)USA

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    Quote:

    ECSTASY IN BERLIN, 1926
    2004 in b&w and tinted
    A film by Maria Beatty
    Duration: 45 minutes
    Starring: Sonya Sovereign and Paula Rosengarthen
    Music by Nick Holmes

    THIS DECADENT AND LUMINOUS FILM IS A NEW ACHIEVEMENT IN THE REALM OF EROTICA!

    A golden Weimar beauty slips a needle into her creamy thigh, and while in her euphoria slips into erotic fantasy. It begins with a white-gloved hand at her throat, emphasizing her vulnerability and surrender, followed by a lingering, deliciously thorough kiss from a stunning and powerful woman. She drifts through a variety of exotic experiences, all made possible by her dazzling submission and her partner’s absolute command. Her perfect flesh is alternately spanked and caressed, her lips kissed and then forced to worship a fine leather boot. She dreams of being strictly corseted, whipped, and bound, and led to a glowing, graphic climax.

    Both delicately sensual and sexually intense, it conveys all the dangerous rewards of passion indulged. To enjoy “Ecstasy in Berlin 1926” is to experience the delirious, consuming, and glorious fever of obsession itself.Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – Vertigo (1958)

    1951-1960Alfred HitchcockAmos Vogel: Film as a Subversive ArtMysteryThrillerUSA

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    Review
    One of Hitchcock’s most discussed films. Retired police detective Stewart, who has a fear of heights, is hired by old school chum in San Francisco to keep an eye on his wife (Novak), eventually falls in love with his quarry and that’s just the beginning; to reveal more would be unthinkable. Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor scripted, from the novel D’entre les Morts by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Haunting, dream-like thriller, with riveting Bernard Herrmann score to match; a genuinely great motion picture that demands multiple viewings.Read More »

  • Niki Caro – The Vintner’s Luck (2009)

    2001-2010DramaFantasyNew ZealandNiki Caro

    A 2009 internationally co-produced romantic drama film co-written and directed by Niki Caro. It is loosely based on the novel The Vintner’s Luck by Elizabeth Knox. The film had its international premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on 12 September 2009.

    The film stars Jérémie Renier, Vera Farmiga, Gaspard Ulliel, and Keisha Castle-Hughes. The film marked the second time Caro worked with Castle-Hughes, a New Zealand actress and Academy Award nominee.Read More »

  • Shuji Terayama – Tomato Kecchappu Kôtei aka Emperor Tomato Ketchup (1971)

    1971-1980AsianCultJapanShuji Terayama

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    Synopsis
    EMPEROR TOMATO KETCHUP is Terayama’s epic, sexually revolutionary and hallucinatory work from 1972 in which magical women act as the initiatory, yet protectively maternal sexual partners to children. The children, in revolt, have condemned their parents to death for depriving them of self-expression and sexual freedom; they create a society in which fairies and sex education are equally important and literally combinable.Read More »

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