• Jean Eustache – Le père Noël a les yeux bleus aka Santa Claus Has Blue Eyes (1966)

    Jean Eustache1961-1970FranceShort Film

    The hard life of a young man in the provinces of France in the ’60s when you want to seduce girls or even just have a talk with them.Read More »

  • Hisayasu Satô – Niizuma kahanshin: Washizukami (1991)

    Hisayasu Satô1991-2000EroticaJapan

    This deliriously warped S&M softcore film from cult pinku-eiga director Hisayasu Sato deals with a deranged doctor who lives in an abandoned hospital with his wheelchair-bound sister. The sister has a bizarre disease which keeps her eternally youthful and flawless in her brother’s eyes. Frustrated by normal women’s perceived imperfections, the madman kidnaps them and submits them to gruesome tortures under the guise of anti-aging experiments.Read More »

  • Harry Kümel – De komst van Joachim Stiller (1976)

    Harry Kümel1971-1980BelgiumDramaMystery

    Description
    ‘De komst van Joachim Stiller’ (= Dutch for ‘the coming of Joachim Stiller’) is a novel by the Flemish author Hubert Lampo from 1961.

    ‘Magical realism’ is this novel’s keyword, a style of writing Lampo excelled in. It deals with the intrusion of the unexplainable into common, everyday’s life. Setting up an atmosphere of tension and uneasiness as a consequence.
    In 1976 Flemish producer Harry Kümel transferred ‘De komst van Joachim Stiller’ into a TV-series. Making them an instant hit in the low countries back then. A few decades later the Royal Belgian Film Institute incorporated Kümel’s work in a DVD-series about great Belgian films: it is the very DVD this site is about.Read More »

  • John Ford – The Iron Horse [US Version] (1924)

    1921-1930John FordSilentUSAWestern

    David Brandon (James Gordon) is a surveyor in the Old West who dreams that one day the entire North American continent will be linked by railroads. However, to make this dream a reality, a clear trail must be found through the Rocky Mountains. With his boy Davy (Winston Miller), David sets out to find such a path, but he’s ambushed by a tribe of Indians led by a white savage, Peter Jesson (Cyril Chadwick); while the boy manages to escape, David is killed. Years later, the adult Davy Brandon (George O’Brien) still believes in his father’s dream of a transcontinental railroad, and legislation signed by President Abraham Lincoln has made it an official mandate. Davy is hired on as a railroad surveyor by Thomas Marsh (Will R. Walling), the father of his childhood sweetheart Miriam (Madge Bellamy). While Davy hopes to win Miriam’s heart as he helps to find the trail that led to his father’s death years ago, he’s disappointed to discover that Miriam is already married — and shocked to discover her husband is Peter Jesson, now working with the railroad as a civil engineer. As the Union Pacific crew presses on to their historic meeting at Promitory Point, Davy must find a way to earn Miriam’s love and uncover Peter’s murderous past.Read More »

  • Ali Hatami – Hajji Washington (1982)

    1981-1990Ali HatamiComedyIranPolitics

    Hajji Hossein-Gholi Noori (Haji Baba) goes to Washington D.C. as the first Iranian (Persian) ambassador to the United States of America. After he opens the embassy, he is unable to invite statesmen to visit him. Haji fires the embassy staff due to the inability of the Persian government to meet the embassy’s needs. One night he is visited by President Grover Cleveland.Read More »

  • Ram Gopal Varma – Sarkar (2005)

    2001-2010DramaIndiaRam Gopal VarmaThriller

    Subhash Nagre runs a parallel government in the city where he has a cult following. When his enemies plot to murder him, his son takes charge and stands up against them.Read More »

  • Bahman Farmanara – Hekayat-e darya AKA Tale of the Sea (2018)

    Bahman Farmanara2011-2020DramaIranRomance

    Taher Mohebi is a well-known writer who, after witnessing a violent murder, breaks down and spends three years in a mental institution. After release he is told that things are just as they were before, but his relentless hallucinations make him want to return to the institution.Read More »

  • Jacques Doniol-Valcroze – Le Coeur Battant AKA The French Game (1960)

    Jacques Doniol-Valcroze1951-1960DramaFrance

    Quote:
    Jacques Doniol-Valcroze was a co-founder of Cahiers du Cinema. A respected reviewer and cinéaste but no great shakes as an actor and as a director did not exactly set the world alight!

    It is well-nigh impossible however not to like this unassuming, tender and unashamedly romantic opus which he has also written. It is essentially a ‘will they, won’t they’ movie and stars Jean-Louis Trintignant and the director’s future wife Francoise Brion. Individually both actors have charisma and together a distinct ‘chemistry’ which results in fascinating viewing. They represent two sides of the love triangle whilst all we see of the third side is his hand and the back of his head. The emotional soul-searching is balanced by moments of gentle humour.Read More »

  • Henry Cass – Bond of Fear (1956)

    Henry Cass1951-1960DramaThrillerUnited Kingdom

    So here we have good old Dermot Walsh minding his own business, taking his family on a trip with the caravan in tow and ending up with a wanted criminal holding them hostage whilst on the move with their trailer. For me, the acting is more than decent and for anyone like me who has a penchant for rather cheaply made, but nonetheless good, black and white British second features of this era….Read More »

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