• Kichitaro Negishi – Kurutta kajitsu AKA Crazed Fruit (1981)

    1981-1990DramaEroticaJapanKichitaro Negishi

    Synopsis
    Here’s a terrific updating of the 1956 Nikkatsu classic Crazed Fruit; a new version that is superior to the original. While the original was a seminal sun tribe classic, the new version examines the 1980s Japanese youth from a more intimate, less political perspective. Consequently, it’s a remake in name only. The film focuses on the unstable relationship between two youngsters: a guy working in a sex club and a rich girl who trades her stepfather lover for a younger boyfriend just for a change. Neither one of them really understand each other – or themselves. Like many of director Kichitaro Negishi’s other films, this movie would also be more at home in Art Theatre Guild’s catalogue than in the Roman Porno series where it was released (Negishi’s next film, Distant Thunder, was, in fact, an ATG production). Read More »

  • Joseph Sargent – Day One (1989)

    1981-1990DramaHiroshima at 75Joseph SargentTVUSA

    The complicated relationship between physicist Leo Szilard, scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie Groves. Assigned to oversee the project, Groves chooses Oppenheimer to build the historic bomb. However, when World War II inspires the government to use the weapon, Szilard reconsiders his opinions about atomic warfare.Read More »

  • László Kardos – The Tijuana Story (1957)

    USA1951-1960CrimeFilm NoirLászló Kardos

    Quote:
    Kit Parker Films and Mill Creek Entertainment continue their deep dive into what might be thought of as the substratum of film noir with this third collection culled from the Columbia catalog. The fact that this latest offering supposedly spans the years of 1956 through 1960 may give some indication of just how deep this particular dive is, since many film fans will probably (rightly or wrongly) feel like the late fifties and first year of the sixties are decidedly past the heyday of film noir. (That “supposedly” is in the previous sentence because the earliest actual release date for the films in this set seems to actually be 1957, not 1956, which perhaps makes my point even better.) Still, as with the first two collections, there are some really interesting films in this set, and genre aficionados will most likely find at least a few titles in this set, including some more British productions, that may well spark interest.Read More »

  • Gilles Grangier – Un cave AKA A Loser (1972)

    1971-1980ComedyCrimeFranceGilles Grangier

    PLOT: Granier, a former accountant imprisoned for financial embezzlement, is released from prison and decides to help his cellmate to escape…Read More »

  • Jean-Claude Brisseau – Choses secrètes AKA Secret Things (2002)

    2001-2010DramaFantasyFranceJean-Claude BrisseauQueer Cinema(s)

    Quote:
    Stanley Kubrick envisioned Eyes Wide Shut as an Odyssean chronicle of marital drift. After a series of absurd encounters with the unseemly, naughty bourgeois and the diseased rejects that pander to their ludicrous peccadilloes, Tom Cruise’s wandering soul gets the hint: don’t stray! Jean-Claude Brisseau’s subversive Secret Things is nowhere near as structurally rigorous as Kubrick’s swan song, but it certainly feels more daring. First, think Celine and Julie Go Masturbating. On what appears to be a lonely stage, the sexy Nathalie (Coralie Revel) begins to pleasure herself. Then the delirious swell of an opera piece, perfectly timed to the movement of Brisseau’s camera, which pans to the right to reveal a roomful of bar patrons, including innocent barmaid Sandrine (Sabrina Seyvecou), ogling the spectacle of Nathalie’s uninhibited libido. Read More »

  • Ye Lou – Yihe yuan AKA Summer Palace (2006)

    Drama2001-2010ChinaRomanceYe Lou

    Country girl Yu Hong leaves her village, her family and her lover to study in Beijing. At university, she discovers an intense world of sexual freedom and forbidden pleasure. Enraptured, compulsive, she falls madly in love with fellow student Zhou Wei. Driven by obsessive passions they can neither understand nor control, their relationship becomes one of dangerous games – betrayals, recriminations, provocations – as all around them, their fellow students begin to demonstrate, demanding democracy and freedom.Read More »

  • Patrice Leconte – Le parfum d’Yvonne (1994)

    Drama1991-2000FrancePatrice LeconteRomance

    It is the summer of 1958 in wealthy Lake Geneva, where an enigmatic young Frenchman begins an affair with a beautiful starlet under the watchful eye of her flamboyant elderly mentor. But in a season full of secrets, is truth the most elusive passion of all?Read More »

  • Davide Ferrario – Umberto Eco: A Library of the World (2022)

    2021-2030Davide FerrarioDocumentaryItaly

    A documentary immersion into all things Eco, Davide Ferrario’s film takes us on a tour of Umberto Eco’s private library, guided by the author himself. Combining new footage with material he shot with Eco in 2015 for a video installation for the Venice Biennale, Ferrario documents this incredible collection and the man who amassed it. As Eco leads us among the more than 50,000 volumes, we also gain insight into the library of the mind of this vastly prolific and original thinker.Read More »

  • Mani Kaul – Ashad Ka Ek Din AKA One Day Before the Rainy Season (1971)

    1971-1980ArthouseDramaIndiaMani Kaul

    Aashad Ka Ek Din is an adaptation of the play that is based on Kalidasa’s life in three acts. Kalidasa is renowned as one of the greatest writers, poets and dramatists in the history of Sanskrit language.Read More »

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