PLOT: Kakabakaba Ka Ba? (lit. Does Your Heart Beat Faster?) is a 1980 musical-romantic comedy film produced by LVN Pictures (in its last offering) in 1980, with Mike De Leon as director.

The film revolves on two couples who found themselves in conflict with the foreign commercial giants that control the Philippine economy, the Japanese and the Chinese. Moreover, it involved the Catholic Church which has a stranglehold on the Philippine society itself. The film reflects on the Philippine economy and society being primarily controlled by other forces for their own benefits and become instruments in performing illegal activities. Actors Christopher de Leon, Sandy Andolong, Jay Ilagan and Charo Santos starred as main cast in the film, while Johnny Delgado and APO Hiking Society’s Boboy Garovillo portrayed as main villains.Read More »

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The film follows the plight of Wilson (Scoot McNairy), a 29-year-old man who has just suffered through the most miserable year of his life. A new arrival to the City of Angels, Wilson ends up alone and penniless as New Year’s Eve rapidly approaches, and avows to lock his doors, pull his blinds, and climb into bed – until best friend Jacob (Brian McGuire) talks him into posting a Craigslist personal ad. In seemingly no time at all, the message leads Wilson to Vivian (Sara Simmonds), a young woman who is determined to be with the “right” man at the stroke of midnight.Read More »

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Having seen virtually all of Jose Benazeraf’s mainly excellent softcore 1960s movies and a good selection (over a dozen) of his later XXX offerings I was unprepared for this off-the-wall 1974 transitional film. This is one case where the dreaded “auteur’s explanation” that accompanies so many wretched DVDs would be helpful.
I will offer my own pet theory, certainly wrong but convincing enough for me. I contend that Jose found the chance to travel to Italy and film an Italian co-production to be an irresistible opportunity to lampoon the then-current trend of Italian cinema to make sexy left-wing film tracts. Not like the Godard tracts of the ’60s, but many wonderful and hokey movies that I love, like Ugo Tognazzi fighting the class struggle against Romy Schneider in LA CALIFFA or any of the Bellocchio efforts of the time.Read More »

Kurt and Lydia are planning a relaxed vacation at the Gripsholm castle in Sweden . What Lydia does not know is that for Kurt, a well-known publicist, the journey is actually a flight from encroaching fascism and a direct threat from the Nazis.

The film takes us deep into the shady, pleasure-seeking cabaret world of Berlin at the beginning of the 1930’s, where “open season” has been declared on the last remaining bourgeois taboos, and the few remaining fig leaves of modesty are about to be swept away. Kurt, a campaigning journalist and satirist who has become a celebrity thanks to the rather saucy lyrics he has written for the songs of various shows has set off with his girlfriend Lydia, his princess, on a journey to Gripsholm castle in Sweden, in the course of a seemingly endless summer. Two friends, the fashionable variety show singer Billie and a temperamental aviator who goes by the name of Karlchen join them briefly on the holiday in Sweden. Erotic impulses inevitably lead to complications in their relationships.Read More »

Believe it or not even in Smalltown USA there are still people who are unfulfilled and unrelieved in the midst of plenty. Levonna and Lamar could have the perfect relationship if it were not Lamar’s obsession with rear entry.Read More »

Robert Flaherty (1884-1951) was the man credited with being the father of the modern documentary film after he produced and directed ‘Nanook of the North’ in 1922. Flaherty is one of the great name directors in the history of cinema and to this day films such as ‘Nanook of the North’, ‘Moana’, ‘Man of Aran’ and ‘Louisiana Story’ are widely regarded as classics and still regularly screened.Read More »

Not satisfied with the pace of natural selection in driving evolution, a deranged botanist decides to create his own genetically engineered Mutations! With the promise of using his experiments to “cure” them, Dr. Nolter (Pleasence) enlists members of the local Freakshow to help him kidnap students from a nearby college to use as human guinea pigs! Using the same techniques that he developed mixing the DNA of plants and animals, he begins crossbreeding plants and humans with unpredictable results. One by one his failed experiments are cast off to the circus until the freaks have had enough and seek their bloody revenge. This updated take on Todd Browning’s FREAKS is directed by award winning director / cinematographer Jack Cardiff (African Queen, Red Shoes) and features a stellar cast including Donald Pleasence, Tom Baker, Brad Harris and Michael Dunn.Read More »

PLOT: Jia Zhangke travels with painter Liu Xiaodong from China to Thailand as they as they meet everyday workers in the throes of social turmoil. Liu Xiaodong is well-known for his monumental canvases, particularly those inspired by China’s Three Gorges Dam project. Jia Zhangke visits Liu on the banks of Fengjie, a city about to be swallowed up by the Yangtze River. The area is in the process of being “de-constructed” by armies of shirtless male workers who form the subject of Liu’s paintings. Liu and Jia next travel to Bangkok, where Liu paints Thai sex workers languishing in brothels. The two sets of paintings are united in their subjects’ shared sense of malaise in the face of the dehumanizing labor afforded them.Read More »

PLOT: A young piano tuner befriends two rich old-ladies, and plots, with the help of his girlfriend, to betray their trust and steal from them.Read More »