1970s

Synopsis:
Wang Yu takes the title role as a young kung fu student who prides himself on his skill and his upright standing. These skills are tested and defeated when a local rival enlists the help of a group of Japanese fighters who then kill most of Wang Yu’s school. The injured hero barely escapes with his life and moves to a retreat to learn the Iron Palm–the only technique that can defeat the force of Japanese karate. Having finished his rigorous training, the Chinese fighter faces his numerous foes in a series of nicely choreographed fight scenes.Read More »

Quote:
Jessica awakens when an alien spacecraft lands nearby. After dispatching a young couple, the alien assumes the identity of the recently dispatched young man. Jessica and her possessive lover Josephine invite “Anders” in when it appears he’s hurt. Soon Jessica becomes suspicious of Josephine’s overbearing ways, and relies more on the alien for support, but his purpose on earth remains unclear.Read More »

Defying threats coming from leaders of the fascist Iron Guard movement, music-hall comedian and theatre manager Costica Caratase (whos character is based on legendary real-life actor and theatre director Constantin Tanas) prepares his new show – a satirical musical comedy that pokes fun at The Iron Guard and Nazi Germany. A day before the premiere, Caratase is kidnapped, his assistant, Ionel Friedman murdered…Read More »

The story of two singers/prostitutes that dream of a big house, 160kg former opera diva/wife of an ex-minister of Agriculture that was kidnapped, a police captain with a tapeworm, a rock band that want to become famous, an ex-police captain with a chiken egg under his armpit and many others intresting persons…Read More »

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The Songs are a cycle of silent color 8mm films by the American experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage produced from 1964 to 1969. They are seen as one of Brakhage’s major works and include the feature-length 23rd Psalm Branch, considered by some to be one of the filmmaker’s masterworks and described by film historian P. Adams Sitney as “an apocalypse of imagination.” One of the filmmaker’s most overtly political films, 23rd Psalm Branch is often interpreted as being Brakhage’s reaction to the Vietnam War.Read More »

Sadao Nakajima had made his name with Toei’s particular brand of violent action movie, but by the early seventies, the classic yakuza flick was going out of fashion. Datsugoku Hiroshima Satsujinshu (脱獄広島殺人囚, AKA The Rapacious Jailbreaker) follows in the wake of seminal genre buster, Battles Without Honour and Humanity, but also honours the classic Toei ganger movie past in its exploitation leaning, cynically humorous tale of a serial escapee and his ever more convoluted schemes to avoid the bumbling police force’s noose.Read More »

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A documentary following the lives of motorcycle racers and racing enthusiasts, including actor Steve McQueen. First asking the question “Why do they do it?” this film looks at the people who devote (and sometimes risk) their lives to racing on tracks and off-road courses around the world.Read More »

Quote:
Back in the 16th Century, a witch is burned by the local Squire but she returns to life to kill him and his wife, and curse all of his descendents. Three hundred years later, a film director, descended from the Squire, has made a film about the curse and is astonished to find that the witch’s hatred is still very much alive. Gradually, people connected with the film begin dying in bizarre circumstances and it begins to look as if no-one in London is safe from the curse.Read More »

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Virtually unknown outside of Italy, Messiah (Il Messia) is historically important as the last directorial effort of Roberto Rossellini. In retelling the life of Christ, Rosselini harks back to the humanistic style he’d utilized on his many Italian TV projects of the 1960s. The director has no intention of depicting Jesus as being the vessel of divine providence. The Man from Galilee is shown simply as one who is unusually moral and of spotless character — the sort of person who’d be a natural leader no matter who his Father was. Co-scripted by its director, Messiah was completed in 1975, but not given a general release until 1978.Read More »