Finally, 50 years after it was original broadcast, the foundational documentary television series “An American Family” has been made available on DVD in legible quality. Routinely cited as the birth of reality television, the series broadcasted the goings on of Santa Barbara’s Loud family to 10 million viewers weekly, creating a massive public forum for a select few private lives.Read More »
Returning from his imprisonment in Russia during the First World War, Franz Ferdinand Trotta, a young KuK officer, discovers how much the defeat has transformed Vienna and his people. He is stunned by the new order of things. Having lost his entire fortune and his wife, who is having a sapphic relationship with a Hungarian artist, he tries to regain his place in a world that appears devastated.Read More »
The events surrounding the military coup which toppled the leftists Chilean government of Salvador Allende are chronicled in this Soviet docudrama. Nochi Nad Chili doesn’t go deeply into the names or motives of the hidden forces which might have sponsored the coup (the CIA and IT&T had been named as perpetrators). Instead, this film confines its efforts to the main events themselves and is based on interviews with eyewitnesses, including many who resisted the takeover.Read More »
A small-time hood aspires to work his way up the ranks of a local mob.Read More »
Guy Gilles’ view of Mexico focuses mainly on the dreams of ordinary Mexicans and their ways of expression: fun and festivity.Read More »
With Spanish cinema still under the oppressive Franco regime, four filmmakers banded together to create a horror anthology that examined classic themes through transgressive perceptions: Directed by José María Vallés, TAROT stars Julián Ugarte (ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK) in a grim tale of fanaticism set in the Middle Ages. Eusebio Poncela (THE CANNIBAL MAN) and Marisa Paredes (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER) star in VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN, a unique take on Mary Shelley’s classic directed by Emilio Martínez-Lázaro (THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BED). TERROR AMONG CHRISTIANS, directed by Francesc Bellmunt, is a jolting vampire allegory set during Roman times. Jaime Chávarri – co-writer of VAMPYROS LESBOS and future icon of New Spanish Cinema – directs the twisted ghost story THE DANCE OR EMOTIONAL SURVIVALS starring Luis Ciges (THE CREATURE). Never available outside of Spain, CAKE OF BLOOD is now scanned in 4K from the original negative for the first time ever.Read More »
“Violette (Isabelle Adjani) is fascinated with the shabby background and low-down ways of her boyfriend Francois (Jacques Dutronc), and despite her middle-class family’s objections, she marries him. Unable to keep a job, and without any real skills, he has a hard time supporting them, especially after the birth of their baby. He turns to shoplifting, and she briefly leaves him when she discovers this. Sometime after they get back together, with money still in short supply, she takes a turn at shoplifting too, and gets a kick out of it. “Read More »
The story follows the life of Leni Gruyten, a regular German woman during the 1930s and 40s. Through her interactions with friends, family, and other people she knows, the regular folks’ perception of the Nazi era is shown.Read More »
Guided throughout by the swells and dips of Tchaikovsky’s music, Ken Russell’s The Music Lovers examines the tragedies of Tchaikovsky’s life through opulent and fantastic musical sequences running alongside a narrative of the composer’s life between 1875 and 1881. Touching on his disastrous marriage with Antonina Miliukova, his relationship with his patroness Nadezhda von Meck, and his repressed homosexuality, The Music Lovers is anchored by magnetic central performances from Glenda Jackson following her Academy Award for Women in Love, coupled with Richard Chamberlain as a neurotic Tchaikovsky.Read More »