1980s

Jack Stryker took two bullets in the leg in Vietnam and was carried back by one of his men. When he returns, he tries to live a quiet life in his cabin and go back out with his girlfriend, Sally.Read More »

Quote:
Though the kinky characters and aberrant social behavior common to the works of Spanish director Pedro Almodovar are very evident in his Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, the film is at heart a door-slamming farce in the grand tradition. The tiny apartment of pregnant actress Carmen Maura is the “Grand Central Station” setpiece for this dizzying tale. Distraught over her recent breakup with her lover, Carmen prepares to overdose on sleeping pills, which she blends into a gazpacho so they’ll go down easier. She is diverted from her suicide by her best friend Maria Barranco, a fugitive from justice (her boy friend is a Shi’Ite terrorist) who needs a place to stay. Later, when Carmen’s apartment is empty, her ex-lover’s grown son (Antonio Banderas) comes to the apartment with his fiance (Rossy de Palma) in answer to Carmen’s “room to let” newspaper ad. The wife inadvertently ingests Carmen’s “pill sauce,” and as she blissfully snoozes, the husband inaugurates an affair with Carmen’s friend Barranco.Read More »

From DVD booklet:
The works recorded here are made by Jun Kurosawa mainly in his years
at university.
The remarks on Jun Kurosawa’s works have been focusing on his
impulse of destruction, which are expressed in degenerative keywords
such as “death” and “thanatos”: whereas aesthetical images are
also often mentioned. Is it because his distinct features help them to
establish such images? The features can be described as “film scratch”
and “harsh noise,” all of which can be found in his masterpieces such
as “NEKO-MIMI (1994)” and “JESUS WITH ONE LEG (1991-1994).”Read More »

from letterboxd:
This is Kurosawa Jun, so naturally some symbolism eludes my thought process, but the sensory experience of a crystal ship sailing down the ocean of radiance holds intrinsic merit. Not only does Kurosawa depict shape in a more dynamic arrangement than usual, but the cadence he establishes forms an engaging leitmotif throughout.Read More »

This tense story is set during World War II Italy. A mother and her daughter flee what once was the safety of Rome to seek refuge in the mountains. Their journey turns out to be one they could never have imagined.Read More »

Noted Iranian actress Susan Taslimi plays an impoverished single mother who agees to marry off her 13-year-old daughter to a middle-aged man in return for a mare, which will help her earn an income and provide for her younger children. Director Ali Zhekan paints a stark picture of poverty and patriarchy in rural Iran (the mother stores her rice in a container hidden in a tree; her brother, who brokered the wedding, mercilessly beats the recalcitrant child), but this 1986 film is distinguished mostly by Taslimi’s increasingly fiery performance as the mother decides to defend her daughter’s freedom.Read More »

From DVD booklet:
The works recorded here are made by Jun Kurosawa mainly in his years
at university.
The remarks on Jun Kurosawa’s works have been focusing on his
impulse of destruction, which are expressed in degenerative keywords
such as “death” and “thanatos”: whereas aesthetical images are
also often mentioned. Is it because his distinct features help them to
establish such images? The features can be described as “film scratch”
and “harsh noise,” all of which can be found in his masterpieces such
as “NEKO-MIMI (1994)” and “JESUS WITH ONE LEG (1991-1994).”Read More »

Black and white short film with Claudia Skoda and Gerhard Plez as actors.
It is part of Infermental 1, a film that gathers short films of many German directors and lasts 4 hours.Read More »

Reviews:
1. A little forgotten masterpiece. This surreal comedy is one of those rare examples where the tragic and the hilarious are inseparable. Three homeless chaps from Rome spend their time scavenging rubbish or cheating local restaurants in order to secure their daily food. They accidentally end up in the Italian countryside where they get involved in a series of paradoxical situations, suffer delusions from extreme lack of nutrition while encountering bizarre people from every social stratum along the way. Despite the hilarious moments, there is understated pessimism and subtle misanthropy through out, the poor are barbaric and illiterate scum eager to kill you for a plate of soup, the rich are exploitative cruel bastards, the ‘saviour’ of the people is a deranged messiah-like figure in serum who leads them into a futile excursion up a mountain top. Great performance as usual by R.Benigni and nice score from N.Piovani. (orso-antinome from tumblr)Read More »