1990s

Plot: “The Smell of Burning Ants” is a haunting documentary on the pains of growing up male. It explores the inner and outer cruelties that boys perpetrate and endure. The film provokes the viewer to reflect on how our society can deprive boys of wholeness. Through formative events of a boy’s life, we come to understand the ways in which men can become emotionally disconnected and alienated from their feminine side. The common dismissal that “boys will be boys” evolves into the chilling realization that boys frequently become angry, destructive and emotionally disabled men. “The Smell of Burning Ants” illustrates how boys are socialized by fear, power and shame. The film is a catalyst for discussion and an opportunity to begin the process of healing the wounds of childhood.Read More »

“We’ve met before, haven’t we?” A mesmerizing meditation on the mysterious nature of identity, Lost Highway, David Lynch’s seventh feature film, is one of the filmmaker’s most potent cinematic dreamscapes. Starring Patricia Arquette and Bill Pullman, the film expands the horizons of the medium, taking its audience on a journey through the unknown and the unknowable. As this postmodern noir detours into the realm of science fiction, it becomes apparent that the only certainty is uncertainty.Read More »

Quote:
Pornographic shortfilm directed in 1998 for a campaign against AIDS, in association with French Ministry for Health. Phallus, a muscular Maciste with a huge penis, and Sodoma, a beautiful sodomite with a ponytail, find each other in the night, in an empty place. The king gives them, witnessed by Amazons in combat dress, a condom and a lube.Read More »

Synopsis:
Gangster boss Lung (Eddy Ko) is betrayed by someone within the own ranks who wants to see him dead. While Lung’s brother Frank (Simon Yam) is investigating the failed assassination attempt in order to find the culprit a unit of professional killers and bodyguards is put together to take care of Lung’s safety until the matter has been settled.Read More »

“A grim portrait of disaffection and loneliness, Gaspar Noe’s I Stand Alone is a movie clearly conceived to make a stir. With an armed, frustrated, and hate-filled time bomb at its center, it unabashedly recalls Taxi Driver, offering its own nihilistic spin on Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece of urban anomie and redemption. For a feature debut, it’s unbelievably daring. Noe doesn’t shy away from sprucing up his familiar story with Godard-ian flourishes, including occasional intertitles, a torrent of offscreen narration, and even a warning to the audience to leave before the wrenching finale. A more jarring conceit is the frequent use of abrupt cuts and fast dollies, accompanied by gunshots on the soundtrack. Genuinely startling and somewhat misconceived, the distracting device nonetheless goes some way toward evoking the volatile mindset of the protagonist.Read More »

Atom Egoyan directs and stars in this painfully honest account of an Armenian photographer’s search for love in spite of himself. His marriage in tatters, he starts dating again, but can’t quite jump in with both feet, and his heart, first. With every date, he puts the women through the paces, asking them to make sexually charged phone calls to others. When he finally meets his match, his ex suddenly comes back into the already murky picture. -netflix synopsisRead More »

Quote:
PASSION is a film dairy in which daily events are related to archaic and evolutionary images. The chemical decomposition of the film emulsion blurs the borders between the microcosmic world of the embryo and macrocosmic elements. It leads to an alchemical quest for filmic expression based on the exploration of film’s physical material qualities. Sound segments and melody fragments combined with rhythmical pulsating, droning and hissing of natural events create a dramatic tension between image, sound and chemistry.
PASSION is a personal film-journey in which Reble accompanies his unborn child in a filmdiary, following the seasons until his birth. Reble’s unfamiliar chemistry generates slowly pulsating structures and colors. Micro- and macroscopic imagery build a near-abstract, hypnotic landscape – an intimate perception of creation.
(Re:Voir Video)Read More »

from movie martyr:
Set on the eve of the millennium (December, 31, 1999), Hal Hartley’s The Book of Life manages to send up the notion of the apocalypse in Hartley’s typically offbeat way. The film, which is shot on digital video, follow Jesus (Martin Donovan) as he wanders around Manhattan, pondering whether or not he should unleash his judgment upon the world. He is accompanied by Magdalena (P.J. Harvey) who is his personal assistant and confidante.Read More »

Kazuyoshi Tamai, a High School student in Osaka is a street fighter who can do serious damage. So far he has had no trouble wiping up the floor with the competition. One night, he sees several young men getting beaten up on the street. When he finds out the ringleader behind the beating is Takeshi of Tennan High School, he rushes to challenge him. But through a series of events, he is unable to fight him. Years later, Kazuyoshi has become Japan’s bantamweight boxing champ, while Takeshi is the toast of the pro-wrestling world. The two brawlers are about to meet at last in the match of their lives!Read More »