2000s

synopsis
Relationship between father and son against the background of the Maoist regime in China, starting at the end of the Cultural Revolution in the year that Mao died (1976), and into the following two decades. The father, a painter, had been interned in a labour camp for “re-education”, and lost his ability to paint. Upon being released he teaches his son to draw, but is obsessive about it and doesn’t allow his son any freedom or independence. Their convoluted relationship throughout the son’s childhood and into adulthood is shown in an absorbing way. The film is also a snapshot of the political and social changes that China was undergoing.Read More »

Imdb:
Holy Steampunk, Sherlock Holmes! Screen idol Takeshi Kaneshiro is back and this time hes showing his respect for Lupin, Raffles and all the great thieves and masked penny dreadful heroes of the turn-of-the-century in this massive steampunk blow-out directed by Shimako Sato, one of the few female directors in the big budget end of the Japanese film industry.Read More »

Synopsis:
Sultry courtship display between a waitress and customer in a café.

At nine o’clock in the morning, the Santos Palace coffee bar opens its doors. The waitress pours her first cup of coffee for an unknown elderly man. They circle each other a little, in a kind of sultry courtship display. When the other, younger waitress arrives, jealousy ensues.Read More »

Synopsis:
As every year, chief inspector Paul Bellamy spends a few days with his wife Françoise in the family house in Nîmes. Jacques, Paul’s stepbrother, turns up unawares, which is bad news since the fellow is an alcoholic good for nothing. Also annoying is this stranger at bay who asks Bellamy for protection. Farewell peaceful holiday!Read More »

Synopsis:
Set in Hong Kong, 1962, Chow Mo-Wan is a newspaper editor who moves into a new building with his wife. At the same time, Su Li-zhen, a beautiful secretary and her executive husband also move in to the crowded building. With their spouses often away, Chow and Li-zhen spend most of their time together as friends. They have everything in common from noodle shops to martial arts. Soon, they are shocked to discover that their spouses are having an affair. Hurt and angry, they find comfort in their growing friendship even as they resolve not to be like their unfaithful mates.Read More »

In this weird, wicked and wonderfully perverse shocker from Japan, we meet Sumida, a disabled young man marked by his wheelchair, his electronic voice box, his rampant alcoholism, and his appetite for porn. When a female student temporarily becomes his carer during her college studies, he mistakes her harmless flirtation for true love. Her eventual rejection sends Sumida on a downward spiral in which his repressed rage erupts in random violence. Black-and-white cinematography by Masaaki Takakura.Read More »

Eighteen-year-old Maggy has a baby, Lucy, eight months old. She has dropped out of school and broken up with Lucy’s father. Maggy still lives with her mother, who often takes care of the baby so that Maggy can occasionally meet with her girlfriends or go out for an evening. At a disco she meets Gordon and soon falls in love with him. He’s not much older than she is, but she is impressed by the fact that he earns his own living and even has his own flat.Read More »

Quote:
In 1974, the New York City music scene was shocked into consciousness by the violently new sound of a band from Queens: The Ramones. Playing in a seedy Bowery bar to a small group of fellow struggling musicians, the band struck a chord of disharmony that rocked the foundation of the placid mid-1970s music scene. Tracing the history of the band over three decades, END OF THE CENTURY is a vibrant, candid document of one of the most influential groups in the history of rock.Read More »

Quote:
The Sahara Desert occupies most of the northern continent of Africa. It’s eight-and-a-half-million square kilometres in area, and stretches from Mauritania on the Atlantic coast, through Mali, Niger and Chad, and ends at the Red Sea in Sudan. It’s arid, bleak and unforgiving. Outbreaks of civil war between various desert tribes spring up continuously along the entire route. The carcasses of the desert’s victims — camels, goats and scorpions – litter its vast expanse, having succumbed to the heat or the lack of water or the violence of its storms. What, then, would possess someone to traverse this hell on earth – alone?Read More »