Billy Connolly plays Steve Myers, a lawyer who became a fisherman from frustration.
When his one piece of property, his boat, is struck by lightning and destroyed he is
denied insurance money because it was ‘an act of God’. He re-registers as a lawyer and
sues the insurance company and the church under the guise of God, defending himself.
The accident leads him to a friendship and eventual relationship with a journalist, Anna
Redmond (Davis).Read More »
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In this intriguing experiment, four Austrian filmmakers (Barbara Albert, Michael Glawogger, Ulrich Seidl, Michael Sturminger) take their cameras to the streets to find out what’s going on in their country, most notably why in the last election the country elected a far-right candidate (Jörg Haider) to the presidency. The film is divided into six documentary segments of varying lengths, capturing the rhythms of life around the country.Read More »
Andreas (Bud Tingwell) and Claire (Julia Blake) were lovers in Belgium, soon after the Second World War. More than fifty years later, after the death of Andreas’ wife, they meet again in present-day Adelaide. Although both are over 70, they fall in love all over again. Through their relationship they discover wisdom and the joy of life – despite the anger of Claire’s husband (Terry Norris) and the inevitable shadows of sickness and death.Read More »
A good heart and bad luck will get you nothing but trouble. That’s what Ryan discovers – the hard way – when he thought hitting the road would solve all of his problems, instead it was just the beginning. Ryan (Bill LeVasseur, The West Wing) falls into one circumstantial trouble after another. From getting car-jacked at gun-point, being mistaken for a mobster’s son, to a run-in with cheerleaders intent on vigilante justice, Ryan barely escapes one mess before landing in the middle of another. Finally able to go home, Ryan heads back out on the highway. But has his luck really changed, or is there only more trouble in store for our charming hero?Read More »
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Les Contes Secrets ou les Rohmériens features interviews with 16 actors who have appeared in Rohmer’s films, and they talk on camera about his unusual working methods, his personality, and his spare but evocative signature style. Among the thespians who share their memories are Jean-Louis Trinitignant, Marie-Christine Barrault, Zouzou, Jean-Claude Brialy, Béatrice Romand, Françoise Fabian, and Andre Dussolier; the film also includes rare footage of Rohmer himself at work on the set of his 1978 effort Perceval.Read More »
A mother’s courage, hardship, and love, in times of war. In 1988, during the Iran-Iraq war, Gilane escorts her pregnant daughter, Maygol, from the relative calm of their village, Espili, into war-torn Tehran to search for Maygol’s husband, Rahman. The journey is arduous and what they find when they reach the capital is dismaying and frightening. Fifteen years later, as another war begins in Iraq, Gillane is at home caring for her son Ismael, who suffers from epilepsy, a byproduct of war. As she cares for him, she hopes for a visit from the doctor and from another daughter, Atefah. “Better be a dog than a mother,” she says.Read More »
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Alex, a hit man, tries to get out of the family business, but his father won’t let him do so. While seeking the help of a therapist, he meets a sexually charged 23-year-old woman with whom he falls in love.Read More »
Letterboxd review by Wilson ★★★★½
Bernard Rose is an interesting filmmaker, with a strange obsession for adapting Leo Tolstoy. ivans xtc. is his version of the Tolstoy novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
Rose has directed another four Tolstoy adaptations, as far as I can see (pretty sure Leo didn’t have a short story about Candyman…), he has also made Anna Karenina (1997), The Kreutzer Sonata, Two Jacks and Boxing Day.
Rose takes the Tolstoy stories and updates them to the modern day, often setting them in sleazy Hollywood. He casts Danny Huston and lets rip.Read More »
In 1959, in Romania, six former members of the nomenklatura and the secret police organize a hold up of the National Bank. After their arrest, the state forces them to play themselves in a film which reconstitutes the crime and the investigation. At the end of their trial, filmed live, they are sentenced to death and executed. A month later, the film Reconstitution was released and became a sensation throughout the country.Read More »