A high-spirited wife and her meekish husband hit the road to take back her kids from her previous marriage who live with her ex-inlaws.

Second.Hand.Hearts.1981.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-Ov.mkv

General
Container:	Matroska
Runtime:	1h 37mn
Size:	6.72 GiB
Video
Codec:	h264
Resolution:	1920x1080
Aspect ratio:	16:9
Frame rate:	23.976 fps
Bit rate:	10 000 kb/s
Audio
English 2.0ch E-AC-3 @ 224 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/2C6519A4CB9B5F1/Second.Hand.Hearts.1981.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-Ov.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Hal Ashby – Second-Hand Hearts (1981) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
The Last Detail fits very nicely into its early 1970s milieu: distinctly anti-authoritarian, the film is chock full of cursing, sexual language, rowdiness, and downright rudeness. Of course, Jack Nicholson’s devilish grin was the perfect vehicle to carry this sort of pointedly subversive material, because he was so likable doing it. From Easy Rider to Five Easy Pieces to The Last Detail to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nicholson made the role of the (often hilarious) nonconformist his own. Reclusive director/editor Hal Ashby was also a perfect fit for the film and the time period. Fresh from the offbeat critical success of the serio-comic Harold and Maude, Ashby brought an “experimental” feel to the film, most obviously in the jump cut editing borrowed from the French New Wave. Screenwriter Robert Towne was nominated for an Academy Award (his second of three in a row, following Chinatown and preceding Shampoo). Towne’s f-word-strewn dialogue had Columbia shaking in their boots, and they refused to release the picture. It was only after Nicholson won the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival that they gave it a run. But they never supported it much, and it died an unnecessary death at the box office. It has since come to be regarded as one of Nicholson’s best, if not best-known, performances.

Hal Ashby - (1973) The Last Detail.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1h 44mn
Size: 	1.93 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1024x556 
Aspect ratio:  	1.85:1
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	2 454 Kbps
BPP: 	0.180
Audio
#1:  	English 1.0ch AC-3 @ 192 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/56A747CB0BF083D/Hal_Ashby_-_(1973)_The_Last_Detail.mkv
or
https://nitro.download/view/464F7E6CB0E616A/Hal_Ashby_-_(1973)_The_Last_Detail.part1.rar
https://nitro.download/view/C6FB9D7B95CB986/Hal_Ashby_-_(1973)_The_Last_Detail.part2.rar

Language(s):English
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The post Hal Ashby – The Last Detail (1973) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Two gamblers must leave New York City after one loses a lot of money. Doing what all gamblers in trouble would do, they hurry to the gambling capital Las Vegas to turn their luck around.

Unlike his previous film (ugly, awful Second-Hand Hearts), this is an interesting one from Hal Ashby, where he successfully does a Cassavetes-style direction. A number of scenes look more like bloopers that usually get cut out, but that’s where improvisation can take you every now and then, and Ashby was willing to take that road, especially considering the fact that extended version is the one that probably saved all those bloopers. A successful mess that owes most of its charm to Burt Young, who is just amazing and swims in this mess like a fish.

3.40GB | 1h 59m | 1276×720 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/222E14B6DA36396/Lookin’_to_Get_Out!_1982_720p_WEB-DL_AAC2.0_H.264-alfaHD.mkv
or
https://fikper.com/r0DVe5I03A/Lookin’_to_Get_Out!_1982_720p_WEB-DL_AAC2.0_H.264-alfaHD.mkv.html

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Hal Ashby – Lookin’ to Get Out (1982) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Barbara Harris (Nashville) cons Robert Blake (Baretta) into a marriage of inconvenience in this offbeat romantic comedy from Oscar®-winning* director Hal Ashby (Coming Home). A honkytonk waitress in Texas, Dinette Dusty (Harris) desperately misses her children. Forced to board them with her late husband’s parents, she finds the means to get them back when Loyal Muke (Blake) stumbles into the bar. Plying the boozy drifter with drinks, Dinette suggests they get hitched and become the children’s new guardians. Sobering up to a wife and three kids, Loyal drives them west in search of an exit, while Dinette keeps her eyes on the road ahead to make sure they don’t get ditched. *Film Editing, In the Heat of the Night, 1967

DVD Source: Warner Archive, Region 0, DVD5
DVD Format: NTSC
DVD Audio: English
Program: AnyDVD
Menus: Untouched
Video: Untouched
Audio: Untouched
DVD extras: Untouched

https://nitro.download/view/A615CBA285FB36C/Second-Hand_Hearts.part1.rar https://nitro.download/view/F8DE4FB4AFA0355/Second-Hand_Hearts.part2.rar https://nitro.download/view/BB06B51CDFF0174/Second-Hand_Hearts.part3.rar https://nitro.download/view/33738AA2B1742F8/Second-Hand_Hearts.part4.rar

Language(s):English
Subtitles:None

The post Hal Ashby – Second-Hand Hearts (1981) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Legendary filmmaker Hal Ashby (Coming Home, 8 Million Ways to Die) makes his directing debut with this acclaimed social satire starring Beau Bridges (The Hotel New Hampshire) as a wealthy young man who leaves his family’s estate in Long Island to pursue love and happiness in a Brooklyn ghetto. When Elgar Enders (Bridges) buys a Park Slope tenement, he fully intends to evict the occupants and transform the building into a chic bachelor pad. But after meeting the tenants, Elgar adopts a “love thy neighbor” policy instead: first he falls head-over-heels for a sexy young go-go dancer… then he begins an affair with the sultry, married “Miss Sepia 1957.” Featuring brilliant performances by Lee Grant (The Balcony) in an Oscar®-nominated role, Pearl Bailey (Porgy and Bess), Louis Gossett Jr. (The Laughing Policeman), Robert Klein (Hooper), Trish Van Devere (Where’s Poppa?), Hector Elizondo (The Flamingo Kid), Gloria Hendry (Black Belt Jones) and Susan Anspach (The Big Fix), and with a potent script by Bill Gunn (Ganja & Hess) based on the novel by Kristin Hunter (Boss Cat), The Landlord is one of the most original and provocative screen comedies to deal with race relations in urban America. Produced by Norman Jewison (The Thomas Crown Affair) and shot by Gordon Willis (The Godfather).

2.51GB | 1 h 50 min | 1024×552 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/D7028F03B822A3B/Hal_Ashby_-_(1970)_The_Landlord.mkv

Language:English
Subtitles:English

The post Hal Ashby – The Landlord (1970) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Plot Synopsis from allmovie.com
A frankly adult comedy about the sex lives of the aimless and the rich, Shampoo is also a pointed commentary on the demise of 1960s idealism at the dawn of the Nixon era. It is Election Day, 1968, and randy Beverly Hills hairdresser George Roundy (Warren Beatty) is too worried about attending to all of his women’s tonsorial and sexual needs, while trying to swing a bank loan to fund his own salon, to notice the fateful Presidential race. As George juggles the demands of girlfriend Jill (Goldie Hawn) and mistress Felicia (Lee Grant), not to mention Felicia’s daughter (Carrie Fisher), he meets Felicia’s husband Lester (Jack Warden) to get money for the salon and discovers that his beloved ex-girlfriend Jackie (Julie Christie) is now Lester’s mistress. Lester asks George to escort Jackie to a banquet for Nixon supporters, leading to a series of climactic confrontations at the dinner and a Hollywood orgy that expose the conflicting demands of sex, love, and security among these terminally narcissistic L.A. denizens. As Nixon’s victory speech drones in the background the following day and Paul Simon’s mournful ’60s music plays on the soundtrack, George’s free-wheeling world collapses around him for reasons that he can barely begin to comprehend. Produced and co-written (with Chinatown scribe Robert Towne) by its star Warren Beatty, Shampoo became Beatty’s second critical and popular success as a producer after Bonnie and Clyde, and it bolstered Hal Ashby’s track record as director. Shampoo earned Grant an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, as well as a Supporting Actor nomination for Warden and Beatty’s first nomination as writer. With Nixon’s 1974 Watergate disgrace adding an extra edge to the humor for 1975 audiences, this tragic bedroom farce became one of the highest-grossing films in Columbia Pictures’ history at the time.

Awards
Academy Awards, USA
Won Oscar Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Lee Grant

Nominated Oscar Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Jack Warden

Best Art Direction-Set Decoration
Richard Sylbert
W. Stewart Campbell
George Gaines

Best Writing, Original Screenplay
Robert Towne
Warren Beatty

BAFTA Awards
Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Supporting Actor
Jack Warden

Golden Globes, USA
Nominated Golden Globe Best Motion Picture – Musical/Comedy

Best Motion Picture Actor – Musical/Comedy
Warren Beatty

Best Motion Picture Actress – Musical/Comedy
Julie Christie

Best Motion Picture Actress – Musical/Comedy
Goldie Hawn

Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture
Lee Grant

National Society of Film Critics Awards, USA
Won NSFC Award Best Screenplay
Robert Towne
Warren Beatty

Writers Guild of America, USA
Won WGA Award (Screen) Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen
Robert Towne
Warren Beatty

2.68GB | 1h 50m | 1024×552 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/69E0E792B534634/Shampoo.1975.576p.BluRay.x264-ROOKIE.mkv

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Subtitles:English (muxed)

The post Hal Ashby – Shampoo (1975) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Roger Ebert / May 25, 1997
On the day that Kasparov was defeated by Deep Blue, I found myself thinking of the film “Being There” (1979). The chess champion said there was something about the computer he did not understand, and it frightened him. There were moments when the computer seemed to be . . . thinking. Of course, chess is not a game of thought but of mathematical strategy; Deep Blue has demonstrated it is possible to be very good at it without possessing consciousness.

The classic test of Artificial Intelligence has been: Can a computer be programmed to conduct a conversation that seems human to another human? “Being There” is a film about a man whose mind works like a rudimentary A.I. program.

His mind has been supplied with a fund of simplistic generalizations about the world, phrased in terms of the garden where he has worked all his adult life. But because he presents himself as a man of good breeding (he walks and talks like the wealthy older man whose house he lived in, and wears the man’s tailored suits) his simplicity is mistaken for profundity, and soon he is advising presidents and befriending millionaires.

The man’s name is Chance. We gather he has lived all of his life inside the townhouse and walled garden of a rich recluse (perhaps he is his son). He knows what he needs to know for his daily routine: Where his bedroom and bathroom are, and how to tend the plants of the garden. His meals are produced by Louise, the cook. The movie provides no diagnosis of his condition. He is able to respond to given cues, and can, within limits, adapt and learn.

Early in the film he introduces himself as “Chance . . . the gardener,” and is misunderstood as having said “Chauncey Gardener.” Just the sort of WASP name that matches his clothing and demeanor, and soon he is telling the President: “Spring, summer, autumn, winter . . . then spring again.” Indeed.

Chance is played by Peter Sellers, an actor who once told me he had “absolutely no personality at all. I am a chameleon. When I am not playing a role, I am nobody.” Of course, he thought himself ideal for this role, which comes from a novel by Jerzy Kosinski. Sellers plays Chance as a man at peace with himself. When the old man dies, the household is broken up and Chance is evicted, there is a famous scene where he is confronted by possible muggers, and simply points a channel changer at them, and clicks. He is surprised when they do not go away.

Sellers plays Chance at exactly the same note for the entire film. He is detached, calm, secure in his own knowledge, unaware of his limitations. Through a series of happy chances, he is taken into the home of a dying millionaire named Benjamin Rand (Melvyn Douglas). The millionaire’s wife Eve (Shirley MacLaine) establishes Chance in a guest suite, where he is happy to find a television (his most famous line is, “I like to watch.”)

Soon the rich man grows to treasure his reassuring friend. The family doctor (Richard Dysart) is perceptive, and begins to have doubts about Chance’s authenticity, but silences himself when his patient says Chauncey “has made the thought of dying much easier.” Chauncey is introduced by Ben to the president (Jack Warden), becomes an unofficial advisor, and soon is being interviewed on television, where his insights fit nicely into the limited space available for sound bites.

Satire is a threatened species in American film, and when it does occur, it’s usually broad and slapstick, as in the Mel Brooks films. “Being There,” directed by Hal Ashby, is a rare and subtle bird that finds its tone and stays with it. It has the appeal of an ingenious intellectual game, in which the hero survives a series of challenges he doesn’t understand, using words that are both universal and meaningless. But are Chance’s sayings noticeably less useful than when the president tells us about a “bridge to the 21st century?” Sensible public speech in our time is limited by (1) the need to stay within he confines of the 10-second TV sound bite; (2) the desire to avoid being pinned down to specific claims or promises; and (3) the abbreviated attention span of the audience, which, like Chance, likes to watch but always has a channel-changer poised.

If Chance’s little slogans reveal how superficial public utterance can be, his reception reveals still more. Because he is WASP, middle-aged, well-groomed, dressed in tailored suits, and speaks like an educated man, he is automatically presumed to be a person of substance. He is, in fact, socially naive (“You’re always going to be a little boy,” Louise tells him). But this leads to a directness than can be mistaken for confidence, as when he addresses the president by his first name, or enfolds his hand in both of his own. The movie argues that if you look right, sound right, speak in platitudes and have powerful friends, you can go far in our society. By the end of the film, Chance is being seriously proposed as a presidential candidate. Well, why not? I once watched Lamar Alexander for 45 minutes on C-SPAN, as he made small talk in a New Hampshire diner, and heard nothing that Chance could not have said.

The film is not flawless. There are two sex-oriented subplots, and neither one is necessary. The story of the president’s impotence could have been completely dispensed with. And the seduction attempt by Shirley MacLaine, as the millionaire’s wife, requires her to act in a less intelligent way than she should. MacLaine projects brains; she, like the doctor, should have caught on, and that would have created more intriguing scenes than her embarrassing poses on a bear rug.

In the much-discussed final sequence of “Being There,” Chance casually walks onto the surface of a lake. We can see that he is really walking on the water, because he leans over curiously and sticks his umbrella down into it.

When I taught the film, I had endless discussions with my students over this scene. Many insisted on explaining it: He is walking on a hidden sandbar, the water is only half an inch deep, there is a submerged pier, etc. “Not valid!” I thundered. “The movie presents us with an image, and while you may discuss the meaning of the image it is not permitted to devise explanations for it. Since Ashby does not show a pier, there is no pier–a movie is exactly what it shows us, and nothing more,” etc.

So what does it show us? It shows us Chance doing something that is primarily associated with only one other figure in human history. What are we to assume? That Chance is a Christ figure? That the wisdom of great leaders only has the appearance of meaning? That we find in politics and religion whatever we seek? That like the Road Runner (who also defies gravity) he will not sink until he understands his dilemma?

The movie’s implications are alarming. Is it possible that we are all just clever versions of Chance the gardener? That we are trained from an early age to respond automatically to given words and concepts? That we never really think out much of anything for ourselves, but are content to repeat what works for others in the same situation?

The last words in the movie are, “Life is a state of mind.” So no computer will ever be alive. But to the degree that we are limited by our programming, neither will we. The question is not whether a computer will ever think like a human, but whether we choose to free ourselves from thinking like computers.

Hal Ashby - (1979) Being There.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	2h 10mn
Size: 	2.42 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1024x560 
Aspect ratio:  	1.85:1
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	2 471 Kbps
BPP: 	0.180
Audio
#1:  	English 1.0ch AC-3 @ 192 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/D17D498300D6BF0/Hal_Ashby_-_(1979)_Being_There.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Hal Ashby – Being There (1979) first appeared on Cinema of the World.