A young Jew in 19th-century London, Esther Kahn is so disconnected with her surroundings – hardly speaking, emotionless – that she seems retarded. Unhappy among her poor tailoring family, she yearns for the stage. Only there does she engage with life.

Esther.Kahn.2000.DVDRip.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

General
Container:	Matroska
Runtime:	2h 36mn
Size:	2.73 GiB
DXVA:	Compatible
Minimum settings:	Met
Video
Codec:	x264
Resolution:	700x550 ~> 977x550
Aspect ratio:	16:9
Frame rate:	25.000 fps
Bit rate:	2 125 Kbps
Audio
English 5.1ch AC-3 @ 320 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/A61EAEDDAB7633D/Esther.Kahn.2000.DVDRip.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:Spanish

The post Arnaud Desplechin – Esther Kahn (2000) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Moonlight on the Highway is a television play by Dennis Potter, first broadcast on 12 April 1969 as part of ITV’s Saturday Night Theatre strand. The tale of a young Al Bowlly obsessive attempting to blot out memories of sexual abuse via his fixation with the singer, the play was the first of Potter’s works to use popular music as a dramatic device and strongly anticipated Potter’s later ‘serials with songs’ Pennies from Heaven (1978), The Singing Detective (1986) and Lipstick on Your Collar (1993).

Synopsis
Al Bowlly obsessive David Peters (Ian Holm) is visited in his run-down bedsit by Marie (Deborah Grant), a researcher for Severn Television, who is collecting material for a documentary about the singer. David is the editor of the Al Bowlly Appreciation Society fanzine and Marie hopes to secure him as the programme advisor. David is enthusiastic about the offer but has other things on his mind; he has an appointment with an NHS psychiatrist the following day and his anxiety about the meeting, coupled with the novelty of entertaining his beautiful visitor, leads him to make an unwelcome pass at her. Marie fights off his advances and runs out the flat, leaving a defeated David to reflect on his problems.
In the waiting room the next day, David gets into an altercation with an elderly patient who has never heard of Al Bowlly. By the time he is finally called to see Dr Chilton (Anthony Bate), David is agitated by the older man’s ignorance – especially as today is the anniversary of Bowlly’s death. The doctor’s calm demeanour, however, soon puts David at ease and, with some difficulty, David explains that his mother died six weeks earlier after having nursed her throughout his adult life and harrowingly recounts how, at the age of ten, he was abducted by a stranger and sexually assaulted. Alongside these traumatic events, David hints as some “wicked” acts he has committed but Chilton stops him before he can elaborate on these and prescribes him some anti-depressants. He is warned not to drink alcohol or eat cheese while taking the tablets as they will “make [his] tongue wag.”
After David leaves, Chilton informs the two student doctors who have been in attendance throughout the session that he believes David’s claustrophobic relationship with his disabled mother and the earlier torment of sexual abuse have resulted in a sense of sexual disgust that he overcomes in his obsession with the innocent music of Al Bowlly. Chilton dismisses his junior colleagues’ concerns that David may attempt suicide and suggests it is more likely that the desperate desire to discharge his secrets will perhaps lead him to confide in a friend.
Later that evening, David attends the annual meeting of the Al Bowlly Appreciation Society. Relieved that his ordeal with the psychiatrist is over, David forgets the warning not to mix his medication with alcohol and drinks heavily. After much merriment, the Society President calls David up on stage to talk about the success of the fanzine. As David holds forth in his speech about the beauty and innocence of Bowlly’s music his mind wanders back to the sexual assault and, realising he is surrounded by friends whose attitudes to love and sex match his own, reveals that he has slept with 136 prostitutes. As he leaves the stage and the scandalised Society members return to their festivities, a jubilant David approaches a large blow-out of Bowlly mounted on the wall. He smiles: “Good old Al!”

Moonlight on the Highway [ITV Saturday Night Theatre] (Dennis Potter 1969) (1).mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	52 min 24 s
Size: 	792 MiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	698x576 ~> 768x576
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	1 919 kb/s
BPP: 	0.199
Audio
#1:  	2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s (Stereo)

https://nitro.download/view/17E138E754A7246/Moonlight_on_the_Highway__ITV_Saturday_Night_Theatre__(Dennis_Potter_1969)_(1).mkv

https://rapidgator.net/file/097c0376bff0763a98348be7deb679dc/Moonlight_on_the_Highway_[ITV_Saturday_Night_Theatre]_(Dennis_Potter_1969)_(1).mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:None

The post James MacTaggart & Dennis Potter – ITV Saturday Night Theatre: Moonlight on the Highway (1969)  first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Resolving the riddle of the Sphinx makes Oedipus the king of Thebes, but he also resolves another mystery – and it destroys him.

King Oedipus [Play of the Month] (Alan Bridges 1972).mkv

General
Container:	Matroska
Runtime:	1h 11mn
Size:	1.47 GiB
Video
Codec:	h264
Resolution:	1280x720
Aspect ratio:	16:9
Frame rate:	29.970 fps
Bit rate:	
Audio
English 2.0ch AAC

https://nitro.download/view/E1BDC1DE9707646/King_Oedipus__Play_of_the_Month__(Alan_Bridges_1972).mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:None

The post Alan Bridges – King Oedipus (1972) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

review – AMG:
A precisely cut social commentary, Dance with a Stranger captures the twin woes of austerity and repression that characterized 1950s Britain. Director Mike Newell keeps polemics to a minimum, treating his subject as a carefully observed study of class tension and sexual obsession. He dissects the Ellis-Blakely affair in the measured, diligent manner that one might employ to reconstruct a catastrophic train wreck; since the outcome is a foregone conclusion, Newell finds drama in the forces leading to that conclusion. The film works best as a grim character study, in which character is seen (by society) as an outgrowth of class. As Ruth Ellis, Miranda Richardson exemplifies what happens when one becomes a prisoner of both character and class; coming across as an icy Marilyn Monroe knock-off, Ellis is ruled by the misfortune of loving a man outside both her class and the possibility of human affection. She is ably supported by Rupert Everett, petulant and pretty as her spoiled brat lover, and Ian Holm as Desmond Cussen, whose own quiet obsession with Ellis forcefully complements her obsession with Blakely. Both obsessions are fraught with irrational desperation, but Cussen’s ends with a whimper, while Ellis’ ends with a fatal bang.

Dance.with.a.Stranger.1985.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-PLiSSKEN.mkv

General
Container:	Matroska
Runtime:	1h 41mn
Size:	6.91 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/A86ACCF59F48D9A/Dance.with.a.Stranger.1985.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-PLiSSKEN.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Mike Newell – Dance with a Stranger (1985) (HD) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

The mysterious death of an enigmatic young man newly arrived in the suburb of Wetherby releases the long-repressed, dark passions of some of its residents.

Quote:
A man kills himself among strangers. They never knew who he was, and they do not know why he chose to die. A man dying among strangers is like a tree falling unobserved in the forest. Death, especially suicide, requires resonance from those who knew the living person, before it can be assigned its proper meaning.

That is why “Wetherby” is such a haunting film, because it dares to suggest that the death of the stranger is important to everyone it touches – because it forces them to decide how alive they really are.

The movie begins with a woman who is living a sort of dead life. Her name is Jean Travers, she is played by Vanessa Redgrave, she was once in love with a young man who went off to fight the war and was killed. He was not killed gloriously, but stupidly, while getting involved in someone else’s drunken quarrel, but he was dead all the same. As the movie opens, Jean has been teaching school in the small town of Wetherby, where her life is on hold. She doesn’t walk around in a state of depression, she does have friends, she is a good teacher, but she is not engaged in life because she put all of her passion into the boy who died so many years ago.

One night she throws a small dinner party. Everyone drinks wine and sits around late, talking. One of the men at the table, John Morgan, sits mute all evening and finally makes a short speech about pain and love and honesty, that sounds as if every word were written with his own bitter tears. The next day, John Morgan comes back to Jean’s house, sits down for a cup of tea, and kills himself. A funny thing comes out in the investigation: John Morgan was not known to any of the other people at the dinner party. Apparently he invited himself.

The film moves from this beginning into an examination of the people who were touched by the death. In addition to Jean, there are the Pilboroughs (Ian Holm and Judi Dench), the local constable (Tom Wilkinson), and a young woman who knew the dead man (Suzanna Hamilton). Some small suspense develops for a while when it appears that Jean spent some time upstairs with John Morgan during the evening of her party – but that, and many other things, seem to be dead ends.

The movie flashes back into events in Jean’s youth, and she is played as a young girl by Joely Richardson, Redgrave’s daughter. There is an innocence and tenderness in those early scenes, as young Jean and her boyfriend kiss and neck and make promises, and as Jean gradually realizes that she is looking forward to marriage but he is much more excited by the prospect of putting on a uniform and going overseas. He goes overseas, and in some ways this movie is about the fact that Jean has become a middle-aged woman still waiting for him to come back.

“Wetherby” was written and directed by David Hare, who also wrote the current film “Plenty.” Both films are about women who were never able to fully live their lives after what happened to them during the war. I admire both films, but I found “Wetherby” more moving, because the heroine of “Plenty” was essentially a disturbed woman using her war memories as a crutch, and Jean Travers is a whole and healthy woman who only needs to give herself the permission to live. I left the movie thinking that was the lesson she learned from John Morgan. Hoping so, anyway.

Roger Ebert

wetherby.1985.720p.bluray.x264-veto.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1h 42mn
Size: 	4.37 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1280x720 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	4 569 Kbps
BPP: 	0.207
Audio
#1:  	English 2.0ch DTS @ 1 509 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/BB1ACE0BB812B5C/wetherby.1985.720p.bluray.x264-veto.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/E56CC14257BFFBD/wetherby.1985.720p.bluray.x264-veto.eng.srt
https://nitro.download/view/9C9AB96B5CB1C8A/wetherby.1985.720p.bluray.x264-veto.ptbr.srt

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English, Portuguese

The post David Hare – Wetherby (1985) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Dreamchild: A Film Essay by Elwin Cotman

Dreamchild, directed by Gavin Millar: “What was that name that Lewis Carroll used to call you?”

“That’s right. Dreamchild.”

That is a beautiful movie poster. Made doubly so by the fact that, in the movie, the moment it illustrates most likely didn’t happen. Dreamchild, the first film made by the Jim Henson Creature Shop without the auteur’s input, is a film about memory. What happened, what we wish had happened, what we wish we could take back. It is also, like the poster, beautiful.

In college I worked at the University of Pittsburgh’s Hillman Library. I was in the stacks department. We put books back where they belonged. I believe the department was famous for having Pitt’s longest-serving employee, a cantankerous old man who headed stacks for 30 or 40 years and always talked about his trips to the “piture show.” It was a job anybody could do and, accordingly, we were paid nothing. But it was comfortable, so comfortable it never occurred to me to secure an internship or some kind of real job at any point during my three years of undergrad. For two years I pushed around carts and tried not to fall asleep while shelf reading.

A great part of shelving books was the opportunity to lollygag and dillydally. I got plenty of reading done when I was hidden among those metal shelves. A particular favorite place to waste time was the magazine section, an impressive collection of hardbound magazines. I would dive into the old issues of Cinefantastique, the greatest ever journal devoted to speculative film. It was like having a time machine. I wiled away the hours reading articles about classic movies from before they came out. On-the-set reports from Temple of Doom and Conan the Barbarian. Reviews of Dragonslayer and Krull. Interviews with Joe Dante and Tobe Hooper during the height of Spielberg’s media ascendance.

One issue previewed a small English movie with an intriguing title: Dreamchild (1985). An intriguing title with an intriguing premise, based on true events: the 80-year-old Alice Hargreaves (née Liddell), the inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice, journeys to America to receive an honorary degree from Columbia University, in honor of the author’s centennial. In Depression-era New York City, she has several fantasy sequences involving characters from the novel, designed by the Jim Henson Creature Shop.

Let me repeat that.

Jim Henson. Doing Alice in Wonderland.

3.19GB | 1h 34mn | 1024×552 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/8F605422E78C34D/Gavin_Millar_-_(1985)_Dreamchild.mkv
or
https://fikper.com/uIgjR4QhRe/Gavin_Millar_-_(1985)_Dreamchild.mkv.html

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Gavin Millar – Dreamchild (1985) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
Facing a mid-life crisis, a woman rents an apartment next to a psychiatrist’s office to write a new book, only to become drawn to the plight of a pregnant woman seeking that doctor’s help.

1.81GB | 1h 21mn | 1024×560 | mkv

https://nitroflare.com/view/B58125392AEE4A9/Woody_Allen_-_(1988)_Another_Woman.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Woody Allen – Another Woman (1988) first appeared on Cinema of the World.