Quote:
from wikipedia: Inspired by two elderly men Gardner met in New York City’s Central Park, the play focuses on Nat Moyer, a cantankerous Jew, and Midge Carter, a feisty African-American, who spend their days sitting on a bench. The both mask the realities of aging, sharing tall tales that Nat spins. The play touches on several issues, including society’s treatment of the aging, the difficulties dealing with adult children who think they know what’s best for their parents, and the dangers that lurk in urban areas.

Im.Not.Rappaport.1996.DVDRip.x264-PLAiD.mkv

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Container:	Matroska
Runtime:	2h 15mn
Size:	2.71 GiB
DXVA:	Compatible
Minimum settings:	Met
Video
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Audio
English 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/144CE093787678F/Im.Not.Rappaport.1996.DVDRip.x264-PLAiD.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English, French, Spanish

The post Herb Gardner – I’m Not Rappaport (1996) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
After running out of funds, Henry Graham, a carefree playboy, plots to marry and murder wealthy botanist Henrietta Lowell.

Quote:
Writer-director-star Elaine May’s first feature (1971). Not all of it works, and the studio cut some of the darker elements (including a murder sequence that May avows was one of the funniest things Jack Weston ever did), but it’s still an often brilliant and frequently hilarious comedy. Walter Matthau, cast wildly against type, plays a spoiled playboy suddenly deprived of his wealth who plots to marry and murder a wealthy, klutzy, and clueless botanist (May, playing sort of a female Jerry Lewis). May’s savage take on her characters irresistibly recalls Stroheim; she’s at once tender and corrosive (as well as narcissistic and self-hating). This is painful comedy, to be sure, but there’s a lot of soul and spirit behind it.

A.New.Leaf.1971.1080p.BluRay.FLAC1.0.x264-KG.mkv

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Runtime: 	1 h 42 min
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#1:  	English (US) 1.0ch FLAC @ 253 kb/s (Olive Films USA Blu-ray (2017))
#2:  	English (US) 2.0ch AAC LC @ 96.0 kb/s (Commentary by film scholar Maya Montañez Smukler / Olive Films USA Blu-ray (2017))
#3:  	English (US) 2.0ch AAC LC @ 110 kb/s (Commentary by film programmer/writer/educator K.J. Relth-Miller and film scholar Maya Montañez Smukler / Cinématographe USA Blu-ray (2025))

https://nitro.download/view/1A61C2D1E6F28D8/A.New.Leaf.1971.1080p.BluRay.FLAC1.0.x264-KG.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English, German, Spanish

The post Elaine May – A New Leaf (1971) (HD) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

In order to avoid being consigned to a retirement home, former salesman Joseph Kotcher leaves his son’s family home to embark on a road trip where he strikes up a friendship with a pregnant teenager.

Kotch.1971.BDRIP.576P.X264.AC3.AFKI.mkv

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Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 54 min
Size: 	3.01 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
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Aspect ratio:  	1.85:1
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#1:  	English 2.0ch FLAC @ 372 kb/s
#2:  	English 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s (Commentary by Film Historians Lee Gambin and Emma Westwood)

https://nitro.download/view/1681876D4177643/Kotch.1971.BDRIP.576P.X264.AC3.AFKI.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Jack Lemmon – Kotch (1971) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
KIRK DOUGLAS was worried. It was 1961, and this actor-producer had recently gambled on a big history picture, “Spartacus.” He had fired the director — Anthony Mann — after a week of shooting, replacing him with Stanley Kubrick. Mr. Douglas thought the picture had turned out well, but it still hadn’t been released. Meanwhile he had encountered a paperback novel — “The Brave Cowboy,” by Edward Abbey — and optioned it through his production company, Byrna. And Byrna, which had a production deal with Universal, commissioned a screenplay, by Dalton Trumbo.

Mr. Douglas was gambling again, but playing a good hand. The material — the story of a modern-day cowboy who breaks into jail to rescue his best friend — is original for a western, and gets better as it goes along. Its screenwriter was talented and hard working. (Blacklisted and jailed after refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Trumbo had for 10 years written scripts under assumed names, winning an Oscar for one of them as Robert Rich. Mr. Douglas went to bat for Trumbo on “Spartacus,” promising him a screen credit with his real name.) And Trumbo had solved the story’s two biggest problems: Why was the hero’s best friend in jail in the first place? And why wouldn’t he leave?

Abbey’s novel, published in 1956, is set a decade earlier, following the introduction of the military draft. Paul, the hero’s friend, has refused to register, not because he is a pacifist (he isn’t) but because he considers a draft unconstitutional. Like Abbey, Paul is an incipient libertarian or a patriotic anarchist. He has written the government and local authorities about his resistance to unjust authority and been given a year in jail. So it’s a moral imperative for Paul — when his old compadre John W. Burns shows up with two files and a plan to ride for Mexico — to turn him down.

Fifty years after the release of that film, “Lonely Are the Brave,” westerns may not be much in evidence at the multiplex. But on the small screen this summer, complex takes on the genre like “Hell on Wheels” (returning Aug. 12 to AMC) and “Longmire” (which has drawn big ratings for A&E) are in vogue again, and it’s worth taking another look at one of the bleakest westerns ever to grace the big screen.

In 1961, when Trumbo wrote the first version of the screenplay, it was unthinkable in Hollywood to feature a draft resister. It would be years before the Vietnam War made the draft an issue — so Trumbo, at his most sardonic, thought of an alternative crime for Paul: associating with parrot smugglers. This lasted one round of what is otherwise an excellent screenplay. In the next version, titled “The Last Hero,” Trumbo came up with another solution: Paul is in jail for assisting illegal immigrants find food and work. It was a prescient choice, anticipating the Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s and our current turmoil over undocumented workers.

Having addressed Paul’s “crime of principle,” Trumbo follows Abbey’s novel closely: Burns gets locked up then busts himself and two Indians out of jail, heading for the hills on his coquettish horse, Whiskey. The film’s second half tracks Burns’s evasion of his pursuers and his encounter with a nemesis both inevitable and ludicrous. Trumbo shows a clear sense of location and landscape, including as his title page a hand-drawn map of the cowboy’s intended route, via the Sangre de Cristo and Manzano Mountains, into Mexico.

Armed with a map, a great script, and a first-rate cast — he was playing Burns himself — Mr. Douglas seemingly had nothing to worry about. Yet on May 4, 1961, from the Western Skies Hotel in Albuquerque, with production already under way, he wrote a troubled letter. It was addressed to Mr. Gary Cooper, Beverly Hills.

“Dear Coop,” he wrote. “When for years you’ve had affection for a guy and you find it suddenly turning to resentment, you begin to think it deserves some comment.” He went on to say, “Put yourself in my spot. I’m doing a picture that should have been done by only one guy. I know it — my entire company knows it. Start with the title — The Last Hero. Now whom does that fit — me? Hell, no!”

Mr. Douglas complained to Cooper that his director, David Miller, was uncommunicative and focused on realism. The only direction Miller had given was, “try and play this the way Gary Cooper would.” Even worse had been Abbey’s arrival on set. Mr. Douglas reported that he’d driven to meet Abbey at the Albuquerque airport: “Fifty guys step off the plane but I spot him immediately — why? He looks like Gary Cooper. To make matters worse, when I meet him, he talks like Cooper!”

For a moment it sounds as if Mr. Douglas the producer was angling for Cooper to take over the lead. But this was impossible. Cooper was terminally ill and would die nine days later. Certainly Mr. Douglas knew this when he wrote he wanted to follow in Cooper’s footsteps throughout the shoot: “I know now that at best I will come remotely close. But more important — I do know also that just trying to be you will make a better me.”

Such heartfelt words acknowledged that outside help would not be forthcoming. It is the message of the film as well. Abbey’s presence looms over the film — both Burns and Paul contain aspects of his character — but did he really look like Cooper? To a certain extent. Did he really visit the set? Recalling Abbey after his death in 1989, Mr. Douglas wrote, “I never met Mr. Abbey, but we wrote to each other several times.”

Which was it? Does it matter? Either way, the story of Abbey’s visit gave Mr. Douglas an opportunity to write a fan letter, and to prepare for a role he felt his mentor could have better played. As the pressmen conclude in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” the other great western made that year: If confronted with two conflicting versions, “print the legend.”

Before the shoot Byrna put out a release emphasizing Miller’s realism: nonactors would be cast, a genuine painter would play Paul’s wife, the sets would showcase her work. It was all for naught: professional actors — Gena Rowlands, Walter Matthau, George Kennedy — were used instead. “The Brave Cowboy,” shot as “The Last Hero,” was released in 1962 as “Lonely Are the Brave” — elegantly photographed, theatrical rather than “natural,” exuberantly acted, deftly paced. There is no greater western, and certainly no more tragic one. Despite his doubts Mr. Douglas personified Burns, flouting cinematic rules by doing his own stunts and co-starring with an animal, a high spot of his career.

It’s hard to imagine a film so radical, or so pessimistic, being made today. Though a Korean War hero, Burns refuses to carry ID or listen to reason. He disrespects the power company by cutting its barbed-wire fences; the county jail, by breaking out; the sheriff, whose manhunt he eludes; the military-industrial complex, whose helicopter he shoots down; and us, the viewers, who — when the lights go up or the DVD ends — return to a life played mainly by the rules. Remarkable for a low-budget western, “Lonely Are the Brave” poses uneasy questions about the idea, and value, of heroism. Do Paul’s principles justify abandoning his wife and child? Where does Burns’s extraordinary journey lead?

David Miller - (1962) Lonely Are the Brave.mkv

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Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 47 min
Size: 	1.75 GiB
Video
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https://nitro.download/view/07CF903785584CF/David_Miller_-_(1962)_Lonely_Are_the_Brave.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post David Miller – Lonely Are the Brave (1962) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
Father Maurizio, a priest living in a residential college for priests in Rome, and who is having a tormented love story with a young woman (ever beautiful Stefania Sandrelli), is called out one day to “exorcise” the devil from someone. The devil turns out to be in the form of a fun-loving man, who calls himself Giuditta, the name of the fat woman he “possessed”. What Father Maurizio doesn’t know is that this type of devil will turn his life upside down. The devil, quite young and inexperienced, will try to learn his way into this world by imitation, generating havoc to no end.

Il piccolo diavolo (The Little Devil) (1988) -- Roberto Benigni.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1h 45mn
Size: 	2.61 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
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Bit rate: 	3 100 Kbps
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https://nitro.download/view/FC03E6420A27533/Il_piccolo_diavolo_(The_Little_Devil)_(1988)_–_Roberto_Benigni.mkv

Language(s):Italian
Subtitles:English, Russian (muxed)

The post Roberto Benigni – Il Piccolo diavolo AKA The Little Devil (1988) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Morris Buttermaker, an irascible, alcoholic, ex-ballplayer is roped into coaching the worst group of kids ever assembled onto one team. Their cause is utterly and hysterically hopeless until he convinces the daughter of his ex-girlfriend to be the team’s pitcher.

The Bad News Bears.1976.576p.BDRip-AVC.ZONE.mkv

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Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 42 min
Size: 	2.31 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1024x576 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
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https://nitro.download/view/C3DB1A2AB64FCD5/The_Bad_News_Bears.1976.576p.BDRip-AVC.ZONE.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Michael Ritchie – The Bad News Bears (1976) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Charley Varrick is a small-time stick-up man who, in tandem with his partner Harman Sullivan (Andrew Robinson), makes plans to rob a small bank in New Mexico. Varrick and Sullivan are expecting a modest payday for a simple heist, but to their surprise they walk away with $750,000 in cash. But it turns out this isn’t entirely good news; the bank was flush with cash because a number of well-connected Mafia chieftains have been using the bank to launder their ill-gotten gains, and they’re determined to get their money back. Before Varrick can figure out a way to return the money, sadistic hired killer Molly (Joe Don Baker) is on his trail, forcing Varrick to outwit both the cops and the robbers if he is to stay alive.

from allmovie.com

Charley.Varrick.1973.BDRip.x264-KG.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 50 min
Size: 	2.46 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	976x528 
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Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	2 730 kb/s
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#1:  	1.0ch AC-3 @ 448 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/6C7067603D3DC1C/Charley.Varrick.1973.BDRip.x264-KG.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/309D8C6DBC72948/Charley.Varrick.1973.BDRip.x264-KG.en.srt

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English HoH srt

The post Don Siegel – Charley Varrick (1973) first appeared on Cinema of the World.