• Agnieszka Holland – The Third Miracle (1999)

    1991-2000Agnieszka HollandDramaUSA

    In Agnieszka Holland’s English-language film from 1999, Frank Shore (Ed Harris) is a Catholic priest who works as a postulator, a church official who investigates reports of holy miracles to determine their veracity. Some time back, one of Shore’s investigations had ugly repercussions, and now he devotes his time to running a soup kitchen. He’s called back into service when a number of Catholics ask for the canonisation of the late Helen O’Regan, who is claimed to have performed miracles and whose statue is supposed to weep tears of blood.Read More »

  • Eric Sykes – The Plank (1967)

    1961-1970ClassicsComedyEric SykesUnited Kingdom

    Classic short British comedy, full of stars. In this slapstick comedy two bumbling workmen attempt to take a long wooden plank through a London suburb to a building site. Mayhem ensues. This is done with music and a sort of “wordless dialogue” which consists of a few mumbled sounds to convey the appropriate emotion.Read More »

  • Jane Campion – Bright Star (2009)

    2001-2010DramaJane CampionRomanceUnited Kingdom

    Quote:
    London 1818: a secret love affair begins between 23 year-old English poet, John Keats (Ben Whishaw), and the girl next door, Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), an out-spoken student of high fashion. This unlikely pair begin at odds, he thinking her a stylish minx, while she was unimpressed not only by his poetry but also by literature in general.Read More »

  • Yves Robert – Clérambard (1969)

    1961-1970ComedyFranceYves Robert

    An aristocrat, short of the readies, has turned his desirable mansion into a textile workshop, where he works with his wife, his son and his mother-in-law. He’s grumpy, stingy and unkind. In the village, the wealthy solicitor wants his ugliest daughter to marry his half-witted young son, so she’ll become a countess. But saint Francis Assisi appears and the count changes overnight; he does not want his family to kill the spiders (your sister, the spider) and he begins to ignore the social conventions: his son will marry “La Langouste” (the lobster), the local hooker who keeps a strong clientele among the billeted troops. Now, the aristocrat, imitating our Lord’s apostles, divests himself of all possessions of the material world and intends to hit the road in a horse-drawn caravan.Read More »

  • Robert Altman – Fool for Love [+extras] (1985)

    1981-1990DramaRobert AltmanUSA

    Fool for Love is a 1985 American drama film directed by Robert Altman. The film stars Sam Shepard, who also wrote both the original play and the adaptation’s screenplay, alongside Kim Basinger, Harry Dean Stanton, Randy Quaid and Martha Crawford. It was entered into the 1986 Cannes Film Festival. It was filmed in Eldorado and Las Vegas, New Mexico.Read More »

  • Juan Pablo Rebella & Pablo Stoll – 25 Watts [+extras] (2001)

    2001-2010ComedyCultJuan Pablo RebellaPablo StollUruguay

    This film has been called the “Uruguayan ‘Slacker’”, a reference to Linklater’s movie. It has also been called a landmark film in a (low-key, small-scale) renaissance in Uruguayan cinema – a national cinema with a terrible memory problem (“El Dirigible”, from 1994, was routinely cited as “the first Uruguayan film”, which is very false, but understandable when one sees how little movies that country has managed to preserve).

    Whatever its place in film history, it’s worth a watch, and rings very much true.Read More »

  • Jaime Chávarri – Las bicicletas son para el verano AKA Bicycles Are for the Summer (1984)

    1981-1990DramaJaime ChávarriSpain

    In Madrid, the family of Don Luis, his wife Dolores and their children, Manolita and Luisito, share the daily life of the Civil War with their maid and neighbours. Despite having failed his exams, Luisito wants his father to buy him a bicycle. However, the situation forces them to delay the purchase and the delay, like the war itself, is to last much longer than expected.

    The movie, and the book it was drawn from, show how daily life was conducted during the war. Unexpected things happen, but people find ways to survive. Above all, it is a story of survival and adaptation.Read More »

  • Benjamin Christensen – Häxan AKA Häxan Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922)

    1921-1930Benjamin ChristensenDenmarkHorrorScandinavian Silent Cinema

    Quote:
    Fictionalized documentary showing the evolution of witchcraft, from its pagan roots to its confusion with hysteria in modern Europe. Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen’s legendary silent film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages and early modern era suffered from the same ills as psychiatric patients diagnosed with hysteria in the film’s own time. Far from a dry dissertation on the topic, the film itself is a witches’ brew of the scary, the gross, and the darkly humorous. Christensen’s mix-and-match approach to genre anticipates gothic horror, documentary re-creation, and the essay film, making for an experience unlike anything else in the history of cinema.Read More »

  • Paolo Taviani & Vittorio Taviani – La Masseria Delle Allodole AKA The Lark Farm (2007)

    2001-2010DramaItalyPaolo TavianiVittorio TavianiWar

    As adapted from the roman by Antonia Arslan and co-directed by legendary Italian brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, The Lark Farm marks one of the few international features to tackle the Armenian genocide head-on. The story (with its thematic parallels, in the early scenes, to De Sica’s 1970 Garden of the Finzi-Continis) concerns the Avakian clan. An Armenian family living an affluent lifestyle and periodically shuttling back and forth between their two comfortable homes, the Avakians feel convinced that the rising tide of Turkish hostility on the horizon means little to them and will scarcely affect their day to day. Read More »

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