• Nagisa Oshima – Amakusa shiro tokisada aka The Rebel (1962)

    1961-1970AsianDramaJapanNagisa Oshima

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    In 1637, the Tokugawa Shogunate mandated religious orders to severely restrict and contain the spread of Christianity. In Kyushu, Shimabara and Amakusa, the Christian population was particularly large, and the farmers continuously endured extreme pain and suffering under the oppression of the land’s rulers. Unable to pay taxes because of severe famine, Christians watched their daughters taken away by the samurai and waited for a miracle that could save them. People lined up to follow Shiro of Amakusa in the belief that he was the one to lead them out of despair. This is a serious story taken from the pages of history, and exposes what led up to the siege of Shimabara. A tremendous performance by mega-star Okawa Hashizo along with crisp direction by noted filmmaker Oshima Nagisa raise the level of this film to true art.Read More »

  • Harmony Korine – Gummo [+extras] (1997)

    1991-2000CultDramaHarmony KorineUSA

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    Quote:
    Lonely residents of a tornado-stricken Ohio town wander the deserted landscape trying to fulfill their boring, nihilistic lives.Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – The Pleasure Garden [+Extras] (1925)

    1921-1930Alfred HitchcockDramaSilentUSA

    http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/1534/thepleasuregarden219585.jpg

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    Quote:
    The Pleasure Garden is the first film that Alfred Hitchcock directed to completion. It’s a nice look into the earliest directorial thoughts and techniques of the master. Even in this earliest film, we can see signs of what would become some of his signature trademarks. I enjoyed some of the point of view shots early in the film with the blurred view of the man looking through his monocle as well as the gentleman looking through the binoculars at the show girls legs. There is also a spiral staircase in the opening of this movie. Not that it was used like the staircase in Vertigo, but it made me smile thinking of how important that would be in his later film. The story deals with the idea of infidelity. Jill (Carmelita Geraghty) is an aspiring dancer who gets engaged to Hugh (John Stuart) who has to leave for work overseas. Patsy (Virginia Valli), who has helped Jill get her start, starts to worry about Jill keeping her promise to wait for Hugh. Jill’s career is taking off and she begins to fool around with other guys. Patsy marries Levett (Miles Mander), Hugh’s friend who also goes overseas to work with Hugh. Unlike Jill, Patsy remains true to her husband, thinking only of being with him. She receives a letter that her husband has taken ill and scrapes up the money to go be with her husband in his time of need. When she arrives, she finds that he has taken to drinking and island women. That’s when the trouble ensues. I enjoyed Hitch’s first film. It’s a little slow starting, but picks up pace as it goes along. I liked seeing Cuddles, the dog, thrown in for a little comic relief to contrast the seriousness of the film, which of course is another of Hitchcock’s trademarks. There was also a nice, subtle score by Lee Erwin, that fit the film well.Read More »

  • A.E. Coleby – Mysteries of London (1915)

    1911-1920A.E. ColebyDramaSilentUnited Kingdom

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    Quote:
    After her father is falsely jailed for embezzlement and her mother dies of grief, Louise is adopted by a kindly stockbroker. 15 years later, she falls in love with his dissolute son Frank, a mistake that nearly proves fatal to her. The film’s main historical point of interest, though, lies in the still highly recognisable central London locations – but Dutch intertitles and copious print damage suggest that we’re lucky that this lively three-part melodrama survives at all.

    Active in films from 1907, and making features as early as 1912, London-born AE Coleby (1876-1930) was a prolific silent-era director. Specialising in thrillers and melodramas, he was among the first to tackle such horror staples as Egyptian curses (The Mummy, 1912) and the perennial Chinese villain Fu Manchu (The Mystery of Fu Manchu, 1923). In the 1920s, he returned to making mainly short films, including a couple of early sync-sound experiments, but he died shortly after Britain’s talkie era began in earnest. Sadly, as with many silent filmmakers, most of his output no longer survives.Read More »

  • Cam Archer – Shit Year (2010)

    2001-2010Cam ArcherUSA

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    A renowned actress (Ellen Barkin) abandons her successful career for a secluded life in the hills. But before long, she begins to fear she has only lived through the characters she has played. Reality becomes inseparable from unhinged obsessions in a hallucinatory struggle to reclaim herself. With a tour de force by Barkin, Cam Archer’s (Wild Tigers I Have Known) confirms him as one of the most distinct voices in American cinema.Read More »

  • Paco Plaza – Verónica (2017)

    2011-2020HorrorPaco PlazaSpain

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    Quote:
    Madrid, 1991. A teen girl finds herself besieged by an evil supernatural force after she played Ouija with two classmates.Read More »

  • Hsiao-Hsien Hou – Nie yin niang AKA The Assassin (2015)

    2011-2020ArthouseHsiao-hsien HouMartial ArtsTaiwan

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    An assassin accepts a dangerous mission to kill a political leader in seventh-century China.

    J. Hoberman wrote:
    “The Assassin” is extraordinarily beautiful. The film’s editing and narrative construction are, however, no less remarkable. For all its exquisitely furnished interiors and fantastic landscapes, “The Assassin” is far too eccentric to ever seem picturesque. Nor does it unfold like a typical wuxia. Mayhem is abrupt, brief and fragmentary — predicated on suave jump-cuts and largely devoid of special effects.Read More »

  • Jean-Luc Godard – Soigne ta droite AKA Keep Your Right Up (1987)

    1981-1990ArthouseDramaFranceJean-Luc Godard

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Quote:
    Jean-Luc Godard wrote, directed, and edited this mind-boggling comedy. “The Idiot” (also known as “the Prince” and played by Godard himself) has been guaranteed financing for a film, if he can deliver it within 24 hours. But he encounters all sorts of hilarious problems as he attempts to do so. Meanwhile a pop group (Les Rita Mitsouko) works on a new album. (-DVD cover)

    With a tip of the hat to Jerry Lewis, Buster Keaton, Jacques Tati, and (for good measure) Dostoyevsky, Jean-Luc Godard wrote, directed, edited and stars in this mind-boggling comedy. The rambling plot involves a hapless filmmaker (Godard) and his attempt to meet a deadline for delivering a film. From there the movie branches out into an abstract, episodic structure. “…engages even as it baffles…The confusion that results, punctuated by glimmerings of understanding, is the point” (A.O. Scott, The New York Times).Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – The Ring (1927)

    Drama1921-1930SilentUSA

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    A 1927 British silent sports film directed and written by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Carl Brisson, Lillian Hall-Davis and Ian Hunter. It is one of Hitchcock’s nine surviving silent films. The Ring is Hitchcock’s only original screenplay although he worked extensively alongside other writers throughout his career.Read More »

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