Adventure

(from Cinemarehiyon)
The picaresque adventures of a young, naive country bumpkin named Kulas (de Leon) and his whimsical encounters with denizens of various nationalities – Spanish, American, Chinese, indio – is a metaphor for the Filipino quest for identity at a time when nationhood was still an imagined concept. Set during the liminal period when the Philippines was in transition from Spanish to American colonial rule, this masterwork shows Romero at his best and most exuberant as a filmmaker. It swept most of the awards at the 1976 Metro Manila Film Festival, and was subsequntly voted best picture at the very first Urian Awards in 1977.Read More »

Synopsis:
Director Kon Ichikawa’s (An Actor’s Revenge, The Burmese Harp, Tokyo Olympiad) incredible real-life tale of one man’s epic journey across the Pacific Ocean is based on Kenichi Horie’s best-selling book of the same name. A year previously, at only 23 years old, Horie took his basic sailboat (named ‘The Mermaid’) and set off from Nishinomiya in Japan, arriving in San Francisco, California 94 days later. Man’s battle against nature is amongst the timeless themes of Ichikawa’s beautifully shot, inspiring film.Read More »

Plot: In Wales, around 1800, Catherine Morgan is widowed young, her husband a war casualty whose unpaid gambling debts threaten both the loss of home and farm and destitution for her and her daughters Elen and Emily. Catherine hopes to save them by selling their cattle at a distant market. She must overcome the hardships of the cattle drive across the craggy Welsh countryside as an obsessively infatuated sheriff, whom she does not love, attempts to thwart the drive; and she must work out her insecurities in her relationship to his half-brother, an experienced drover, who helps her on the drive.Read More »

Plot / Synopsis
Based on actual events that served as the inspiration for the 1963 film of the same name, Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins follows a group of noble samurai as they seek to slay a tyrannical, politically connected lord before he seizes control of the entire country. Japan, 1844: as the era of the samurai winds to a close, a sadistic young lord uses his powerful political ties to commit heinous atrocities against the common people. Recognizing the dangers to both his country and its citizens should the lord manage to gain any more power, a concerned government official secretly recruits 13 of the most skilled swordsmen he can find to defeat the evil lord once and for all. But reaching their target won’t be easy, because the elusive lord is constantly flanked by legions of fearless bodyguards. Realizing that the bodyguards would decimate his modest task force in a traditional battle, the assassins’ leader (Koji Yakusho) lays an ingenious trap that will give his men the upper hand, and waits patiently for their prey to take the bait. ~ Jason Buchanan, RoviRead More »

Based on an unfinished novel, The Assassination Bureau, Ltd by Jack London.

Before the start of World War I, would-be journalist Sonya Winter (Diana Rigg) begins to investigate the Assassination Bureau, a mysterious organization that chooses its targets based on moral issues. In recent years, however, the group has become corrupt and unscrupulous, prompting Sonya to request that the organization assassinate its own leader, Ivan Dragomiloff (Oliver Reed). Amused, Ivan accepts Sonia’s request. But is he really the villain Sonya thinks he is?Read More »

IMDb REVIEW
Directed by Roman Polanski, here comes the tale of Captain Thomas Bartholomew Red, one of the most feared pirates on the Spanish main, and his French swashbuckling sidekick, “The Frog” (Cris Campion). Stranded at sea, they are saved by a Spanish galleon. They immediately set their goal to commandeer the ship and steal the aztec golden throne it is carrying back to Spain.

A huge commercial and critical flop at the time of its release, “Pirates”‘s reputation with film critics has not grown other the year. It is still considered a cinematic disgrace on Polanski’s resume, exhibit A along with “Cutthroat Island” anytime a terrible god awful pirate movie needs to be mentioned. This has always puzzled me as this is definitely one of the funnier movies I have ever seen and a personal favorite.Read More »

Humphrey Bogart plays Fred C. Dobbs, down-on-his-luck American in Mexico—he cadges the odd peso out of friendly passersby and countrymen, just so he can fill his stomach every now and again. He pals around with Curtin (Tim Holt), and after the two of them get cheated out of their wages by an American unethical even by the standards of this film, they exact their revenge, but their pockets are still empty. At the local flophouse, they overhear talk of an old codger called Howard (Walter Huston), who promises that in fact there is gold in them thar hills. If only they had enough scratch to buy the necessaries, they could be making themselves a fortune.Read More »

Joker Jackson and Noah Cullen are two convicts on a chain gang who hate each other. After a truck prison accident, they flee and are pursued by the police. While they’re chained, the two are dependent on one another. When they eventually get rid of their chains, their hostility has been changed into fellowship and respect.Read More »

Quote:
During the opening credits of Barbet Schroeder’s fable La Vallée, the camera swoops over a mysterious mountain range dotted with trees. The landscape glows with an eerie greenish tinge. Most of the view is obscured by thick clouds. Meanwhile, the original musical score by Pink Floyd sets an ominous tone, and a voiceover narrator tells the myth of a valley hidden by veils of mist. Later in the film we learn that the mountain range is one of the last uncharted landmasses in the world. Even on maps, large portions of the mountains are left white. Although the mountains have been explored, none of the explorers who made it to the top of the range and found the valley have returned. Not only is the journey treacherous, but local mythology claims that once the explorers find the valley they never want to leave. For the valley is paradise, and to leave paradise would bring down a curse on their souls.Read More »