USA

  • Nick Grinde – Sudden Money (1939)

    Nick Grinde1931-1940ComedyDramaUSA
    Sudden Money (1939)
    Sudden Money (1939)

    Synopsis:
    Promises of happier times dawn for the financially distressed Patterson family when father Sweeney and brother-in-law Archibald “Doc” Finney win a $150,000 grand prize in the sweepstakes contest. With their windfall, each member of the family decides to pursue a dream. Drummer Sweeney reorganizes his old high school ragtime band, while Doc bankrolls his own horse betting system. Mother Elsie, who won an art contest in high school, takes up the easel and paint brush, while daughter Mary enrolls in finishing school in hopes of snagging a rich husband, and Junior is shipped off to military school. Grandpa Casey Patterson, meanwhile, thinks that the whole brood has taken leave of their senses. Clouds begin to darken the family’s dreams when Sweeney hires the comely Yolo to spice up his band, and Mr. Jordan, the wealthy father of Mary’s suitor, Johnny Jordan, pays a surprise visit to the family and is shocked to find Yolo balancing on Sweeney’s back.Read More »

  • Rachel Lambert – Sometimes I Think About Dying (2023)

    Rachel Lambert2021-2030ComedyDramaUSA
    Sometimes I Think About Dying (2023)
    Sometimes I Think About Dying (2023)

    Fran likes to think about dying. It brings sensation to her quiet life. When she makes the new guy at work laugh, it leads to more: a date, a slice of pie, a conversation, a spark. The only thing standing in their way is Fran herself.Read More »

  • Potsy Ponciroli – Old Henry (2021)

    2021-2030ActionPotsy PonciroliUSAWestern
    Old Henry (2021)
    Old Henry (2021)

    Old Henry, an action western about a widowed farmer and his son who warily take in a mysterious, injured man with a satchel of cash. When a posse of men claiming to be the law come for the money, the farmer must decide who to trust. Defending a siege of his homestead, the farmer reveals a talent for gun-slinging that surprises everyone calling his true identity into question.Read More »

  • Jerome Hiler – Cinema Before 1300 (2023)

    2021-2030DocumentaryJerome HilerUSA
    Cinema Before 1300 (2023)
    Cinema Before 1300 (2023)

    Quote:
    In 2017 I invited Jerome Hiler to the Harvard Film Archive to present Cinema Before 1300, an illustrated lecture he had delivered on several occasions whose title and subject intrigued me. A talk on medieval stained glass, accompanied by Hiler’s own still images taken over the years, principally in those cathedrals in France and the UK that today remain among the last repositories of this now lost luminary art and craft. The event that unfolded was mesmerizing and moving, a meditation on stained glass as a popular and devotional art, and as a precursor to cinema.Read More »

  • William Berke – Girl in the Case (1944)

    William Berke1941-1950ComedyMysteryUSA
    Girl in the Case (1944)
    Girl in the Case (1944)

    William Warner is not only a crack defense lawyer, but he has an even more useful skill–he’s an expert at picking open any kind of lock, which comes in handy in his line of work. This asset gets him in trouble, however, when he finds himself being unwittingly used by Nazi spies trying to get him to open a locked chest with a secret formula they’re after.Read More »

  • Robert Frank – The Sin of Jesus (1961)

    Robert Frank1961-1970Amos Vogel: Film as a Subversive ArtArthouseDramaUSA
    The Sin of Jesus (1961)
    The Sin of Jesus (1961)

    Quote:
    The Sin of Jesus was based on the story of Isaac Babel, a woman on a chicken farm who spends her days working at an egg-sorting machine. “I’m the only woman here.” She is pregnant, her husband spends his days lying in bed, and his friends encourage him to go out on the town with them. The woman talks to herself as she works, lost in the monotony of human existence. She counts the passing days in the same way she counts eggs. Even extraordinary events, such as the appearance of Jesus Christ in the barn, go under the stream of this melancholy solipsism.Read More »

  • David Mamet – State and Main (2000)

    1991-2000ComedyDavid MametDramaUSA
    State and Main (2000)
    State and Main (2000)

    A movie crew invades a small town whose residents are all too ready to give up their values for showbiz glitz.Read More »

  • Hal Hartley – The Sisters of Mercy (2004)

    Hal Hartley2001-2010DramaShort FilmUSA
    The Sisters of Mercy (2004)
    The Sisters of Mercy (2004)

    Hal Hartley reveals the tireless experimentation, curiousity and playfulness that lies behind his many feature films in his this short film, The Sisters of Mercy, starring Parker Posey and Sabrina Lloyd.Read More »

  • Charley Chase and Jefferson Moffitt – Nurse to You! (1935)

    Charley Chase1931-1940ComedyJefferson MoffittShort FilmUSA
    Nurse to You! (1935)
    Nurse to You! (1935)

    Nurse to You! is another big winner from Charley Chase’s two-reel comedy series. Directing himself towards the end of his run at Hal Roach, Chase injects a real freewheeling sense of fun into this, without losing any of the tightness and compactness of his comedy construction.Read More »

Back to top button