Synopsis
The debut feature from writer-director David O. Russell tells the darkly comic story of a young pre-med student’s nearly unbearable summer vacation. When Ray Aibelli’s promiscuous father orders him to stay home for the summer and care for his mother, who recently broke her leg, he misses out on an incredibly important internship. As Ray struggles with the realization that he’s wasting his summer doing nothing at home, he must contend with an endless string of seemingly insurmountable circumstances, including a failed brief relationship with a young high school student. Things reach their boiling point when Ray and his mother get drunk one night, leading to an incestuous encounter that pushes him over the edge. Humiliated, depressed, and downtrodden, Ray decides to commit suicide to end his troubles forever. Russell’s racy story walks a tightrope between deep psychological drama and taboo comedy, resulting in a highly original tone that keeps SPANKING THE MONKEY from buckling under the pressure. Featuring a standout performance by Davies, as well as Watson, who recalls Anne Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson in THE GRADUATE, this is one of the 1990’s most auspicious directorial debuts.Read More »
English
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David O. Russell – Spanking the Monkey (1994)
David O. Russell1991-2000ComedyDramaUSA -
Douglas Sirk – A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958)
Douglas Sirk1951-1960DramaRomanceUSAOn the Russian front in 1944 German Private Ernst Graeber receives a leave and visits his family in Germany but Germany isn’t the same country he left behind.Read More »
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Edward Dmytryk – Give Us This Day (1949)
Edward Dmytryk1941-1950DramaFilm NoirUnited KingdomPLOT SUMMARY :
Italian-American laborer Geremio works as a bricklayer on dangerous construction jobs, with his friends Luigi, Julio, Giovanni and DeLucey. When his best girl Kathleen refuses to marry him because he has no ambition beyond his work, Geremio asks Luigi to send to Italy for the young Annuziata to be his bride. Annunziata’s one condition before coming is that Geremio must have a house of his own, but Geremio can’t wait and lies to her in a letter. Their meeting and wedding is a joyous success. She forgives him and they start to save for a house from his meagre salary while living in a tenement and raising children; but economic events cripple their plans, and worse, tempt him to betray his fellow workers.Read More » -
Gillies MacKinnon – Small Faces (1996)
Gillies MacKinnon1991-2000CrimeDramaUnited KingdomQuote:
Life in the tough end of Glasgow in the late 1960s is delightfully and sometimes painfully presented here. This is clearly a work of well-observed autobiography by the Mackinnon family – Billy the writer/producer and Gillies the director.At the centre of the film is the Maclean family – widowed mother with sons Bobby (none too bright), Alan (budding artist in spite of being brought up in the tough end of Govan) and narrator Lex, only 13 and still not sure what life is all about. Iain Robertson’s performance as Lex is so good that it is barely credible that he has not reappeared in anything more worthy of his acting talent.Read More »
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Akinori Nagaoka and Minoru Okazaki – Yami no Teiô Kyûketsuki Dorakyura AKA Dracula (1980)
Akinori Nagaoka1971-1980ActionAnimationJapanMinoru OkazakiIn this animated adaptation of the Tomb of Dracula comic book series, Dracula assumes control of a satanic cult and fathers a child through one of his followers, but the forces of both good and evil align themselves against him.Read More »
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Jack O’Connell – Revolution (1968)
1961-1970DocumentaryJack O'ConnellUSAA documentary that explores the counterculture of San Francisco in the mid-1960’s. In HD.Read More »
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Eugene Forde – Buy Me That Town (1941)
Eugene Forde1941-1950ClassicsComedyUSASynopsis
A gangster and his mob buy a small-town in this warm comedy. They, tired of trying
to make it as big city hoods, buy the town to use as a hideout. The leader of the
gang begins to have a change of heart after he begins falling for a local girl. He
decides to use the “protection money” his gang has been pocketing to benefit the
townsfolk. This feels good to the tough and thug-like gangsters who begin embracing
the ideals of good citizenship in favor of a life of crime.Read More » -
Larry Weinstein – The War Symphonies: Shostakovich Against Stalin (1997)
1991-2000CanadaDocumentaryLarry WeinsteinDocumentary on how composer Dmitri Shostakovich used his Fourth to Ninth Symphony as a silent protest against the crimes of Stalin.Read More »
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Deborah Stratman – Last Things (2023)
Deborah Stratman2021-2030DocumentaryExperimentalUSASynopsis:
The project originated from two novellas of J.-H. Rosny, the joint pseudonym of the Belgian brothers Boex who wrote on natural, prehistoric and speculative subjects—sci fi before it was a genre. The film takes up their pluralist vision of evolution, where imagining prehistory is inseparable from envisioning the future. Also central are Roger Caillois’ writing on stones, Robert Hazen’s theory of Mineral Evolution, Clarice Lispector’s Hour of the Star, the Symbiosis theory of Lynn Margulis, multi-species scenarios of Donna Haraway, Hazel Barton’s research on cave microbes and Marcia Bjørnerud’s thoughts on time literacy. In one way or another, these thinkers have all sought to displace humankind and human reason from the center of evolutionary processes. Passages from Rosny and interviews with Bjørnerud form the film’s science-fictional / science-factual spine. Stones are its anchor. To touch stone is to meet alien duration. We trust stone as archive, but we may as well write on water. In the end, it’s particles that remain.Read More »