English

  • Jonathan Glazer – The Fall (2019)

    2011-2020BBCJonathan GlazerShort FilmUnited Kingdom

    A mob’s punishment of a lone man proves cruel and unusual in this nightmarish short film.Read More »

  • Sofia Bohdanowicz – Veslemøy’s Song (2018)

    2011-2020CanadaDramaShort FilmSofia Bohdanowicz

    Quote:
    The film follows a young woman named Audrey Benac who delves into the archives of the New York Public Library in search of a rare recording produced in 1909 titled Veslemøy’s Song. Shot on hand-processed black and white 16mm, the film takes a docu-fiction approach to investigate the faded legacy of the once celebrated Canadian musician, Kathleen Parlow.Read More »

  • Don Siegel – Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954)

    1951-1960CrimeDon SiegelDramaUSA

    Geoff Andrew, Time Out wrote:
    A classic of the genre, almost documentary in approach – low budget, no stars, Folsom Prison locations, inmates as extras – and boiling up an explosive violence kept under perfect control. Not looking for cosy answers (in fact, final victory shades ironically into defeat), the script’s prime concern is less to establish the need for reform than to demonstrate the fallibilities that militate against its accomplishment: Neville Brand’s riot leader and Emile Meyer’s warden are men of integrity in essential agreement as to what needs to be done, but each is attended by an evil genius – one psychopathic, the other corrupt – so that simple issues mutate into an entirely different ball game. A riveting movie.Read More »

  • Henry Cass – Young Wives’ Tale (1951)

    1951-1960ComedyHenry CassRomanceUnited Kingdom

    Synopsis:
    A post-war housing crisis leaves a shy woman to share a house with two couples. Comic situations arise as the new roomer becomes infatuated with one of the husbands.Read More »

  • Robert Mulligan – Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965)

    1961-1970DramaRobert MulliganUSA

    Quote:
    Steve McQueen stars as a rockabilly hopeful, newly paroled from prison, and Lee Remick as his estranged wife in Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965), brought to us by the same triumvirate that translated To Kill a Mockingbird to the screen in 1962: writer Horton Foote, producer Alan J. Pakula, and director Robert Mulligan. A poignant slice of life shot in and around Foote’s Texas hometown.Read More »

  • Richard Brooks – In Cold Blood (1967)

    1961-1970ClassicsCrimeRichard BrooksUSA

    Synopsis:
    In meeting in Kansas, ex-cons Perry Smith and Dick Hickock are breaking several conditions of their respective paroles. The meeting, initiated by Dick, is to plan and eventually carry out a robbery based on information he had received from a fellow inmate about $10,000 cash being locked in a hidden safe in the home of the farming Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas. After the robbery, they plan on going to Mexico permanently to elude capture by the police. Each brings a necessary personality to the partnership to carry out the plan, Dick who is the brash manipulator, Perry the outwardly more sensitive but unrealistic dreamer with a violent streak under the surface.Read More »

  • Edwin H. Knopf – The Law and the Lady (1951)

    1951-1960ComedyCrimeEdwin H. KnopfUSA

    The Law and the Lady is the third film version of the venerable Frederick Lonsdale stage play The Last of Mrs. Cheyney. Greer Garson follows in the footsteps of Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford as a beautiful confidence trickster, working in concert with a suave jewel thief (Michael Wilding). Jane Hoskins (Garson) inveigles herself into the household of San Francisco dowager Warton (Marjorie Main), where she and her accomplice intend to take their feisty hostess for everything she’s got. Thanks to censorial intervention, many of the sharper satirical edges of the Lonsdale original have been dulled by sentiment and pathos. Still, any film that offers Greer Garson as a not-so-nice lady is well worth having.Read More »

  • Jacques Tourneur – Easy Living (1949)

    1941-1950DramaJacques TourneurUSA

    from Film Society of Lincoln Center:
    Money, sex, and football: the three cornerstones of American life spell doom in Tourneur’s tough, subversive anti-marriage melodrama. Victor Mature is a star quarterback with a fatal heart condition who’s willing to risk death on the field to give his power-hungry wife (Lizabeth Scott) the life she wants, even as she pursues a sordid affair with a Wall Street sugar daddy. Co-starring Lucille Ball—who delivers some of the film’s most memorable moments as a hard-nosed working girl spouting world-weary cynicisms—Easy Living is a Sirkian sports movie with a dark noir undercurrent.Read More »

  • Sam Wood – Command Decision (1948)

    1941-1950PoliticsSam WoodUSAWar

    Synopsis:
    General Dennis of the US Force in England in World War II finds that he must order his planes deeper and deeper into Germany to prevent the production of military jet planes that will turn the tide of battle to the Germans. He must fight congressmen, and his own chain of command to win the political battle before he can send his planes out. His problem is complicated by a very narrow window of good weather necessary to allow his effort to be successful. Adapted from a stage play, it attempts to look at the challenges of command in the political arena.Read More »

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