Monthly Archives: October 2015

The Hot Rock (1972) Peter Yates, Robert Redford, George Segal, Ron Leibman, Action, Comedy, Crime

The Hot Rock (1972)
Dr. Amusa approaches Dortmunder about a valuable gem in a museum that is of great signifigance to his people in Africa, stolen during colonial times. Dortmunder assembles a crack team of cat burglars and hatches an elaborate plan for stealing the gem. Despite their care and experience, circumstances and plain bad luck keep the gem just out of their reach.
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Partir / Leaving (2009) Catherine Corsini, Kristin Scott Thomas, Sergi López, Yvan Attal, Drama, Romance

Partir (2009)
Suzanne is a well to do married woman and mother in the south of France. Her idle bourgeois lifestyle gets her down and she decides to go back to work as a physiotherapist. Her husband agrees to fix up a consulting room for her in their backyard. When Suzanne and the man hired to do the building meet, the mutual attraction is sudden and violent. Suzanne decides to give up everything and live this all engulfing passion to the fullest.
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Nacktschnecken / Slugs (2004) Michael Glawogger, Raimund Wallisch, Michael Ostrowski, Pia Hierzegger, Comedy, Drama, Erotic

COVER
Three college dropouts trying to make ends meet in Graz, Austria. One day they get the ultimate job offer: to shoot an amateur porn video. It sounds like good money, sexual adventure, and just plain fun. Despite a few initial difficulties, the three friends develop an almost fierce ambition to achieve their goal. But love, embarrassment, and technical difficulties get in the way.
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Soft Beds, Hard Battles (1974) Roy Boulting, Peter Sellers, Lila Kedrova, Curd Jürgens, Comedy

Soft Beds, Hard Battles (1974)
In this comedy, set during the Nazi occupation of France, Peter Sellers plays most major male parts, so he stars in nearly every scene, always bumbling in inspector Clouseau-style. As British Major Robinson he is hidden in Madame Grenier’s Parisian brothel, right under the nose of the Nazi clients, such as Gestapo agent Herr Schroeder (again him). As Général Latour he leads the French resistance, which includes the brothel madam -made a colonel in charge of her sexy ‘troops’- and a priest, and is joined by young US diplomat Alan Cassidy. As Japanese imperial Prince Kyoto he becomes a target for the resistance in a monastery on his way to Hitler (again him). At the end he decorates the heroes as French president.
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Rich and Famous (1981) George Cukor, Jacqueline Bisset, Candice Bergen, David Selby, Drama

Rich and Famous (1981)
Liz and Merry Noel become friends as college roommates and their friendship endures over the years. Liz becomes a respected “serious” novelist. Merry Noel marries, has a daughter and writes, too: “trash” fiction which becomes enormously successful. Their story begins in college and jumps ahead some years at a time to show their relationship with each other and those in their orbits as they grow and mature.
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The Long Night (1947) Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Anatole Litvak, Henry Fonda, Barbara Bel Geddes, Vincent Price

The Long Night (1947)
The credits fade onto a blind man tapping his way down the sidewalk,he enters a dingy boarding house and hears a shot fired in one of the upstairs bedrooms. A door opens from audience POV. A man tumbles out of the door and falls, slides and slithers down two flights of stairs and is dead when he hits the bottom. Then follows nearly 100 minutes of flashback and flashbacks-within-flashbacks about a veteran returing from the war, tired and disillusioned, only to find that he girl he loves has lied to him about her relationship with another man, and that man is sadistic, boastful and tauntful.
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History Is Made at Night (1937) Frank Borzage, Charles Boyer, Jean Arthur, Leo Carrillo, Drama, Romance

History Is Made at Night (1937)
The obsessive and jealous shipowner Bruce Vail does not accept the divorce his wife Irene Vail achieved in London, and he hires his driver Michael Browsky to forge adultery with Irene in Paris to make the decree null. However, she is rescued by the headwaiter Paul Dumond, who punches Michael and locks Bruce and his private eyes in a locker, and they spend a wonderful night together in the restaurant Chateau Bleu, where Paul and his best friend Chef Cesare work, and they fall in love for each other. Meanwhile, Bruce kills Michael and blackmails Irene, blaming Paul and forcing her to return with him to New York. But Paul does not give up on Irene, and moves to New York with Cesare trying to find her love.
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Gourmet Club (2004) Juha Wuolijoki, Hannu-Pekka Björkman, Kari Ketonen, Michael Badalucco, Comedy

Gourmet Club (2004)
“Gourmet Club” follows a doctor who belongs to a small but exclusive gourmet club, in which the five upper-class members take turns providing the main course, wagering as to who can identify a mystery exotic ingredient. Things get interesting when the doctor’s gambling problem catches up with him. Desperate, he comes up with the idea to use a truly shocking mystery ingredient to fool his colleagues, but he gets more than he bargained for when the mystery meal has a surprising and powerful effect on the members.
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Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) Sam Peckinpah, Warren Oates, Isela Vega, Robert Webber, Action, Crime, Drama

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)
A family scandal causes a wealthy and powerful Mexican rancher to make the pronouncement–‘Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia!’ Two of the bounty-hunters thus dispatched encounter a local piano-player in their hunt for information. The piano-player does a little investigating on his own and finds out that his girlfriend knows of Garcia’s death and last resting place. Thinking that he can make some easy money and gain financial security for he and his (now) fiancée, they set off on this goal. Of course, this quest only brings him untold misery, in the form of trademark Peckinpah violence.
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Boulevard (1960) Julien Duvivier, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Monique Brienne, Pierre Mondy, Comedy, Drama

Boulevard (1960)
Jojo has been living for a while in a room under the roof of a block of flats in Pigalle. He has chosen to leave home since he realized his stepmother has hated him from day one. Among his many neighbors in the house is the gorgeous Jenny Dorr, a nightclub dancer,whose lover he dreams of becoming. But as the boy is only sixteen Jenny proves kind and motherly but that’s that. Worse, she becomes the lover of Dicky, a mediocre boxer farting around in the Pigalle cafés. On the other hand, Jojo, who has no income, must absolutely find work, all the more as he woos Marietta, one of his other neighbors, a young lady more suited to his age. Selling magazines works for a while but posing as Narcissus for two gay artists proves a disaster.
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Diario di un vizio / Diary of a Maniac (1993) Marco Ferreri, Jerry Calà, Sabrina Ferilli, Valentino Macchi, Drama, Erotic

Diario di un vizio (1993)
In this stylish and offbeat black comedy, Benito ( Jerry Calà) keeps a diary of his sexual fantasies and cravings. As a result of his on-again, off-again relationship with the beautiful and insatiable Luigia (Sabrina Ferilli), his thoughts along these lines have grown increasingly bizarre. For his own part, he is driven to pick up and bed women at almost every opportunity. As the fantasies recorded in his diary consume more and more of his life, and grow darker and darker, his ordinary waking life becomes flatter and duller, until he disappears altogether.
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