Daily Archives: May 4, 2016

The Jazz Singer (1980) Richard Fleischer, Laurence Olivier, Neil Diamond, Lucie Arnaz, Drama, Music, Romance

The Jazz Singer (Richard Fleischer, 1980)
Neil Diamond stars in this motion picture as Yussel Rabinovitch, a young Jewish cantor who strives to make a career outside the synagogue in popular music as Jess Robin. Against the wishes of his rigid father and his loving wife, Yussel travels from New York City to Los Angeles to play his music. Swept up by the excitement, he meets a spunky manager who believes in his talent and shares his dream. He grows apart from his family, and becomes confused about what he should ultimately do with his life.
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Blow Out (1981) Brian De Palma, John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Mystery, Thriller

Blow Out (1981)
In the enthralling Blow Out, brilliantly crafted by Brian De Palma, John Travolta gives one of his greatest performances, as a movie sound-effects man who believes he has accidentally recorded a political assassination. He enlists the help of a possible eyewitness to the crime (Nancy Allen), who may be in danger herself, to uncover the truth. With its jolting stylistic flourishes, intricate plot, profoundly felt characterizations, and gritty evocation of early-1980s Philadelphia, Blow Out is an American paranoia thriller unlike any other, as well as a devilish reflection on moviemaking.
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RKO 281: The Battle Over Citizen Kane (1999) Benjamin Ross, Liev Schreiber, James Cromwell, Melanie Griffith, Biography, Drama

RKO 281 The Battle Over Citizen Kane (Benjamin Ross, 1999)
Coming to Hollywood as a celebrated boy genius featuring a spectacular career arc in New York including his radio hoax War of the Worlds, Orson Welles is stymied on the subject for his first film. After a dinner party at Hearst Castle, during which he has a verbal altercation with William Randolph Hearst, Welles decides to do a movie about Hearst. It takes him some time to convince co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz and the studio, but Welles eventually gets the script and the green light, keeping the subject very hush-hush with the press. The movie is about an aging newspaper publisher who controlled his enemies as ruthlessly as he controlled his friends; and whose mistress was destined for fame. When a rough cut is screened, Hearst gets wind of the movie’s theme and begins a campaign to see that it is not only never publicly screened, but destroyed.
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The Chosen (1981) Jeremy Kagan, Maximilian Schell, Rod Steiger, Robby Benson, Drama

The Chosen (Jeremy Paul Kagan, 1981)
Brooklyn 1944. Despite being the same age, having grown up within blocks of each other, and both being Jewish, late teens Danny Saunders and Reuven Malter don’t really know each other – knowing each other only by name and by sight – as Orthodox Danny stays largely within his own Hasidic community, which is just fine in Reuven’s mind. An incident between the two which on the surface threatens to tear them even further apart instead blossoms into a friendship between the two. They begin to learn more and more about the other and their lives, which for Danny includes becoming a rabbi, solely as it is a several generations old family calling. In Reb Saunders’ mind, he who rules his family by strict Hasidic traditions, Danny becoming the next rabbi in the family is not even a question, despite Danny, deep in his heart, wanting other secular pursuits which he has not told his father. Conversely, Reuven has modern sensibilities, being raised in a two-person household by his widowed academic …
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Breaking the Sound Barrier (1952) David Lean, Ralph Richardson, Ann Todd, Nigel Patrick, Drama, Romance, War

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Tony successful fighter pilot during World War II marries into the family of a wealthy oil magnate who also designs airplanes. The movie traces the company’s attempt to break the sound barrier, as well as tensions between father and daughter. Lots of footage of early 50s jet aviation in Great Britain as well as shots of the Comet airliner, world’s first jet passenger plane.
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BBC – Chernobyl and Fukushima: The Lesson (2016) Documentary

BBC - Chernobyl and Fukushima The Lesson (2016)
Chernobyl 1986. A nuclear reactor exploded, spewing out massive quantities of radiation into the atmosphere. Within days, the pollution had spread across Europe. Living on land contaminated with radioactivity would be a life-changing ordeal for the people of Belarus, but also for the Sami reindeer herders of central Norway. It even affected the Gaels of the distant Hebrides. Five years ago there was a meltdown at the Fukushima reactor, and thousands of Japanese people found their homes, fields and farms irradiated, just as had happened in Europe. This international documentary, filmed in Belarus, Japan, the lands of Norway’s Sami reindeer herders and in the Outer Hebrides, poses the question: what lessons have we learned?
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