Daily Archives: December 16, 2016

L’invitation / The Invitation (1973) Claude Goretta, Jean-Luc Bideau, François Simon, Jean Champion, Comedy

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After the death of his mother, middle-aged insurance employee inherits her small cottage surrounded by a garden. Selling the cottage which is situated on unexploited ground near the center of a big city makes him a rich man and he buys a big house in the countryside. He takes some time off and decides to throw a big garden party at the house and invite all his colleagues from the office. Aided by alcohol, the guests gradually lose all their inhibitions and reveal personality traits and frustrations that they normally keep hidden.
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Lady, Let’s Dance (1944) Frank Woodruff, Belita, James Ellison, Walter Catlett, Musical, Romance, War

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Lady, Let’s Dance was a 1944 black and white film directed by Frank Woodruff that was nominated for two Oscars. Produced by Monogram Studios, the film is unique as an ice skating musical. Lady, Let’s Dance starred ice skaters Belita, James Ellison, Werner Groebli and Hans Mauch (more commonly known as ‘Frick & Frack’) and Walter Catlett.
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Snivaj, zlato moje / Sleep Sweet, My Darling (2005) Neven Hitrec, Ljubomir Kerekes, Ivan Glowatzky, Ines Bojanic, Comedy, Drama

snivaj-zlato-moje-aka-sleep-sweet-my-darling-2005
This sentimental comedy, in turn delightfully amusing and tragicomical, tells a tale of a working-class neighborhood in Zagreb during a ten-year period after the end of the Second World War. It is a story of people who rely on humor and song to survive their anxious times, preserving their traditions and their way of life despite the tumultuous upheavals that surround them. A range of colorful characters create a unique microcosm of an old-fashioned way of life, in which it is as natural to burst into song as it is to talk, creating a film which at times resembles a musical.
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Presque rien avec Luc Ferrari (2005) Jacqueline Caux, Olivier Pascal, Documentary

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Documenting the work of one of the most groundbreaking and seductive composers of the Twentieth Century, this film also shows Luc Ferrari’s “extremely libertarian personality: his spontaneity, his inclination towards hedonism and sensuality, his curious and open character, his rejection of all kind of power and of all stable position within institutions, his pronounced taste for jeux, his sense of self-derision and his ferocious refusal of all dogmatism”.
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Johns (1996) Scott Silver, David Arquette, Lukas Haas, Tony Epper, Drama, Romance

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It’s the day before Christmas, the day before John’s 21st birthday. He’s a prostitute on Santa Monica Blvd in L.A., and he wants to spend that night and the next day at the posh Park Plaza Hotel. He’s ripped off a local drug dealer to pay the bill, but as he’s sleeping that morning, someone steals his shoes right off his feet, with the money in them. Meanwhile, Donner, a lad new to the streets, wants John to leave the city with him for Camelot, a theme park in Branson, MO, where they’ll work as lifeguards. John spends the day trying to hustle the money for the hotel, avoid Jimmy the Warlock, keep his girl friend placated, and figure out how to deal with Donner’s friendship.
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Afterschool (2008) Antonio Campos, Ezra Miller, Jeremy Allen White, Emory Cohen, Drama, Mystery

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Having joined a recently created video club, a lowly prep-school sophomore – desensitized from reality by frequently viewed Internet imagery – accidentally captures on video the final moments of admired twin senior classmates dying from poisoned drugs. Rather than galvanize the school or this lad’s life in any profound or meaningful way, the tragedy causes barely a ripple in the already emotionally diminished and out-of-touch lives of everyone around.
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Abad va yek rooz / Life+1Day (2016) Saeed Roustayi, Peyman Moaadi, Navid Mohammadzadeh, Parinaz Izadyar, Drama

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The graphic account of a poverty-stricken family living in Tehran through the days before the youngest daughter of the family, Somaieh, is departing to start her marriage to a supposedly rich Afghan. While all members of the family have their worries about the wholeness of the marriage, she is struggling with her madly debilitating troubles including a silly mother who is gravely ill, a drug abusing brother, an obsessively compulsive sister, a considerably smart teenage brother who is being ruined in the environment, and a cunning oldest brother in need of money.
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