Author Archives: rarefilm

Les anges exterminateurs / The Exterminating Angels (2006) Jean-Claude Brisseau, Frédéric van den Driessche, Maroussia Dubreuil, Lise Bellynck, Drama, Fantasy, Erotic

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François is a film-maker, usually impassive and without affect. He’s making a film about women’s pleasure as they transgress taboos. He doesn’t know that two fallen angels who’ve been sent to upend him are manipulating his interest. He interviews young women, video tapes screen tests, and selects several for the film. The erotic scenes with them generate off-screen dynamics that may overwhelm the project. His wife is at first ignorant of his venture, then she’s put off, and then becomes his assistant. The fallen angels are always close at hand: is François’s ruin inevitable?
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I Wake Up Screaming (1941) H. Bruce Humberstone, Betty Grable, Victor Mature, Carole Landis, Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

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Promoter Frankie Christopher, being grilled by police in the murder of model Vicky Lynn, recalls in flashback: First meeting her as a waitress, Frankie decides to parlay her beauty into social acceptance and a lucrative career. He succeeds only too well: she’s on the eve of deserting him for Hollywood…when someone kills her. Now Frankie gets the feeling that Inspector Ed Cornell is determined to pin the killing on him and only him. He’s right. And the only one he can turn to for help is Jill, the victim’s sister, who’s been cool toward him…
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A l’aventure (2008) Jean-Claude Brisseau, Carole Brana, Arnaud Binard, Nadia Chibani, Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Erotic

A l'aventure (2008)
Fed up with her present lifestyle, and more particularly sexually unsatisfied by her boyfriend Fred, Sandrine decides to find a new way in life. Intrigued by her friend Sophie, who tells her about her sexual experimentations, she will find, through various encounters, new pleasures and new experiences, whether physical or spiritual.
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Blood Simple. (1984) Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, Crime, Thriller

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Texas bar owner Julian Marty, who is generally regarded as not a nice person, hires shady private detective Loren Visser, who is able to obtain what Marty requests: evidence – in this instance, photographic – that his wife, Abby, and one of his bartenders, Ray, are having an affair. As Ray and Abby realize that Marty has found out about them, it allows them to plan for their future away from Marty, while be up front with Marty about the situation. Marty, in turn, decides to hire Visser once again, this time to kill Abby and Ray, and dispose of their bodies so that they won’t be found. The out in the open affair and the contract hit lead to some actions based on self interest, and a standoff of sorts between the four players, which is compounded in complexity by some wrong assumptions of what has happened, with an innocent bystander, another of the Marty’s bartenders, Meurice, potentially and unwittingly adding to the scenario.
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Centerspread Girls (1982) Gary Graver, Veronica Hart, Lisa De Leeuw, John Alderman, Comedy, Adult

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The Morality over Madness (MOM) committee tries to take down Sue Forbes’ adult magazine “Panther”. Alas, one by one the MOM members are seduced by Sue’s former centerfold models. Producer Beverly Martine seduces wore out porn star Lyndon Loveless to rediscover his prowess. While old member Thurman Parrish refuses the advances of the buxom stripping artist Vee Beacham and Anne the photographer, they enlist his younger wife Louella by causing her to out herself. After witnessing Gov. Hamilton Osmond with an overly patriotic girl, Celeste and Sean Carson seduce him themselves. Ellie Parker the reporter seduces Lay Rev. W. W. Williams and ends up sneaking the videotape he takes of their encounter into Sue. Jane Mohr takes a different approach by coming clean to Judge Roy Hammer. They fall in love after he reveals MOM got his support by pure political pressure. In the committee’s hearing.
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Loves of a Blonde / Lásky jedné plavovlásky (1965) Milos Forman, Hana Brejchová, Vladimír Pucholt, Vladimír Mensík, Comedy, Romance, Drama

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A factory manager in rural Czechoslovakia bargains with the army to send men to the area, to boost the morale of his young female workers, deprived of male company since the local boys have been conscripted. The army sends reservists, mostly married middle-aged men – and the local beauty Andula, spurns those bold enough to try to win her, for the jazz pianist, newly come from Prague to perform. He seduces her and impresses her, telling her “most women are round, like guitars but you are a guitar by Picasso”. Staying the night with him causes a lecture on a young woman’s honour at her hostel so she throws over her other suitors and makes her way to Prague to find the young man. His protective Mamma and weary Pappa are not pleased when she arrives on the doorstep with her suitcase.
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Come on Children (1973) Allan King, Alan Dunikowsky, Ken Gibbs, John Hamilton, Documentary

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Born of talks with four hundred disaffected teenagers in the suburban belt around Toronto, the film reflects their recurring theme: “Wouldn’t it be great if we weren’t hassled by parents and police, didn’t go to prison-like schools and could just get out of this polluted city and into the coun¬try and hang out with a bunch of kids like ourselves.” Would it? The filmmakers invited five boys and five girls ages 13 to 19 to live on a farm for ten weeks, to be filmed, and to see what might emerge for each of them personally.
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A Dama do Lotacao (1978) Neville de Almeida, Sonia Braga, Nuno Leal Maia, Jorge Dória, Drama, Erotic

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Carlos and Solange, childhood sweethearts, marry after a chaste courtship. On their wedding night, Solange refuses to make love to him. First he pleads, then in anger he rapes her. She says she adores him, but, even after months of marriage, can’t endure his touch. To prove to herself she’s not frigid, she begins a daily routine of seducing strangers on public busses; she also takes Carlos’s best friend to a motel. Carlos figures out that she’s unfaithful and, armed, confronts Solange. Meanwhile, she seeks psychiatric help because she feels no remorse. Will there be violence and death, a psychological breakthrough, or more bus rides?
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Yume / Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams (1990) Akira Kurosawa, Ishirô Honda, Akira Terao, Mitsuko Baishô, Toshie Negishi, Drama, Fantasy

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Unfolding in a series of eight mythic vignettes, this late work by Akira Kurosawa was inspired by the beloved director’s own nighttime visions, along with stories from Japanese folklore. In a visually sumptuous journey through the master’s imagination, tales of childlike wonder give way to apocalyptic apparitions: a young boy stumbles on a fox wedding in a forest; a soldier confronts the ghosts of the war dead; a power plant meltdown smothers a seaside landscape in radioactive fumes. Interspersed with reflections on the redemptive power of creation, including a richly textured tribute to Vincent van Gogh (who is played by Martin Scorsese), Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams is both a showcase for its maker’s artistry at its most unbridled and a deeply personal lament for a world at the mercy of human ignorance.
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