Gay Sex in the 70s (2005) Joseph F. Lovett, Robert Alvarez, Alvin Baltrop, Barton Benes, Documentary

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Thirteen men and one woman look back at gay life and sex in Manhattan and Fire Island – from Stonewall (June, 1969) to the first reporting on AIDS (June, 1981). They describe the rapid move from repression to celebration, from the removal of shame to joy, the on-going search for “someone,” the freedom before AIDS, the friendships, and brotherhood. They take us through cruising and sex in public places, the drug scene, the bars and the baths, the birth of entertainment and dance clubs, and starry nights on Fire Island. Photographs, home movies, newsreels, and film clips illustrate the story. A few contemporary “what did the 70’s mean?” man-in-the-street takes end the documentary.
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Im Spinnwebhaus / Spiderwebhouse (2015) Mara Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Ben Litwinschuh, Lutz Simon Eilert, Helena Pieske, Drama, Fantasy

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Jonas is already head of the family at just 12 years of age. He has been helping his two younger siblings and supporting his mother, Sabine, since his father left. Sabine is very loving towards her children but she often loses her patience and disappears into her room for the day. Mysterious demons drive her to spend a weekend away to relax in the “sunny valley”. But the weekend grows into weeks in which the three children hear nothing from their mother. Food and money have long since run out, the house has become more and more like a haunted castle: a spiderweb house. Jonas tries his best to maintain the appearance of an intact family. On the hunt for something to eat, he meets a young man, Felix Count of Gütersloh, who speaks in rhymes and declares himself to be not quite right in the head. Rather like a guardian angel, he takes Jonas under his wing and shows him how to get by in a world without adults. The film is less a social drama than a modern-day fairy tale shot in black and white. The audience is immersed in the eerily beautiful world of the children which unfolds its own particular magic.
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Kaze ni tatsu raion / The Lion Standing in the Wind (2015) Takashi Miike, Ayako Fujitani, Satomi Ishihara, Ryôhei Suzuki, Drama

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Jack-of-all-trades director Miike Takashi takes on more serious material in the human drama The Lion Standing in the Wind about the experiences of a Japanese doctor in Africa. Featuring location shooting in Kenya, the film is based on Sada Masashi’s novel and song Kaze ni Tatsu Lion, which were inspired by the true story of a Japanese doctor who operated a mobile clinic in the African nation.
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Jalsaghar / The Music Room (1958) Satyajit Ray, Chhabi Biswas, Sardar Akhtar, Gangapada Basu, Drama, Music

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Huzur Biswamghar Roy is a rich landowner who lives in a palace with his wife and son and his many servants. His passion – his wife would call it his addiction – is music and he spends a great deal of his fortune on concerts held for the locals in his magnificent music room. His wealth is in decline however. His lands are being eroded by the local river and he pays for the concert he arranges for his son’s coming of age party by selling some of the family jewels. When his neighbor Ganguli invites him to a party at his house, Roy decides to one up him and organizes a lavish party for the same day – costing him the last of the jewels. After his wife and son are killed in a storm, Roy becomes something of a recluse, closing up the music room. Now, many years later he decides to have one final concert, spending the last of his money to again outdo – and spite – Ganguli.
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Sanatorium pod klepsydra / The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973) Wojciech Has, Jan Nowicki, Tadeusz Kondrat, Irena Orska, Drama, Fantasy

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The film depicts its protagonist, Joseph (Jan Nowicki), traveling through a dream-like world, taking a dilapidated train to visit his dying father in a sanatorium. When he arrives at the hospital, he finds the entire facility is going to ruin and no one seems to be in charge, or even caring for the patients. Time appears to behave in unpredictable ways, reanimating the past in an elaborate artificial caprice.
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House on Haunted Hill / La Nuit de tous les Mystères (1959) William Castle, Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long, Thriller, Horror

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Eccentric millionaire Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) invites five people to a “party” he is throwing for his fourth wife, Annabelle (Carol Ohmart), in an allegedly haunted house he has rented, promising to give them each $10,000 with the stipulation that they must stay the entire night in the house after the doors are locked at midnight. The five guests are test pilot Lance Schroeder (Richard Long); newspaper columnist Ruth Bridges (Julie Mitchum); psychiatrist Dr. David Trent (Alan Marshal), who specializes in hysteria; Nora Manning (Carolyn Craig), who works for one of Loren’s companies; and the house’s owner Watson Pritchard (Elisha Cook). Pritchard disapproves of Loren’s use of the house for his “party,” making it unclear how Loren acquired access to the house in the first place…
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Pretty Baby (1978) [Uncut 109min] Louis Malle, Brooke Shields, Keith Carradine, Susan Sarandon, Drama

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In 1917, in the red light district Storyville, New Orleans, the prostitute Hattie lives with her twelve year-old daughter Violet in the fancy brothel of Madame Nell, where she works. Photographer Ernest J. Bellocq has an attraction to Hallie and Violet and he is an habitué of the whorehouse. One day, Madame Nell auctions Violet’s virginity and the winner pays the fortune of US$ 400 to spend the night with the girl. Then Hattie marries a wealthy client and moves to Saint Louis, leaving Violet in the brothel alone. Violet decides to marry Bellocq and she moves to his house. Until the day that Hattie, who has overcome her past, comes to Bellocq’s house with the intention to take Violet with her.
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The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) George Stevens, Millie Perkins, Shelley Winters, Joseph Schildkraut, Biography, Drama, Family

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Based on Anne Frank’s diary, and the stage play that was adapted from it: In Nazi-occupied Holland, Otto Frank and his family have decided to go into hiding, because of the increasing persecutions against Jews. The businessman Kraler and his assistant Miep prepare a hiding place in the rooms above their place of business, and arrange for the Franks and another family, the Van Daans, to stay there. Later on, they are joined by the dentist Dussel. Together, they try to avoid detection while hoping for Holland to be liberated by the Allies, but even meeting basic needs can become a challenge, and even minor incidents could present a grave risk.
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Der letzte Ritt nach Santa Cruz / The Last Ride to Santa Cruz (1964) Rolf Olsen, Edmund Purdom, Mario Adorf, Marianne Koch, Western

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Pedro Ortiz (Mario Adorf) is released from prison and returns soon to free a young man called Carlos (Thomas Fritsch). Together with Jose (Klaus Kinski) and Fernando (Sieghardt Rupp), they start a new gang for bank robbery and the usual things bandits do. They take Ortiz’ friend Juanita (Marisa Mell) and the servile piano player Woody (Walter Giller) with them. When former sheriff Kelly (Edmund Purdom) follows them, they take his wife Liz (Marianne Koch) and his young son for hostages.
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Deadline at Dawn (1946) Harold Clurman, Susan Hayward, Bill Williams, Paul Lukas, Film-Noir, Mystery, Romance

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Alex, a sailor on leave, recovers from a drink-induced blackout with a large sum of money belonging to Edna Bartelli, a b-girl who invited him home to “fix her radio.” He tries to return it with the reluctant aid of June Goth, a sweet but oh-so-tired dance hall girl; they find Edna murdered. Not quite sure he didn’t do it himself, Alex and June have four hours in the dead of night to find the real killer before his leave ends. Their quest brings them into contact with a sleazy kaleidoscope of minor characters; clues get more and more tangled…
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Stairway to Heaven (1946) Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, David Niven, Kim Hunter, Robert Coote, Drama, Fantasy, Comedy

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Returning to England from a bombing run in May 1945, flyer Peter Carter’s plane is damaged and his parachute ripped to shreds. He has his crew bail out safely, but figures it is curtains for himself. He gets on the radio, and talks to June, a young American woman working for the USAAF, and they are quite moved by each other’s voices. Then he jumps, preferring this to burning up with his plane. He wakes up in the surf. It was his time to die, but there was a mixup in heaven. They couldn’t find him in all that fog. By the time his “Conductor” catches up with him 20 hours later, Peter and June have met and fallen in love. This changes everything, and since it happened through no fault of his own, Peter figures that heaven owes him a second chance. Heaven agrees to a trial to decide his fate.
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