Mery per sempre / Forever Mary (1989) Marco Risi, Michele Placido, Claudio Amendola, Francesco Benigno, Drama, Crime

Mery per sempre (Marco Risi, 1989)
A teacher discovers his calling. Marco relocates to Palermo from Milan and takes a job teaching in a reform school while he waits for a high school position. He tries to understand and motivate his handful of students, reading them colloquial poetry, encouraging them to stand up for their rights, finding out about their histories. Natale, in for murder, enamored of the Mafia, the King Rat within the group; Mery, a drag queen, arrested for assault when defending himself, in love with Mario and, in daylight, rejected by all; Pietro, illiterate, muscular, believing his destiny is set; the callow Claudio, vulnerable, learning to harden himself. What can Mario learn and do in such a short time?
Read More »

Blindfolded Eyes / Los Ojos Vendados (1978) Carlos Saura, Geraldine Chaplin, José Luis Gómez, Xabier Elorriaga, Art-house, Drama

002e7c0e
While attending an international conference which seeks to reduce the incidence of the use of torture by nations around the globe, a movie director (Jose Luis Gomez) encounters a woman (Geraldine Chaplin) whom he decides to cast in a play about state torture. As events proceed, he and the woman, the wife of a dentist, become lovers. All along, however, right-wing types have been persecuting, and the whole endeavor goes sour.
Read More »

Les intrigantes / The Plotters (1954) Henri Decoin, Raymond Rouleau, Jeanne Moreau, Raymond Pellegrin, Crime, Drama, Thriller

Les intrigantes (Henri Decoin, 1954)
A stage director (Raymond Rouleau) becomes the prime suspect in the death of his assistant, who may or may not have been fooling around with the director’s wife (Jeanne Moreau). The wife helps her husband hide out from the police, taking over his responsibilities in the theater. Soon she is flourishing in the world of make-believe, and she has fallen under the spell of the duplicitous rat who started all of the trouble in the first place. Saving the day is the director’s good-hearted secretary (Etchika Choureau), who has long harbored a crush on her boss.
Read More »

Seddok, l’erede di Satana / Atom Age Vampire (1960) Anton Giulio Majano, Alberto Lupo, Susanne Loret, Sergio Fantoni, Horror, Sci-Fi

Seddok, l'erede di Satana (Anton Giulio Majano, 1960)
A stripper is horribly disfigured in a car accident. A brilliant scientist develops a treatment that restores her beauty and falls in love with her. To preserve her appearance the doctor must give her additional treatments using glands taken from murdered women. His unexplained ability to turn into a hideous monster helps with this problem but does nothing to win her love. The doctor’s woes multiply as the police and the girl’s boyfriend begin to close in on him.
Read More »

Around the Block (2013) Sarah Spillane, Christina Ricci, Ruby Rose, Matt Nable, Drama

002e51c6
Dino Chalmers (Christina Ricci), an American living with her Australian fiancé, is a first-time teacher eager to bring her love of Shakespeare to the diverse student population of a rough ‘n tumble school in Sydney’s notorious Block. her attention soon turns to Liam (Hunter Page-Lochard, Bran Nue Dae), an Aboriginal student eager to stay on course despite his family’s criminal ties through Redfern. Both isolated in their own ways, a bond forms between Dino and Liam who are both struggling with issues of identity, race, sexuality, and societal pressures.
Read More »

Dark Passage (1947) Delmer Daves, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bruce Bennett, Film-Noir, Thriller

002e4240
Bogart plays a man convicted of murdering his wife who escapes from prison in order to prove his innocence. Bogart finds that his features are too well known, and is forced to seek some illicit backroom plastic surgery. The entire pre-knife part of the film is shot from a Bogart’s-eye-view, with us seeing the fugitive for the first time as he starts to recuperate from the operation in the apartment of a sympathetic young artist (played by Bacall) for whom he soon finds affection. But what he’s really after is revenge.
Read More »

What Will Become of You / Was soll bloß aus dir werden (1984) Horst Flick, Michael Karnowsky, Peter Seum, Anita Lochner, Drama

002e5373
In this 1984 West German film, a 12 year-old street kid in a slum of Berlin struggles to stay afloat through a commitment to his compassionate teacher and ambivalent classmates, aged 11-14, who also bear the harsh marks of impoverishment, which manifest themselves in peer ruthlessness and disrespect of adults. Film contains frequent profanity, alcoholism, mild crime and peer violence, brief male nudity.
Read More »

Fuck It / Jebiga (2000) Miha Hocevar, Matej Druznik, David Furlan, Peter Hvalica, Comedy

002e3f4b
A group of teenagers spend the summer looking for fun in a place where it’s in short supply in this good-natured comedy-drama. It’s summer in the Slovenian city of Ljubljana, and five buddies spend their time trying to scare up some excitement; however, finding someone to buy them some beer at the neighborhood tavern is usually the high point of the day. In between drifting through town, sometimes scoring drugs, and trying to figure out where they left their car, the guys discover (to their surprise) that love may be entering the picture when a pair of local girls begin hanging out with the group. Jebiga, the debut feature from director Miha Hocevar, was well received in its screening at the 2000 Slovenian National Film Festival.
Read More »