Two Mothers / Zwei Mütter (2013) Anne Zohra Berrached, Karina Plachetka, Sabine Wolf, Florian Weber, Drama

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Katja and Isabella decide to have a child. However, like many lesbian couples they soon discover that this is much more difficult than they first imagined. Citing legal reasons, most of the sperm banks and fertility clinics refuse to treat them. Fortunately, they are able to find one doctor willing to help – for a large sum. After a while, Katja decides she wants to call a halt to their ‘project’ on account of the toll it is taking on their relationship, not to mention their beleaguered bank balance. But Isabella refuses to give up. She finds a dealer who sells them a kit allowing them to perform the insemination in the comfort of their own home. There are plenty of men on his website willing to sell their sperm for various sums and sometimes one or two additional conditions. And so they begin ‘casting’ for a potential donor – a process that drags on for several difficult weeks. This fictional story is part experiment and part salutary tale. Containing all manner of sensitive material such as research, statistics, facts, prognoses, dreams and realities, this exciting work charts the vibrant terrain between fiction and reality.
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12 O’Clock Boys (2013) Lotfy Nathan, Coco, Pug, Steven, Documentary, Biography, Crime

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Pug, a wisecracking 13 year old living on a dangerous Westside block, has one goal in mind: to join The Twelve O’Clock Boys; the notorious urban dirt-bike gang of Baltimore. Converging from all parts of the inner city, they invade the streets and clash with police, who are forbidden to chase the bikes for fear of endangering the public. When Pug’s older brother dies suddenly, he looks to the pack for mentorship, spurred by their dangerous lifestyle. Pug’s story is coupled with unprecedented, action-packed coverage of the riders in their element. The film presents the pivotal years of change in a boy’s life growing up in one of the most dangerous and economically depressed cities in the US.
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Yasha / Demon (1985) Yasuo Furuhata, Ken Takakura, Ayumi Ishida, Hisamitsu Nakamura, Drama, Crime

Yasha (1985)
Retired yakuza gangster Shuji (Ken Takakura) moves back from Osaka to a remote coastal village to start a new life as a fisherman with his family, his arrival from the city coinciding with that of the beautiful bar hostess Keiko (Yuko Tanaka, who provided the voice of Lady Eboshi in Princess Mononoke). Keiko’s new bar, as its name Hotaru (‘firefly’) suggests is soon acting as a magnet for all the local fishermen, much to the chagrin of their wives. Not soon after the arrival of Keiko’s roguish lover Yajima (Kitano), also an ex-mobster, the locals are drawn into a host of collective vices including gambling and all-night drinking sessions. After a truly stand-out scene in which Yajima runs rampage through the village on a heroin-induced spree with a carving knife, he is run out of town by Shuji, but not before slashing Shuji’s shirt open during the fracas to reveal the tattoo of a woman’s face upon his back. With Shuji’s gangster past now revealed he finds himself ostracised by the local community and drawn towards the sympathetic character of the bar hostess with whom he shares a common past. When Yajima rears his ugly head one more time in order to borrow money from Keiko to pay off a debt to the yakuza, it is to Shuji that she turns for help, threatening to upset his domestic apple cart and pitch him back towards his old life.
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No Way to Treat a Lady (1968) Jack Smight, Rod Steiger, Lee Remick, George Segal, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller

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Christopher Gill is a psychotic killer who uses various disguises to trick and strangle his victims. Moe Brummel is a single and harassed New York City police detective who starts to get phone calls from the strangler and builds a strange alliance as a result. Kate Palmer is a swinging, hip tour guide who witnesses the strangler leaving her dead neighbor’s apartment and sets her sights on the detective. Moe’s live-in mother wishes her son would be a successful Jewish doctor like his big brother.
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Hoodlum (1997) Bill Duke, Laurence Fishburne, Tim Roth, Vanessa Williams, Crime, Drama

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The film focuses on the war of two gangs in 1930s Harlem for the control of illegal gaming – one headed by black strategic godfather Bumpy Johnson and another by white ruthless hothead Dutch Schultz. Negotiations proposed by white syndicate boss Lucky Luciano never get under way, blood flows and Johnson gets jailed. When Johnson is paroled, he gets the work of enforcer for mighty Stephanie “The Queen” St. Clair. She is also jailed for racketeering and when she leaves she makes him promise “no violence”.
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Sweeney! (1977) David Wickes, John Thaw, Dennis Waterman, Barry Foster, Action, Crime

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Cinematic spin-off from the popular TV series. Hard-bitten Flying Squad officer Jack Regan gets embroiled in a deadly political plot when an old friend asks him to investigate the death of his girlfriend. Framed on a drunk-drive charge and suspended from the force, with his partner and best mate George Carter unable to help, Jack must rely on his wits to evade deadly government hitmen and expose the real villain of the piece.
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The Night Digger / The Road Builder (1971) Alastair Reid, Patricia Neal, Pamela Brown, Nicholas Clay, Horror, Thriller

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Effective psychological love story with a macabre twist not found in the original Joy Cowley novel. The dreary existence of middle- aged spinster Maura Prince takes an unexpected turn with the arrival of young handyman Billy Jarvis, but there is more to Billy than meets the eye. This well-crafted film, full of sexual tension and Gothic flavor, was Patricia Neal’s second after her return to acting, her real-life stroke worked deftly into the story by then-husband Roald Dahl.
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One Silver Dollar / Un dollaro bucato (1965) Giorgio Ferroni, Giuliano Gemma, Ida Galli, Pierre Cressoy, Action, Romance, Western

Un dollaro bucato (1965)
Giuliano Gemma plays a confederate soldier who returns from the war to fight one at home. Unbeknownst to him, his brother has become the infamous gunfighter “Black Jack” to defeat the local bullies. Gemma agrees to ambush and kill Black Jack, only to discover too late who the outlaw really is. With vengeance in his heart he turns on his employers, who then shoot him.
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Showdown at Abilene (1956) Charles F. Haas, Jock Mahoney, Martha Hyer, Lyle Bettger, Western

Showdown at Abilene (1956)
Jim Trask, former sheriff of Abilene, returns to the town after fighting for the Confederacy to find everyone thought he was dead. His old friend Dave Mosely is now engaged to Trask’s former sweetheart and is one of the cattlemen increasingly feuding with the original farmers. Trask is persuaded to take up as sheriff again but there is something about the death of Mosely’s brother in the Civil War that is haunting him.
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Eskimo (1933) W.S. Van Dyke, Edgar Dearing, Peter Freuchen, Edward Hearn, Drama

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The remarkable location-filmed Eskimo was adapted from two books: Die Flucht Ins Wiesse Land and Der Eskimo, both written by naturalist Peter Freuchen. Director Woody Van Dyke, in the tradition of his White Shadows on the South Seas and Trader Horn, took his cast and crew on location to the Arctic, arriving by whaling schooner at the topmost settlement in Alaska with author Freuchen as his guide. Van Dyke, Freuchen, and cinematographer Ray Wise also played prominent on-screen roles in the film. Eskimo Ray Mala (billed only by his last name) essays the title role, speaking in the tongue of his ancestors (even though his English was excellent). Rather than use superimposed titles, Van Dyke resorted to old-fashioned silent-movie subtitles in several dialogue sequences. The story concentrates on the more exotic aspects of Eskimo life, notably the race’s (alleged) casual approach to sex. Though tribal leader Mala has, by his own admission, slept with 20 women without benefit of clergy, woe betide anyone who tries to steal his current sweetheart – as a rapacious trader discovers when he’s harpooned to death by the cuckolded hero. Mala is ultimately undone by the Canadian Mounties, whose efforts to civilize the Eskimo community result in a sudden and tragic shift of the balance of power. Editor Conrad A. Nervig won an Oscar for his Herculean efforts to bring cohesiveness to the story. Performing respectably at the box office, Eskimo inspired another location jaunt in 1935: Last of the Pagans, which also starred Ray Mala.
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