Tag Archives: 1980s

Saeko, a somewhat enigmatic young woman, is brutally beaten with a rock and raped by a man wearing a dark-colored mask and black gloves. She eventually recovers, but not long afterwards a series of horrific murders begins occurring in the apartment building she lives in. When it turns out that the victims are badly beaten, then killed and their genitals burned off, Saeko begins to think she has an idea who the killer is, but realizes she may be murdered before she has a chance to expose the maniac.
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Naive, orphaned maiden Angela leaves her small town for 19th- century London, where she quickly learns the ways of the world. She begins work at a brothel, where she gets a quick education in life. On her first “job,” she is rescued by Rocco, a traveling thief who happens to be going from room to room, robbing the patrons. Rocco and Angela fall in love, but Rocco must flee the inn at which they have taken residence, when the police arrive at the door…
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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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An intergalactic fighting competition between champions of various worlds has traditionally been won by a species much larger and stronger than humans. Entering the contest, a human finds he has to battle against not just his opponents and his self-doubts, but the corrupt system.
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Tikoyo lives by the Bora Bora lagoon in the South Pacific, where he found a man-eating tiger shark when it was an orphaned baby, just a foot long. He named it Manidu, and it grew to be sixteen feet long. Tikoyo believes that his companion houses the soul of a wise old man, and helps him guard the sacred black pearls in the lagoon. In fact, Manidu does protect Tikoyo and his girlfriend Diana, only eating those who are their enemies, or who seek to destroy their environment, or steal the pearls.
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A young American couple go to the Greek islands for the summer and are dazzled by the beauty and the uninhibited people surrounding them. The young man meets and begins an affair with a French woman, an archeologist working on a dig. The young American woman discovers this and goes to confront the other woman. The French woman is quite taken with the American woman’s photographic work, and the three become very close.
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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?
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A highly unlikely band of heroes traverses a post-apocalyptic wasteland to rescue a scientist from the tyrannical Dark One and his army of robots.
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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.
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Two students at a Catholic girls schools are best friends. One is a shy, withdrawn girl, and the other is a wild, party-’til-you-drop hellraiser. The partier decides to give her “good girl” friend an education in the ways of the world.
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Story of the night that Mary Shelley gave birth to the horror classic “Frankenstein.” Disturbed drug induced games are played and ghost stories are told one rainy night at the mad Lord Byron’s country estate. Personal horrors are revealed and the madness of the evening runs from sexual fantasy to fiercest nightmare. Mary finds herself drawn into the sick world of her lover Shelley and cousin Claire as Byron leads them all down the dark paths of their souls.
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Val and Aqua are two household servant robots who start feeling emotions for each other. After falling in love, they decide to escape from their servitude and attempt to start a family of their own.
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Second ‘Oh God’ movie has God appearing before 11-year-old Tracy Richards to ask for her help to spread his word and influence over the world which she suggests the slogan ‘Think God.’ Naturaly, Tracy’s divorced parents Paula and Don think Tracy’s just crazy and plot to halt her ‘heaven-sent’ mission to spread God’s word.
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A documentary filmed in the psychiatric ward of the Motel Dieu at a large hospital in Paris. The patients arrive on their own, or with considerable help from the police, but all of them are in need of medical attention.
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A man invites a woman to share his room in a hostel in Djibouti because she seems to have some problems. Gradually he falls in love with her. They embark on a trip to the towns in the desert and, on the way, they learn more about each other. The man never appears on screen, so the camera becomes his point of view.
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