Tag Archives: spanish

Funny Face (1957) Stanley Donen, Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Kay Thompson

Funny Face (1957)
Fashion photographer Dick Avery, in search for an intellectual backdrop for an air-headed model, expropriates a Greenwich Village bookstore. When the photo session is over the store is left in a shambles, much to salesgirl Jo Stockton’s dismay. Avery stays behind to help her clean up. Later, he examines the photos taken there and sees Jo in the background of one shot. He is intrigued by her unique appearance, as is Maggie Prescott, the editor of a leading fashion magazine. They offer Jo a modeling contract, which she reluctantly accepts only because it includes a trip to Paris. Eventually, her snobbish attitude toward the job softens, and Jo begins to enjoy the work and the company of her handsome photographer.
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The Sun Shines Bright (1953) John Ford, Charles Winninger, Arleen Whelan, John Russell

The Sun Shines Bright (1953)
John Ford weaves three “Judge Priest” stories together to form a good- natured exploration of honour and small-town politics in the South around the turn of the century. Judge William Priest is involved variously in revealing the real identity of Lucy Lake, reliving his Civil War memories, preventing the lynching of a youth and contesting the elections with Yankee Horace K. Maydew.
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A propósito de Buenos Aires (2006) Manuel Ferrari, Alejo Franzetti, Maria Abadi, Mariana Chaud, Inés Efron

A proposito de Buenos Aires (2006)
From the port of Santa Maria of Buenos Aires, the city as a desert where we can not expect mercy or no relief. Black and sound vessels. Orchestral trains. Abandoned children. Lights of methylene blue. Theater lobbies. Broad avenues. Straight narrow streets. Studies outdated. Air collisions. Smokeless chimneys. Identical letters. Furtive encounters. Prefabricated swamps. Slimy beds. Prohibited Islands. Almost a million books. Stone angels. Allegorical stones. Songwriters locals body and soul. Deceptions. Robberies. Scams. Black and white images of a dead Buenos Aires. Eleven directors collective experiment with thirty two characters over a city of five parts: Traps. The money. Desert. Lights. The dead. Temperate and relatives, the remains of a shipwreck: Speaking of Buenos Aires. These young directors met to collaborate on this unusual project, not only for its technical specifications, but for its narrative structure. There are several scenes joined together only by the city. None of these has come to define a unique story, each is part of a larger situation that we see, as if the beginning and end of each story should be completed by the viewer. Or rather, as if there were no need to begin and end because, ultimately, this is nothing more than the conventional way of telling stories.
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The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966) Don Sharp, Christopher Lee, Douglas Wilmer, Heinz Drache

The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966)
Christopher Lee returns as Sax Rohmer’s insidious Asian villain Fu Manchu for the second of his five vehicles. This time Fu Manchu and his army of henchmen are kidnaping the daughters of prominent scientists and taking them to his remote island headquarters. Instead of asking for ransom, Fu demands that the fathers help him to build a death ray, which he intends to use to take over the world. But Fu’s archenemy, Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard, is determined not to let that happen…
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As You Desire Me (1932) George Fitzmaurice, Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Erich von Stroheim

As You Desire Me (1932)
Budapest bar entertainer Zara is a discontented alcoholic who is pursued by many men but lives with novelist Carl Salter. A strange man (Tony) shows up on Salter’s estate claiming that Zara is actually Maria, the wife of his close friend Bruno. Maria, Tony claims, had her memory destroyed during a World War I invasion ten years ago. Zara doesn’t remember but leaves with Tony to Salter’s dismay. Bruno, now an officer in the Italian army, tries to coax Maria’s memory back on his large estate. No one is really sure if Zara is Maria, and when Salter shows up with a mental case that he claims is the real Maria, everyone on Bruno’s estate is desperately searching for the truth.
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The Wrong Box (1966) Bryan Forbes, John Mills, Michael Caine, Ralph Richardson

The Wrong Box (1966)
A tontine is established for a dozen children, a tontine being a kind of bet/insurance, money is put in for each to grow with interest and the last survivor is to get the lot. We watch the group dwindle until only two brothers are left. One brother is watched by his nephews who will keep him alive at all costs, the other lives in ill health and poverty as the only support of his fairly stupid grandson. Statues and bodies are switched, in the wrong boxes until everyone is sure someone has died. Now if they can only make it seem as if the other brother died first, hundreds of thousands of pounds (in Victorian England when a pound was a pound) will be theirs.
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Sons and Lovers (1960) Jack Cardiff, Trevor Howard, Dean Stockwell, Wendy Hiller

Sons and Lovers (1960)
Jack Cardiff received a 1960 Oscar Nomination as Best Director for this lush, engaging film starring Trevor Howard, Dean Stockwell and Donald Pleasence, which was adapted from D.H. Lawrence’s classic novel. A young man with artistic talent who lives in a close-knit, English coal-mining town during the early 20th Century finds himself inhibited by his emotionally manipulative, domineering mother.
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