Monthly Archives: October 2016

Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A. (1946) Spencer Williams, Francine Everett, Don Wilson, Katherine Moore, Drama

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An all-black Caribbean island resort welcomes flashy dancer Gertie La Rue, forced to perform in this remote spot because she two-timed Al, her Harlem lover and backer, once too often. As Gertie amuses herself by dazzling the local men with her sex appeal, sanctimonious Mr. Christian (shades of ‘Rain’) schemes to either reform her or have her thrown off the island. On opening night, her sensuous performance exceeds Christian’s worst fears…but more serious trouble awaits.
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The Blood of Jesus (1941) Cathryn Caviness, Spencer Williams, Juanita Riley, Drama, Fantasy

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In the rural south of the United States, a godly young woman is accidently wounded by her unchurched husband. She succumbs to the injuries, whereupon a good angel bids her to journey with him to the Crossroads of Life. Before she can travel far, the devil lures her with the temptations of juke joints and the city. Can she regain the straight and narrow before it’s too late? And what is to become of those she left behind?
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Nenè (1978) Salvatore Samperi, Leonora Fani, Tino Schirinzi, Paola Senatore, Drama

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It’s the late 1940s in Italy. WWII is over, but society the world over still bears its scars. In a remote countryside, one family of four occupies a big villa: a young boy, his older sister and their parents. Ju (Sven Valsecchi) is a cute and innocent boy – curious like most kids his age about such things as love, kisses, women’s breasts and generally the difference between sexes. When his cousin, a 14-year-old orphaned girl, moves in with the family, Ju discovers an opportunity to satisfy his increasing curiosity about the female sex. But it all comes at a price…
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Echo Park (1985) Robert Dornhelm, Susan Dey, Tom Hulce, Michael Bowen, Comedy, Drama

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In the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, everyone is more than they initially seem. May waits tables, raises a son, Henry, and is an aspiring actress. She needs a roommate and takes in a pizza deliverer named Jonathan, an aspiring songwriter. In the adjoining flat is August, an Austrian body sculptor who appears in a deodorant commercial and dreams big dreams. May takes a job delivering singing telegrams as a stripper, Jonathan invites Henry to tag along with him on deliveries, August gets into trouble with the police who call his father in Austria, and the friendships, frustrations, and love affairs of everyday life come to a head.
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Haeuhhwa / Love, Lies (2016) Heung-sik Park, Woo-hee Chun, Hyo-ju Han, Sung-woong Park, Drama, Romance

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Two best friends, So-yool and Yeon-hee, dream of becoming the top artists in Seoul together. But their friendship doesn’t last long as Yoon-woo, So-yool’s first love and songwriter, falls in love with Yeon-hee and her voice. So-yool’s feeling of jealousy and inferiority towards Yeon-hee grows by the day, and she eventually makes a drastic decision to bring the two lovers down.
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Nareul Itjimarayo / Don’t Forget Me (2016) Yoon-Jung Lee, Seong-woo Bae, Young-nam Jang, Yi-jin Jo, Drama, Mystery, Romance

nareul-itjimarayo-aka-remember-you-aka-dont-forget-me-2016
A man calling himself Jin-young walks into a police station to report a missing person: himself. Starting at the end of the story, Jin-young is revealed to be be Suk-won, a lawyer suffering severe memory loss and a total change of character. Formerly ruthless and calculating, the amnesiac Suk-won is kind and gentle; completely unlike the man his colleagues want for the important trial of their highest billing client, Mrs. Kim. In order to appease his firm, Suk-won goes to see a psychiatrist. At the hospital he meets Jin-young, a skittish woman he is inexplicably drawn to even as she does her best to steer clear him. As Suk-won investigates both his own past and Mrs. Kim’s case the tragic truth of his and Jin-young’s enduring connection to each other is revealed, bringing Suk-won full circle in a story of loss and the pain of remembrance.
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