Drama

Out of the Blue (1980) Linda Manz, Dennis Hopper, Sharon Farrell, Drama

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Out of the Blue is a 1980 film featuring and directed by Dennis Hopper. The film was written and produced by Gary Jules Jouvenat. It competed for the Palme d’Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival. Film Critic Jonathan Rosenbaum considers it one of the 15 best films of the 1980s. It centers on a rebellious young girl (Linda Manz) interested in Elvis Presley and punk rock music, her ex-convict, truck driver father (Dennis Hopper), and her high-strung mother (Sharon Farrell). The title is taken from the Neil Young song “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)”.
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Death of a Salesman / Mort d’un Commis Voyageur (1985) Volker Schlöndorff, Dustin Hoffman, Kate Reid, John Malkovich, Drama

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Willy Loman, a salesman based in New York City, returns home from a trip to Yonkers where his sons, Biff and Happy, and his wife, Linda, greet him. Biff, who had been working on a farm in Texas, talks to Happy about working outside, and how this house brings back bad memories, and boxes him in. Willy goes outside and flashes back to Biff’s childhood: Biff is the star quarterback of his high school football team, and the Lomans’ neighbor, Bernard, advises him to study math, but Biff and Happy ignore him and carry on playing football. Later on in the flashback, Willy goes inside, where Linda talks to him about their budget. Willy is reminded of an encounter he had with The Woman, during which he gave her some red silk stockings, with lettering along the sides that said “scarlet’s dream”, and when he returns from the flashback, he sees Linda mending some stockings and snatches them away in guilt. Later, he and Charley engage in a card game (casino), during which Willy is reminded of his brother Ben. Ben begins a dialogue with him, and Willy contemplates why he
can’t become successful.
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Terre battue / 40-Love (2014) Stéphane Demoustier, Olivier Gourmet, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Charles Mérienne, Drama

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Determined to no longer work for anyone else, Jérôme tries to set up his own company, no matter the cost and despite his wife’s reluctance. Ugo, their 11-year-old son, plays tennis and wants to become a champion. To do so, he must get into the French national tennis training school at Roland Garros.
Like his father, Ugo is ready to do anything to achieve his aims. Together, Ugo and Jérôme come to learn that you can’t bend the rules in order to succeed.
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Onthakan / The Blue Hour (2015) Anucha Boonyawatana, Atthaphan Poonsawas, Oabnithi Wiwattanawarang, Djuangjai Hirunsri, Drama

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Tam, a timid loner, is bullied regularly by his fellow pupils at school. He is met with similar rejection and suspicion within the narrow confines of his parents’ dingy home, where his father beats him. One day Tam arranges online to meet Phum at a derelict swimming pool. They are both looking for sex, but their encounter leaves them with a feeling of comfort and security. A close bond develops between the two boys and, before long, they are roaming the rubbish heaps and dark corners of the city together, day and night. Phum opens a door for Tam, revealing a fantastical parallel universe full of spirits and dangerous encounters. Although he feels safe and loved for the first time in his life, Tam can no longer differentiate between dream and reality and finds himself increasingly drawn into a spiral of paranoia and violence. In his feature debut Boonyawatana leads his protagonist into an ambiguous microcosm full of chasms, at the same time cleverly toying with the conventions of different genres.
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Im Spinnwebhaus / Spiderwebhouse (2015) Mara Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Ben Litwinschuh, Lutz Simon Eilert, Helena Pieske, Drama, Fantasy

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Jonas is already head of the family at just 12 years of age. He has been helping his two younger siblings and supporting his mother, Sabine, since his father left. Sabine is very loving towards her children but she often loses her patience and disappears into her room for the day. Mysterious demons drive her to spend a weekend away to relax in the “sunny valley”. But the weekend grows into weeks in which the three children hear nothing from their mother. Food and money have long since run out, the house has become more and more like a haunted castle: a spiderweb house. Jonas tries his best to maintain the appearance of an intact family. On the hunt for something to eat, he meets a young man, Felix Count of Gütersloh, who speaks in rhymes and declares himself to be not quite right in the head. Rather like a guardian angel, he takes Jonas under his wing and shows him how to get by in a world without adults. The film is less a social drama than a modern-day fairy tale shot in black and white. The audience is immersed in the eerily beautiful world of the children which unfolds its own particular magic.
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Kaze ni tatsu raion / The Lion Standing in the Wind (2015) Takashi Miike, Ayako Fujitani, Satomi Ishihara, Ryôhei Suzuki, Drama

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Jack-of-all-trades director Miike Takashi takes on more serious material in the human drama The Lion Standing in the Wind about the experiences of a Japanese doctor in Africa. Featuring location shooting in Kenya, the film is based on Sada Masashi’s novel and song Kaze ni Tatsu Lion, which were inspired by the true story of a Japanese doctor who operated a mobile clinic in the African nation.
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Jalsaghar / The Music Room (1958) Satyajit Ray, Chhabi Biswas, Sardar Akhtar, Gangapada Basu, Drama, Music

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Huzur Biswamghar Roy is a rich landowner who lives in a palace with his wife and son and his many servants. His passion – his wife would call it his addiction – is music and he spends a great deal of his fortune on concerts held for the locals in his magnificent music room. His wealth is in decline however. His lands are being eroded by the local river and he pays for the concert he arranges for his son’s coming of age party by selling some of the family jewels. When his neighbor Ganguli invites him to a party at his house, Roy decides to one up him and organizes a lavish party for the same day – costing him the last of the jewels. After his wife and son are killed in a storm, Roy becomes something of a recluse, closing up the music room. Now, many years later he decides to have one final concert, spending the last of his money to again outdo – and spite – Ganguli.
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Pretty Baby (1978) [Uncut 109min] Louis Malle, Brooke Shields, Keith Carradine, Susan Sarandon, Drama

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In 1917, in the red light district Storyville, New Orleans, the prostitute Hattie lives with her twelve year-old daughter Violet in the fancy brothel of Madame Nell, where she works. Photographer Ernest J. Bellocq has an attraction to Hallie and Violet and he is an habitué of the whorehouse. One day, Madame Nell auctions Violet’s virginity and the winner pays the fortune of US$ 400 to spend the night with the girl. Then Hattie marries a wealthy client and moves to Saint Louis, leaving Violet in the brothel alone. Violet decides to marry Bellocq and she moves to his house. Until the day that Hattie, who has overcome her past, comes to Bellocq’s house with the intention to take Violet with her.
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