Drama

Close to My Heart (1951) William Keighley, Ray Milland, Gene Tierney, Fay Bainter, Drama

close-to-my-heart-1951
Gene Tierney and Ray Milland play the Sheridans, a married couple unable to have a biological child. They visit an adoption agency to make inquiries and start the ball rolling. Then, they learn of a child abandoned at a local police station. The loving and very lovely Midge (Tierney) is determined to adopt the young boy, no questions asked; Brad (Milland) insists on learning about the boy’s heredity and his parentage. The Sheridans learn the boy’s father may be a murderer. Will there be a baby for Midge?
Read More »

Chicago Calling (1951) John Reinhardt, Dan Duryea, Mary Anderson, Gordon Gebert, Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller

chicago-calling-1951
Bill Cannon (Dan Duryea) loses everything to alcohol: his job, his family, his self-respect. Soon after his wife and daughter leave him, he receives word his little girl has been injured in a car accident outside Chicago. His wife will call later with news, but Bill’s short the $53 he needs to keep his phone from being disconnected. Filled with anguish, he heads out onto the Los Angeles streets to find some way to come up with the cash. As his character encounters expected cruelty and unexpected kindness, Duryea takes what might have been mere melodrama and turns it into a perceptive examination of one shattered soul.
Read More »

Bombers B-52 (1957) Gordon Douglas, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Marsha Hunt, Drama, Romance, War

bombers-b-52-1957
U.S Air Force Sgt. Chuck Brennan always disliked playboy and hotshot, Col. Jim Herlihy. He first met him in Korea, where his emergency arrival for repairs while enroute for what Chuck thought was the colonels “hot date” in Tokyo, caused the death of several of his crewmen. Now several years later when Chuck, while still in the Air Force, is now weighing continued enlistment or retirement, the base’s new C.O. is none other than Col. Herlihy. Compounding his dislike is a budding romance with Chuck’s daughter, Lois.
Read More »

El amor brujo / Love, the Magician (1986) Carlos Saura, Antonio Gades, Cristina Hoyos, Laura del Sol, Music, Drama

el-amor-brujo-aka-love-the-magician-1986
In a Gypsy village, the fathers of Candela and José promise their children to each other. Years later, the unfaithful José marries Candela but while defending his lover Lucía in a brawl, he is stabbed to death. Carmelo, who secretly loves Candela since he was a boy, is arrested while helping José and unfairly sent to prison. Four years later he is released and declares his love for Candela. However, the woman is cursed by a bewitched love and every night she goes to the place where José died to dance with his ghost.
Read More »

Fuck me! / Baise-moi (2000) Virginie Despentes, Coralie, Raffaëla Anderson, Karen Lancaume, Céline Beugnot, Crime, Drama, Thriller

fuck-me-2000
Manu and Nadine lose their last tenuous relationship with main-stream society when Manu gets raped and Nadine sees her only friend being shot. After a chance encounter, they embark on an explosive journey of sex and murder. Perhaps as a revenge against men, perhaps as a revolt against bourgeois society, but certainly in a negation – almost joyful in its senseless violence – of all the codes of a society which has excluded, raped and humiliated them. Controversial for its violence and real sex scenes: a vividly nihilist road movie set in France.
Read More »

Anna Karenina (1948) Julien Duvivier, Vivien Leigh, Ralph Richardson, Kieron Moore, Drama, Romance

anna-karenina-1948
Stefan and Dolly Oblonsky have had a little spat and Stefan has asked his sister, Anna Karenina, to come down to Moscow to help mend the rift. Anna’s companion on the train from St. Petersburg is Countess Vronsky who is met at the Moscow station by her son. Col. Vronsky looks very dashing in his uniform and it’s love at first sight when he looks at Anna and their eyes meet. Back in St. Petersburg they keep running into each other at parties. Since she has a husband and small son, they must be very discreet if they are going to see each other alone.
Read More »

Der Himmel über Berlin / Wings of Desire (1987) Wim Wenders, Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Drama, Fantasy, Romance

Der Himmel uber Berlin AKA Wings of Desire (1987)
Visible only to those like them and to human children, Damiel and Cassiel are two angels, who have existed even before humankind. Along with several other angels, they currently wander around West Berlin, generally on their own, observing and preserving life, sometimes trying to provide comfort to the troubled, although those efforts are not always successful. Among those they are currently observing are: the cast and crew of a movie – a detective story set in WWII Nazi Germany – which include a sensitive and perceptive Peter Falk; an elderly man named Homer looking for eternal peace; and the troupe of a financially failing circus, which has closed early for the season because of those financial problems. One day, Damiel tells Cassiel that he wants to become human, to feel not only the sensory aspects of physical beings, but also emotional aspects. He embarks on this thought with the full realization that there is no turning back if he decides to do so. His thoughts are largely …
Read More »