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Jesus Franco, also known as Jess Franco, was one of the biggest names in cinema “B” worldwide. With more than 200 works and a large and peculiar use of pseudonyms, his work remains difficult to categorize, which makes it more exciting if possible. Through a series of interviews with Franco, “Call him Jess Redux” about the viewer sadist, esoteric and erotic world of the director, as refined as rogue. This new version of “Call him Jesus” (2000), considered the documentary reference Franco and directed by Carles Prats and Manel Mayol, incorporates new unpublished statements irreducible Madrid filmmaker and pays homage to his muse and companion, Lina Romay incorporating their active presence the story.
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“Jigger’ Lane forms a band that includes singer Ginger ‘Character’ Powell, wife of the trumpeter Leo Powelll, and Nickie Haroyen and Peppi. All of them dedicate themselves to work as a unit and to play ‘blues’ music. The dedication isn’t paying off in money and, while riding the rails in a boxcar, they meet and befriend a gangster named Del Davis. He offers them a job at a New Jersey roadhouse, where Powell falls in love with Kay Grant, a former ‘real-good friend’ of Davis. But when Powell learns that ‘Character’ is about to have a baby, he returns to her. “Jigger” tries to make Kay the band’s singer and, when this fails, runs off with her. She leaves him with nothing to show for him except a nervous breakdown.Back at the roadhouse, after his recovery, Kay shows up, has a quarrel with Davis, shoots and kills him and plans to take back up with “Jigger”, who knows better but just can’t help himself. While she is waiting in a car for him, along comes cripple Brad Ames, who she put in …
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There is something vaguely mythical to the manner in which Konwicki introduces his characters, both to us and to each other, lapped as much by the ethereal eeriness of the score as by the seaside winds that send their hair aflutter. When they tend to speak to each other in whispers, it seems almost out of respect for the otherworldly aura of their locale, as though it is to their eyes as improbably beautiful as Konwicki’s camera renders it to us. They—referred to in the credits only as “He” and “She”, mysterious and mythical in themselves—do not whisper much; there’s a clear silent heritage at work here, conferring meaning to the motion of faces and the movement of the camera along this spectral shore.
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Follows the fluctuating fortunes of three friends in feudal Japan who are ronin: masterless warriors, who wander from castle to castle, selling their services to whichever lord will fill their rice bowls. These are not the YOJIMBO Super Samurai but rather the rank and file, the spear-carriers. The irony is that even though they use the servants’ entrance, they still feel themselves bound by the samurai code of Bushido; and this tension leads to tragedy.
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Two teachers, man-hungry Doris and restrained Marian, visit the Yorkshire moors a year after friend Evelyn disappeared there. On a stormy night, they take refuge in the isolated cottage of Stephen, one-time pianist shellshocked in the Spanish Civil War. Doris flees as soon as the flood subsides; but Marian’s suspicions about Evelyn’s fate, in conflict with her growing love for Stephen, prompt her to stay on among the misty bogs.
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In 1960, a group of social outcasts who are bullied by a gang of greasers led by Henry Bowers are also tormented by an evil demon who can shape-shift into a clown and feed on children’s fears and kill them. After defeating the demonic clown as kids, it resurfaces 30 years later and they must finish it off as adults once again.
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A single mother struggles to pay the rent and put food on the table for her 10 year old son.
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Gabriel has been separated for four years now. Since then his 8 year old daughter is the center of his life. Completely avoiding getting involved in a new romantic relationship, Gabriel focus all his energy in his daughter and work. This plan gets spoiled when Vicky, a platonic love from his adolescence, now a beautiful and independent woman appears in his life. When romance is about to start, she puts one condition: She would never get involved with a man with children. She just does not want children in her life. When Gabriel is confronted with this, he says he has no children. From that moment on his life becomes a torment, playing every trick at hand in order to hide his child and belongings from Vicky in every date.
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Joe Sante wants to be the big man, and nobody is going stand in his way. In a world full of smoke, molls, shakedowns, muscle, and murder, Joe knows what he wants and how to get it. But can he disregard his poor old immigrant parents who are ashamed of his criminal life? Will he drag his sweet girlfriend into the life of the underworld? And most importantly, can Joe trust his mobster friends?
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Defying his parents, Hsiao Kang drops out of the local crammer to head for the bright lights of downtown Taipei. He falls in with Ah Tze, a pretty hood and their relationships is a confused mixture of hero-worship and rivalry that soon leads to trouble.
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In 1938, in Gibraltar to infiltrate terrorists who sabotage the boats with troups which should sail to Palestine, a British officer poses as a traitor… The pulpy Mercedes (Viviane Romance), a dancer in a seedy cabaret of Tangier “who draws men like light attracts butterflies…” is spying on behalf of the mysterious Marson interpreted masterfully by Erich Von Stroheim.
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In April 1895, the talented young Rentaro Taki comes to Tokyo from his home in Kyushu to enrol in the prestigious National Academy of Music. Hoping to become a pianist, he meets another student there, Yuki Nakano, who shares the same aspirations. With his elder classmate Suzuki’s encouragement, Rentaro practices furiously to perfect his technique, but loses his health in the process. Over the years, his health, as well as his devotion to and achievement level in music, fluctuates, as two friends adjust to the varying roles they can each potentially play in his life. Yuki receives the Japanese government’s first music scholarship to study in Berlin. At the same time, Rentaro composes wonderful music and songs like Bloom in the Moonlight which are still very popular in today’s Japan, while Suzuki quits the music school and becomes a hard labourer due to family crisis.
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1978. While the military coup that assaulted Brazil in 1964 starts to teeter, we follow a romance involving an 18 years old soldier and the cultural ringleader of an anarchist cabaret. Tattoo depicts the conflicts and reflections of a whole generation observed from a marginal perspective. Through the vantage point of the exception, the film elucidates the norm.
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A small group of cosmic explorers, including a woman, leaves Earth to find freedom and start a new civilization. They do not realize that within themselves they carry the end of their own dream. They eventually die one by one, while their children revert to a primitive native culture, creating new myths and a new god. Some time later, a space bureaucrat, running from a broken heart, arrives and finds the colonizer’s descendants enslaved by bird-monsters called Cherns. Society is divided into numerous classes, and everyone is waiting for the arrival of a messiah. The newcomer is considered a suitable candidate, and for some time he lives as a god. In the end he is crucified by his people.
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Life in small town Wisconsin. Selma and Arnold, aged 7 and 5, pal around together between their two farms. Selma has a newborn calf that her father gave to her which she named ‘Elizabeth’. Nels is the editor of the Fuller Junction Spectator and the kids just call him ‘editor’. Viola is the new school teacher from the big city. While Nels wants to marry Viola, Viola does not want to live in a small quiet, nothing happening town. The biggest news is that Faraassen has built a new barn.
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