Tag Archives: 1990s

Farewell My Concubine (1993) Kaige Chen, Leslie Cheung, Fengyi Zhang, Li Gong, Drama, Romance, Music

Farewell My Concubine (1993)
In 1924, young Cheng Dieyi (Leslie Cheung) begins training at the Beijing Opera House at the same time as Duan Xiaolou (Fengyi Zhang). Cheng specializes in playing female parts, often against Duan’s commanding male leads. While pretending to be in love with Duan onstage, Cheng begins to develop actual romantic feelings for his co-star, which are not reciprocated. Over the next 50 years, the two men maintain a complicated friendship as China undergoes turbulent changes.
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Kyua / Cure (1997) Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Masato Hagiwara, Kôji Yakusho, Tsuyoshi Ujiki, Crime, Horror, Mystery

Kyua AKA Cure (1997)
A wave of gruesome murders is sweeping Tokyo. The only connection is a bloody X carved into the neck of each of the victims. In each case, the murderer is found near the victim and remembers nothing of the crime. Detective Takabe and psychologist Sakuma are called in to figure out the connection, but their investigation goes nowhere. An odd young man is arrested near the scene of the latest murder, who has a strange effect on everyone who comes into contact with him. Detective Takabe starts a series of interrogations to determine the man’s connection with the killings.
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Leila (1997) Dariush Mehrjui, Leila Hatami, Ali Mosaffa, Jamileh Sheikhi, Drama, Romance

Leila (1997)
Leila and Reza meet in a kind of celebration and fall for each other. Having discovered their love, they get married soon only to find out the infertility of Leila. That’s when Reza’s authoritative mother starts wheedling Leila to persuade Reza into second marriage for the sake of having a grandchild. Leila accepts at first but is unaware of her own strain threshold.
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A Month by the Lake (1995) John Irvin, Vanessa Redgrave, Edward Fox, Uma Thurman, Comedy, Drama, Romance

A Month by the Lake (1995)
For 16 years Miss Bentley has been spending April at an elegant hillside villa on Lake Como. This year, 1937, her London society artist father has recently died and the only other English-speaking guests are brash Americans. Then Major Wilshaw arrives. He suggests they meet for cocktails and Miss Bentley stands him up – not even thinking about it – as she helps the new nanny of an Italian family settle in. Miss Beaumont, a tall, young American who has dropped out of finishing school in Switzerland, is bored and finds some amusement in flirting with the major, whose libido is awakened for the first time since before the great war. And Miss Bentley now finds more about the major to admire than his ears.
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Embrace the Darkness (1999) Kelley Cauthen, Madison Clark, Angelia High, Kevin Spirtas, Horror, Erotic

embrace.the_.darkness_cover
Vampires Galen [Kevin Spirtas] and Miranda [Angelina High] have just moved to Los Angeles. Galen wants to lay low and get his blood from a nearby bloodbank while Miranda likes hers fresh, young, and virile. When Galen notices dancer Jennifer [Madison Clark] masturbating on her studio floor, he falls in love and sets out to pursue her. Miranda becomes jealous and seduces Jennifer, too, while Jennifer’s cop boyfriend Ryan [Brad Bartram] senses that she is becoming too friendly with Galen and Miranda. Meanwhile, Ryan and Detective Turner [Cliff Potts] have their hands full trying to figure out why bloodless bodies keep turning up with two puncture wounds on the neck. Then Jennifer is hit by a car, and Galen “saves” her by making her a vampire. When Ryan sees a wanted poster bearing a drawing of Galen, he grabs a stake and rushes over to Galen’s apartment, only to find Jennifer squating in a corner and crying. Does Ryan use that stake on Jennifer? You’ll have to wait for Embrace the Darkness 2 to find out.
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Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment (1992) Ken Musen, Documentary

Quiet Rage The Stanford Prison Experiment (1992)
In the summer of 1971, Philip Zimbardo, Craig Haney, and Curtis Banks carried out a psychological experiment to test a simple question. What happens when you put good people in an evil place-does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? To explore this question, college student volunteers were pretested and randomly assigned to play the role of prisoner or guard in a simulated prison at Stanford University. Although the students were mentally healthy and knew they were taking part in an experiment, some guards soon because sadistic and the prisoners showed signs of acute stress and depression. After only six days, the planned two-week study spun out of control and had to be ended to prevent further abuse of the prisoners. This dramatic demonstration of the power of social situations is relevant to many institutional settings, such as the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq.
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Le jaguar / The Jaguar (1996) Francis Veber, Jean Reno, Patrick Bruel, Danny Trejo, Adventure

Le jaguar AKA The Jaguar (1996)
A shaman from the South American rain forest visits France for a public relations campaign. In a hotel’s elevator in Paris he meets a French good-for-nothing named Perrin he’s fascinated with. He follows Perrin to his flat and although Perrin is not very enthusiastic about so much interest in his person, he lets the shaman spend the night in his flat. After an official meeting on the next day being part of the PR campaign the shaman suffers from a heart attack. Hardly being able to speak and laying in a hospital bed he demands to see Perrin. The latter is not very interested in meeting the shaman again. However it looks like it is to late for animosities as the shaman and Perrin seem to be tied mentally somehow since they’ve met in the elevator.
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Gazon Maudit (1995) Josiane Balasko, Victoria Abril, Alain Chabat, Comedy

Gazon Maudit (1995)
Laurent and Loli are a thirty-ish married couple living in southern France with their young children. He is an estate agent; she is a housewife. Laurent has extramarital affairs. Loli is unaware that her husband is unfaithful. Then one day, a campervan breaks down in front of their house. The driver is Marijo, a 40s-ish butch lesbian who works as a DJ…
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