In the enthralling Blow Out, brilliantly crafted by Brian De Palma, John Travolta gives one of his greatest performances, as a movie sound-effects man who believes he has accidentally recorded a political assassination. He enlists the help of a possible eyewitness to the crime (Nancy Allen), who may be in danger herself, to uncover the truth. With its jolting stylistic flourishes, intricate plot, profoundly felt characterizations, and gritty evocation of early-1980s Philadelphia, Blow Out is an American paranoia thriller unlike any other, as well as a devilish reflection on moviemaking.
Read More »
Tag Archives: english subtitles
The Chosen (1981) Jeremy Kagan, Maximilian Schell, Rod Steiger, Robby Benson, Drama
Brooklyn 1944. Despite being the same age, having grown up within blocks of each other, and both being Jewish, late teens Danny Saunders and Reuven Malter don’t really know each other – knowing each other only by name and by sight – as Orthodox Danny stays largely within his own Hasidic community, which is just fine in Reuven’s mind. An incident between the two which on the surface threatens to tear them even further apart instead blossoms into a friendship between the two. They begin to learn more and more about the other and their lives, which for Danny includes becoming a rabbi, solely as it is a several generations old family calling. In Reb Saunders’ mind, he who rules his family by strict Hasidic traditions, Danny becoming the next rabbi in the family is not even a question, despite Danny, deep in his heart, wanting other secular pursuits which he has not told his father. Conversely, Reuven has modern sensibilities, being raised in a two-person household by his widowed academic …
Read More »
Breaking the Sound Barrier (1952) David Lean, Ralph Richardson, Ann Todd, Nigel Patrick, Drama, Romance, War
Tony successful fighter pilot during World War II marries into the family of a wealthy oil magnate who also designs airplanes. The movie traces the company’s attempt to break the sound barrier, as well as tensions between father and daughter. Lots of footage of early 50s jet aviation in Great Britain as well as shots of the Comet airliner, world’s first jet passenger plane.
Read More »
BBC – Chernobyl and Fukushima: The Lesson (2016) Documentary
Chernobyl 1986. A nuclear reactor exploded, spewing out massive quantities of radiation into the atmosphere. Within days, the pollution had spread across Europe. Living on land contaminated with radioactivity would be a life-changing ordeal for the people of Belarus, but also for the Sami reindeer herders of central Norway. It even affected the Gaels of the distant Hebrides. Five years ago there was a meltdown at the Fukushima reactor, and thousands of Japanese people found their homes, fields and farms irradiated, just as had happened in Europe. This international documentary, filmed in Belarus, Japan, the lands of Norway’s Sami reindeer herders and in the Outer Hebrides, poses the question: what lessons have we learned?
Read More »
Romper Stomper (1992) Geoffrey Wright, Russell Crowe, Daniel Pollock, Jacqueline McKenzie, Crime, Drama
Nazi skinheads in Melbourne take out their anger on local Vietnamese, who are seen as threatening racial purity. Finally the Vietnamese have had enough and confront the skinheads in an all-out confrontation, sending the skinheads running. A woman who is prone to epileptic seizures joins the skins’ merry band, and helps them on their run from justice, but is her affliction also a sign of impurity?
Read More »
The Anderson Tapes (1971) Sidney Lumet, Sean Connery, Dyan Cannon, Martin Balsam, Crime, Thriller
A thief (Duke Anderson) just released from ten years in jail, takes up with his old girlfriend (Ingrid) in her posh apartment. He makes plans to rob the entire building. What he doesn’t know is that his every move is recorded on audio and video tape, although he is not the subject of any surveillance.
Read More »
Topsy-Turvy (1999) Mike Leigh, Jim Broadbent, Allan Corduner, Dexter Fletcher, Biography, Comedy, Drama, Musical
After their production “Princess Ida” meets with less-than-stunning reviews, the relationship between Gilbert and Sullivan is strained to breaking. Their friends and associates attempt to get the two to work together again, which opens the way to “The Mikado,” one of the duo’s greatest successes.
Read More »
A Brighter Summer Day / Gu ling jie shao nian sha ren shi jian (1991) Edward Yang, Chen Chang, Lisa Yang, Kuo-Chu Chang, Crime, Drama, Romance
Among the most praised and sought-after titles in all contemporary film, this singular masterpiece of Taiwanese cinema, directed by Edward Yang, finally comes to home video in the United States. Set in the early sixties in Taiwan, A Brighter Summer Day is based on the true story of a crime that rocked the nation. A film of both sprawling scope and tender intimacy, this novelistic, patiently observed epic centers on the gradual, inexorable fall of a young teenager (Chen Chang, in his first role) from innocence to juvenile delinquency, and is set against a simmering backdrop of restless youth, rock and roll, and political turmoil.
Read More »
Bankers Also Have Souls / Le cadeau (1982) Michel Lang, Pierre Mondy, Claudia Cardinale, Clio Goldsmith, Comedy
Gregoire is retiring after many years with the same bank, and his collegues surprise him with the gift of a beautiful call girl, Barbara. Thinking she is a conquest, he impersonates the bank president, leading to a comedy of mistaken identities.
Read More »
The Forgotten Space (2010) Noël Burch, Allan Sekula, Documentary
Details the catastrophic effects globalization has wrought on the ship, truck and train industries. We visit displaced farmers and villagers in Holland and Belgium, underpaid truck drivers in Los Angeles, seafarers aboard mega-ships shuttling between Asia and Europe, and factory workers in China, whose low wages are the fragile key to the whole puzzle. At a moment when collective bargaining rights are under attack in the United States, and China continues to bow to foreign pressures to prevent such rights from being granted at all, this film asks: Is capitalism the Trojan horse that turns on its inventors?
Read More »