
Languid look at the Gullah culture of the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia where African folk-ways were maintained well into the 20th Century and was one of the last bastions of these mores in America. Set in 1902.
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Tag Archives: UK
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1991) Simon Callow, Vanessa Redgrave, Keith Carradine, Cork Hubbert, Comedy, Drama, Mystery

A tangled triangle. In the rural South of the early 20th century, Miss Amelia is the town eccentric, selling corn liquor and dispensing medicine. She takes in her half-sister’s son, a diminutive crook-back named Lymon. He suggests they open a café in the downstairs of her large house.
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99 Women (1969) Jesús Franco, Maria Schell, Luciana Paluzzi, Mercedes McCambridge, Crime, Drama, Adult

New inmate Marie arrives at an island prison in the women’s sector and receives the number 99. The inmates are controlled by the sadistic lesbian warden Thelma Diaz and Governor Santos and submitted to torture, rape and lesbianism.
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Frightmare (1974) Pete Walker, Rupert Davies, Sheila Keith, Deborah Fairfax, Horror

In 1957, Dorothy and Edmund Yates (Keith and Rupert Davies) were committed to an institution for the criminally insane, she for acts of murder and cannibalism and he for covering up her crimes.
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Britannia Hospital (1982) Lindsay Anderson, Leonard Rossiter, Malcolm McDowell, Brian Pettifer, Comedy, Sci-Fi

Mick Travis is a reporter who is about to shoot a documentary on Britannia Hospital, an institution which mirrors the downsides of British Society. It’s the day when Her Royal Highness is to visit the hospital to inaugurate a new wing, where advanced (and sinister) scientific experiments led by Prof. Millar will take place.
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Je vous salue, Marie / Hail Mary (1985) Jean-Luc Godard, Myriem Roussel, Thierry Rode, Philippe Lacoste, Drama

In this modern retelling of the Virgin birth, Mary is a student who plays basketball and works at her father’s petrol station; Joseph is an earnest dropout who drives a cab.
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Life Is Sweet (1990) Mike Leigh, Alison Steadman, Jim Broadbent, Claire Skinner, Comedy, Drama

Just north of London live Wendy, Andy, and their twenty-something twins, Natalie and Nicola. Wendy clerks in a shop, leads aerobics at a primary school, jokes like a vaudevillian, agrees to waitress at a friend’s new restaurant and dotes on Andy, a cook who forever puts off home remodeling projects, and with a drunken friend, buys a broken down lunch wagon.
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The Weak and the Wicked / Young and Willing (1954) J. Lee Thompson, Glynis Johns, Diana Dors, John Gregson, Drama

Had the women-behind-bars drama The Weak and the Wicked been made in Hollywood, the cast would probably have included the likes of Ida Lupino, Marie Windsor, Peggie Castle and Hope Emerson. Instead, the film was lensed in Britain, with Glynis Johns and Diana Dors heading the cast.
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Gaslight (1940) Thorold Dickinson, Anton Walbrook, Diana Wynyard, Frank Pettingell, Mystery, Thriller

Twenty years ago, old Mrs. Barlow was killed in her home at 12, Pimlico Square for her priceless rubies. The murderer searched the whole house without finding them, then disappeared. The house has been empty since then, but now Paul and Bella Mallen move into the apartment.
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Les bien-aimés / Beloved (2011) Christophe Honoré, Catherine Deneuve, Ludivine Sagnier, Chiara Mastroianni, Drama, Musical, Romance

The movie opens with a shoe-shopping montage, circa 1964, set in the store of iconic French shoe designer Roger Vivier. (Catnip!) Sagnier’s Madeleine is a salesgirl there; one night, she steals a pair of Vivier spike heels and slips them on as she’s making her way home.
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