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Tezuka’s animated short film is an allegorical gem in which a boy, in a country where the freedom to daydream is prohibited, is sectioned when he tells his parents of his sightings/imaginings of the titular (fictional?) character. Iain.Stott
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
- Transfer (1966)
- From the Drain (1967)
- Stereo (1969)
- Crimes of the Future (1970)
- Letter from Michelangelo (1971)
- Tourettes (1971)
- Jim Ritchie Sculptor (1971)
- Scarborough Bluffs (1972)
- The Lie Chair (1975)
- Shivers (1975)
- The Italian Machine (1976)
- Rabid (1977)
- Fast Company (1979)
- The Brood (1979)
- Scanners (1981)
- Videodrome (1983)
- The Dead Zone (1983)
- The Fly (1986)
- Dead Ringers (1988)
- Naked Lunch (1991)
- M. Butterfly (1993)
- Crash (1996)
- eXistenZ (1999)
- Camera (2000)
- Spider (2002)
- A History of Violence (2005)
- At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World (2007)
- Eastern Promises (2007)
- A Dangerous Method (2011)
- Salt for Svanetia (1930)
- Nail in the Boot (1931)
- Courage (1939)
- Wings of Victory (1941)
- Moscow Music Hall (1943)
- Hostile Whirlwinds (1953)
- True Friends (1954)
- The First Echelon (1955)
- The Cranes Are Flying (1957)
- The Unmailed Letter (1959)
- I Am Cuba (1964)
- The Red Tent (1969)
- Several Friends (1969)
- The Horse (1973)
- Killer of Sheep (1977)
- My Brother's Wedding (1983)
- To Sleep with Anger (1990)
- The Glass Shield (1994)
- When It Rains (1995)
- Nightjohn (1996)
- The Wedding (1998)
- Selma, Lord, Selma (1999)
- The Annihilation of Fish (1999)
- Olivia's Story (2000)
- Finding Buck McHenry (2000)
- Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property (2003)
- Warming by the Devil's Fire (2003)
- Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation (2007)
- Quiet as Kept (2007)
- Relative Stranger (2009)
- The Dead Father (1986)
- Tales from the Gimli Hospital (1988)
- Archangel (1990)
- Careful (1992)
- The Hands of Ida (1995)
- Sissy Boy Slap Party (1995)
- Odilon Redon or The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity (1995)
- Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (1997)
- The Cock Crew (1998)
- Maldoror: Tygers (1998)
- Hospital Fragment (1999)
- The Heart of the World (2000)
- Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2002)
- Fancy, Fancy Being Rich (2002)
- Cowards Bend the Knee (2003)
- The Saddest Music in the World (2003)
- A Trip to the Orphanage (2004)
- Sombra Dolorosa (2004)
- My Dad Is 100 Years Old (2005)
- Brand Upon the Brain! (2006)
- Nude Caboose (2006)
- Odin's Shield Maiden (2007)
- My Winnipeg (2007)
- Footsteps (2008)
- Spanky: To the Pier and Back (2008)
- Night Mayor (2009)
- The Little White Cloud That Cried (2009)
- Send Me to the 'lectric Chair (2009)
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Atomic clouds mutate into glasses of beer, and aliens with drawers for mouths tell tales about how the (now extinct) human race used to worship toilet bowls, in this silly, irreverent, and (unsurprisingly) rather lightweight yet very entertaining look at the role that memory plays in our everyday lives, from Japanese animator Tezuka. Iain.Stott
- Woodshock (1985)
- It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988)
- Heads I Win/Tails You Lose (1991)
- Slacker (1991)
- Dazed and Confused (1993)
- Before Sunrise (1995)
- SubUrbia (1996)
- The Newton Boys (1998)
- Waking Life (2001)
- Tape (2001)
- Live from Shiva's Dance Floor (2003)
- The School of Rock (2003)
- $5.15/Hr. (2004)
- Before Sunset (2004)
- Bad News Bears (2005)
- Fast Food Nation (2006)
- A Scanner Darkly (2006)
- Inning by Inning: A Portrait of a Coach (2008)
- Me and Orson Welles (2008)
- Bernie (2011)
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Demy’s majestically gaudily coloured musical, in which all of the dialogue is sung by its beautiful young cast – producing a portrait of a 16-year-old girl, who falls pregnant to her petrol-pumping boyfriend just as he is called up for two year’s national service – is a very entertaining and exceedingly poignant illustration of the elasticity of the human heart. Iain.Stott
USA
Feature Film
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Writers: Jay Presson Allen, Winston Graham
Cinematographer: Robert Burks
Composer: Bernard Herrmann
Cast: Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery, Diane Baker, Louise Latham, Martin Gabe, Bruce Dern
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Hitchcock’s troubling film – in which a serial thief (Hedren, excellent) is blackmailed into marriage by one of her victims, despite her evident psycho-sexual problems – is one of his bleakest, most ambitious efforts but, perhaps due to Connery’s rather lightweight turn, it never quite reaches the heights of his best work. Iain.Stott
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
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Laloux’s blackly comic short film – mixing animated footage with moving and still archive materials, showing images of war, murder, and execution – is presented, from an alien perspective, as an anthropological study of the peculiar behaviour of the residents of planet Earth. Iain.Stott
Feature Film
Director: Carl Th. Dreyer
Writers: Carl Th. Dreyer, Hjalmar Söderberg
Cinematographer: Henning Bendtsen
Composer: Jørgen Jersild
Cast: Nina Pens Rode, Bendt Rothe, Ebbe Rode, Baard Owe, Axel Strøbye
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Dreyer’s majestic final film – in which the attractive, refined lady of the title strives (and fails) to connect with the four men in her life, refusing to make the compromises necessary for cohabitation – is a film of exquisite beauty, full of delightfully restrained performances and ravishingly expressive mise en scène. Iain.Stott
Cuba/Soviet Union
Feature Film
Original Title: Soy Cuba
Director: Mikhail Kalatozov
Writers: Enrique Pineda Barnet, Evgueny Evtushenko
Cinematographer: Sergei Urusevsky
Composer: Carlos Fariñas
Cast: Sergio Corrieri, Salvador Wood, José Gallardo, Raúl García, Luz María Collazo, Raquel Revuelta
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Although its championing of martyrdom leaves something of a bad taste, the film’s general rightness – an attack against tyranny, exploitation, and nefarious foreign interest – and the sheer poetic brilliance of its cinematic technique, make watching this fourth (and unfortunately final) collaboration between Kalatozov and Urusevsky an overwhelmingly memorable experience. Iain.Stott
Monday, 28 September 2009
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This unsettling animated short film from (a pre-porn) Borowczyk, full of ominous train journeys, labyrinthine buildings, and macabre machinery, all in a dirty blood red hue, is an enigmatically powerful and rather disturbing piece of work. Iain.Stott
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Made entirely from found footage, juxtaposing images of modern man at work, rest, and play, Lipsett’s stunning short film – nominally an attack against the dehumanising nature of society in the machine-age – is as much a celebration (at least through my eyes) of humanity in all its forms as it is a lamentation. Iain.Stott
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Although it feels a little rushed at times and could be somewhat confusing for those with merely a passing knowledge of the New Testament, Pasolini’s dexterous adaptation of the eponymous book – a retelling of the life of Jesus Christ, the son of God, from immaculate conception to ascension to heaven – is never less than compelling. Iain.Stott
- The Orchid Gardener (1977)
- Menthe - La Bienheureuse (1979)
- Nocturne (1980)
- The Last Detail (1981)
- Image of Relief (1982)
- The Element of Crime (1984)
- Epidemic (1987)
- Medea (1988)
- Europa (1991)
- The Kingdom (1994)
- Breaking the Waves (1996)
- The Kingdom II (1997)
- The Idiots (1998)
- D-Day (2000)
- D-Day – Lise (2000)
- Dancer in the Dark (2000)
- D-Day – The finished film (2001)
- Dogville (2003)
- The Five Obstructions (2003)
- Manderlay (2005)
- The Boss of It All (2006)
- Occupations (2007)
- Antichrist (2009)
- Melancholia (2011)
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Marxist Shindō’s entertainingly visceral film – following the day-to-day lives of a pair of war widows in feudal Japan, who, left to fend for themselves, are forced to resort to murder and theft in order to survive – is a distinctive, well-made, metaphor laden work that takes well-aimed pot-shots at capitalism, war, and religion. Iain.Stott
Sunday, 27 September 2009
- Where`s the Money Ronnie! (1996)
- Smalltime (1996)
- 24 7: Twenty Four Seven (1997)
- A Room for Romeo Brass (1999)
- Once Upon a Time in the Midlands (2002)
- Dead Man's Shoes (2004)
- Northern Soul (2004)
- The Stairwell (2005)
- This Is England (2006)
- Somers Town (2008)
- Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee (2009)
- This Is England '86 (2010)
- Copyright (1979)
- Rectangle - Deux Chansons de Jacno (1980)
- Laissé Inachevé à Tokyo (1982)
- Winston Tong en Studio (1984)
- Disorder (1986)
- Winter's Child (1989)
- Paris Awakens (1991)
- A New Life (1993)
- L'Eau Froide (1994)
- La Page Blanche (1994)
- Irma Vep (1996)
- HHH - Un Portrait de Hou Hsiao-Hsien (1997)
- Late August, Early September (1998)
- Les Destinées Sentimentales (2000)
- Demonlover (2002)
- Clean (2004)
- Quartier des Enfants Rouges (2006)
- Noise (2006)
- Boarding Gate (2007)
- Recrudescence (2007)
- Eldorado (2008)
- Summer Hours (2008)
- Carlos (2010) (TV)
- Carlos the Jackal (2010)
- Bicycle (1955)
- A Toothful Smile (1957)
- Break Up the Dance (1957)
- A Murderer (1957)
- Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958)
- The Lamp (1959)
- When Angels Fall (1959)
- The Fat and the Lean (1961)
- Mammals (1962)
- Knife in the Water (1962)
- La Rivière de Diamants (1964)
- Repulsion (1965)
- Cul-de-sac (1966)
- Dance of the Vampires (1967)
- Rosemary's Baby (1968)
- Macbeth (1971)
- What? (1972)
- Chinatown (1974)
- The Tenant (1976)
- Tess (1979)
- Pirates (1986)
- Frantic (1988)
- Bitter Moon (1992)
- Death and the Maiden (1994)
- The Ninth Gate (1999)
- The Pianist (2002)
- Oliver Twist (2005)
- Cinéma Erotique (2007)
- The Ghost (2010)
Saturday, 26 September 2009
Japan
Feature Film
Original Title: 怪談
Director: Kobayashi Masaki
Writers: Mizuki Yōko, Lafcadio Hearn
Cinematographer: Miyajima Yoshio
Composer: Takemitsu Tōru
Cast: Mikuni Rentarō, Aratama Michiyo, Watanabe Misako, Nakadai Tatsuya, Kishi Keiko, Nakamura Katsuo, Tanba Tetsurō, Shimura Takashi , Nakamura Kanemon, Takizawa Osamu
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With its incredibly bold use of colour, unsettlingly original use of sound and music, and wonderfully expressive production design, Kobayashi’s remarkable, painterly film – an anthology of ghost stories, encompassing tales of samurais and musicians, woodcutters and lords – is a work of great power and breathtakingly sensual beauty. Iain.Stott
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This bizarre tale of an evil doctor’s obsession for a beautiful opera singer (the second feature film by the Quay brothers) is a work that will prove too obtuse for most; although it does contain numerous pleasures – mostly in the form of its distinctive, painterly visuals – but one must conclude, in the end, that there is little going on beneath its admittedly attractive surface. Iain.Stott
Feature Film
Original Title: En la ciudad de Sylvia
Writer/Director: José Luis Guerín
Cinematographer: Natasha Braier
Cast: Xavier Lafitte, Pilar López de Ayala
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Plotless and near enough dialogue free, Guerín’s remarkably sensual film – in which a handsome young man returns to Strasbourg in search of a woman, Sylvia, who he had a brief encounter with six years earlier – is a piece that relies more on random faces and the ambient noise of everyday life than on conventional filmic techniques to portray the inner-life of its enigmatic protagonist, and whilst that might scare off most potential viewers, those willing to submit to its gentle rhythms are likely to experience a work of considerable beauty. Iain.Stott
Friday, 25 September 2009
- Miss Fatty's Seaside Lovers (1915)
- A Submarine Pirate (1915)
- Luke's Movie Muddle (1916)
- Over the Fence (1917)
- By the Sad Sea Waves (1917)
- Bliss (1917)
- The Flirt (1917)
- All Aboard (1917)
- Move On (1917)
- Step Lively (1917)
- Hey There (1918)
- The Non-Stop Kid (1918)
- Two-Gun Gussie (1918)
- The City Slicker (1918)
- Are Crooks Dishonest? (1918)
- Ask Father (1919)
- On the Fire (1919)
- I'm on My Way (1919)
- Next Aisle Over (1919)
- A Sammy in Siberia (1919)
- Ring Up the Curtain (1919)
- Spring Fever (1919)
- Billy Blazes, Esq. (1919)
- Just Neighbors (1919)
- Never Touched Me (1919)
- A Jazzed Honeymoon (1919)
- Don't Shove (1919)
- Pay Your Dues (1919)
- Bumping Into Broadway (1919)
- Captain Kidd's Kids (1919)
- From Hand to Mouth (1919)
- His Royal Slyness (1920)
- Haunted Spooks (1920)
- An Eastern Westerner (1920)
- High and Dizzy (1920)
- Get Out and Get Under (1920)
- Number, Please? (1920)
- Now or Never (1921)
- Among Those Present (1921)
- I Do (1921)
- Never Weaken (1921)
- A Sailor-Made Man (1921)
- Grandma's Boy (1922)
- Dr. Jack (1922)
- Safety Last! (1923)
- Why Worry? (1923)
- Girl Shy (1924)
- Hot Water (1924)
- The Freshman (1925)
- For Heaven's Sake (1926)
- The Kid Brother (1927)
- Speedy (1928)
- Welcome Danger (1929)
- Feet First (1930)
- Movie Crazy (1932)
- The Cat's-Paw (1934)
- The Milky Way (1936)
- Professor Beware (1938)
- The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947)
Feature Film
Original Title: 回路
Writer/Director: Kurosawa Kiyoshi
Cinematographer: Hayashi Junichirō
Composer: Haketa Takefumi
Cast: Katō Haruhiko, Aso Kumiko, Koyuki, Arisaka Kurume, Matsuo Masatoshi, Takeda Shinji
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Although marketed as a horror film, Kurosawa’s enigmatic piece – in which members of the populace begin to commit suicide for no apparent reason – is designed more to stimulate the brain than the viscera; but whilst he clearly has something to say, quite what that is is never really clear, (but numerous scenes and images do stick in the mind). Iain.Stott
Thursday, 24 September 2009
- Film Político (1974)
- Dos Putas, o Historia de Amor que Termina en Boda (1974)
- La Caída de Sódoma (1975)
- Homenaje (1975)
- El Sueño, o la Estrella (1975)
- Blancor (1975)
- Trailer of 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1976)
- Sea Caritativo (1976)
- Muerte en la Carretera (1976)
- Sexo Va, Sexo Viene (1977)
- Salomé (1978)
- Folle... Folle... Fólleme Tim! (1978)
- Pepi, Luci, Bom (1980)
- Labyrinth of Passion (1982)
- Dark Habits (1983)
- What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984)
- Tráiler para Amantes de lo Prohibido (1985)
- Matador (1986)
- Law of Desire (1987)
- Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
- Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990)
- High Heels (1991)
- Kika (1993)
- The Flower of My Secret (1995)
- Live Flesh (1997)
- All About My Mother (1999)
- Talk to Her (2002)
- Bad Education (2004)
- Volver (2006)
- Broken Embraces (2009)
- The Skin I Live In (2011)
- Modern Football (1951)
- The Sound of Bells (1952)
- King Basketball (1952)
- How to Run a Filling Station (1953)
- The Last Mile (1953)
- Corn's-A-Poppin' (1954)
- Better Football (1954)
- The Dirty Look (1954)
- The Builders (1954)
- The Perfect Crime (1955)
- The Magic Bond (1956)
- The Delinquents (1957)
- The James Dean Story (1957)
- The Young One (1957)
- Together (1958)
- The Sound of Murder (1960)
- In Close Pursuit (1962)
- Death of a Dream (1962)
- Sound of Murder (1962)
- The Long, Lost Life of Edward Smalley (1963)
- Once Upon a Savage Night (1964)
- Nightmare in Chicago (1964)
- The Katherine Reed Story (1965)
- Pot au Feu (1965)
- Countdown (1968)
- That Cold Day in the Park (1969)
- MASH (1970)
- Brewster McCloud (1970)
- McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
- Images (1972)
- The Long Goodbye (1973)
- Thieves Like Us (1974)
- California Split (1974)
- Nashville (1975)
- Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976)
- 3 Women (1977)
- A Wedding (1978)
- Quintet (1979)
- A Perfect Couple (1979)
- HealtH (1980)
- Popeye (1980)
- Precious Blood (1982)
- Rattlesnake in a Cooler (1982)
- Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982)
- Streamers (1983)
- Secret Honor (1984)
- O.C. and Stiggs (1985)
- The Laundromat (1985)
- Fool for Love (1985)
- Beyond Therapy (1987)
- Basements (1987)
- Les Boréades (1987)
- The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (1988)
- Tanner '88 (1988)
- Vincent & Theo (1990)
- McTeague (1992)
- The Player (1992)
- Black and Blue (1993)
- The Real McTeague (1993)
- Short Cuts (1993)
- Prêt-à-Porter (1994)
- Kansas City (1996)
- Gun (1997)
- Jazz '34 (1997)
- The Gingerbread Man (1998)
- Cookie's Fortune (1999)
- Dr T and the Women (2000)
- Gosford Park (2001)
- The Company (2003)
- Tanner on Tanner (2004)
- A Prairie Home Companion (2006)
- The Dirk Diggler Story (1988)
- Cigarettes & Coffee (1993)
- Hard Eight (1996)
- Boogie Nights (1997)
- Flagpole Special (1998)
- Magnolia (1999)
- Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
- Couch (2003)
- Mattress Man Commercial (2003)
- There Will Be Blood (2007)
- Bottle Rocket (1994)
- Bottle Rocket (1996)
- Rushmore (1998)
- The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
- The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
- Hotel Chevalier (2007)
- The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
- Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
- Visiting One's Son (1967)
- To Fetch a Bike (1968)
- Saturday the 5th October (1969)
- A Swedish Love Story (1970)
- Giliap (1975)
- Something Happened (1987)
- World of Glory (1991)
- Songs from the Second Floor (2000)
- You, the Living (2007)
- Beyond the Fringe (1964)
- A Day Out (1972)
- Sunset Across the Bay (1975)
- Pleasure at Her Majesty's (1976)
- A Little Outing (1977)
- A Visit from Miss Protheroe (1978)
- Me! I'm Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1978)
- Doris and Doreen (1978)
- The Old Crowd (1979)
- Afternoon Off (1979)
- One Fine Day (1979)
- All Day on the Sands (1979)
- Intensive Care (1982)
- Our Winnie (1982)
- A Woman of No Importance (1982)
- Rolling Home (1982)
- Marks (1982)
- Say Something Happened (1982)
- An Englishman Abroad (1983)
- A Private Function (1984)
- The Insurance Man (1986)
- Prick Up Your Ears (1987)
- A Chip in the Sugar (1988)
- A Lady of Letters (1988)
- Bed Among the Lentils (1988)
- Soldiering On (1988)
- Her Big Chance (1988)
- A Cream Cracker Under the Settee (1988)
- Dinner at Noon (1988)
- 102 Boulevard Haussmann (1990)
- A Question of Attribution (1991)
- Julie Walters and Friends (1991)
- Portrait or Bust (1994)
- The Madness of King George (1994)
- Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet (1998)
- The Hand of God (1998)
- Playing Sandwiches (1998)
- The Outside Dog (1998)
- Nights in the Gardens of Spain (1998)
- Waiting for the Telegram (1998)
- Telling Tales (2000)
- The History Boys (2006)
- Cocoon (1995)
- Kasaba (1997)
- Clouds of May (1999)
- Uzak (2002)
- Climates (2006)
- Three Monkeys (2008)
- Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2010)
- Early to Bed (1975)
- Scully's New Year's Eve (1978)
- The Black Stuff (1980)
- The Muscle Market (1981)
- Boys from the Blackstuff (1982)
- No Surrender (1985)
- The Monocled Mutineer (1986)
- G.B.H. (1991)
- Julie Walters and Friends (1991)
- Jake's Progress (1995)
- Melissa (1997)
- Oliver Twist (1999)
- The Sinking of the Laconia (2011)
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