Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Mon Oncle (1958) Directed by Jacques Tati | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
Five years after his first appearance, Jacques Tati's M. Hulot returns with Mon Oncle, a film set along the dividing line between Paris' past and its future. Aligned (as is the film) with the former, Hulot lives in a colorful, overpopulated Parisian neighborhood and, lacking employment, spends his days waiting to pick up his adoring nephew from school, and subsequently escorting him to his parents' ultra-modern house. Filled with gadgets, some turned on only to impress the neighbors, the house seems designed specifically to frustrate Hulot, who unwittingly disrupts its operations at every opportunity. Concerned about his future, Hulot's relatives attempt to find him gainful employment and pair him off with a neighbor, with little success on either front. The nearly dialogue-free film is less concerned with the family's attempts as they relate to an overall plot, and more interested in how they play into its overall scheme of contrasts and allow for Tati's unmistakable sight-and-sound gag set pieces. Keith Phipps
Title : Mon Oncle (1958)
Directed by Jacques Tati
Duration : 120 min.
Subtitles : English, Portuguese, Spanish
Audio in French
Genres : Comedy
Countries : France, Italy

Baby Doll (1956) Directed by Elia Kazan | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
Tennessee Williams' 27 Wagons Full of Cotton was the basis for this steamy sex seriocomedy. Karl Malden stars as the doltish owner of a Southern cotton gin. He is married to luscious teenager Carroll Baker, who steadfastly refuses to sleep with her husband until she reaches the age of 20. Her nickname is "Baby Doll", a cognomen she does her best to live up to by lying in a crib-like bed and sucking her thumb. Enter crafty Sicilian Eli Wallach (who, like supporting actor Rip Torn, makes his film debut herein), who covets both Malden's wife and business. Malden's jealously sets fire to Wallach's business, compelling Wallach to try to claim Baby Doll as "compensation." Heavily admonished for its supposed filthiness in 1956 (it was condemned by the Legion of Decency, which did more harm to the Legion than to the film), Baby Doll seems a model of decorum today--so much so that it is regularly shown on the straight-laced American Movie Classics cable service. Hal Erickson
Title : Baby Doll (1956)
Directed by Elia Kazan
Duration : 114 min.
Subtitles : Portuguese
Audio in English
Genres : Crime
Countries : USA

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Brief Encounter (1945) Directed by David Lean | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
Based on Noël Coward's play "Still Life," Brief Encounter is a romantic, bittersweet drama about two married people who meet by chance in a London railway station and carry on an intense love affair. Sentimental yet down-to-earth and set in pre-World War II England, the film follows British housewife Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson), who is on her way home, but catches a cinder in her eye. By chance, she meets Dr. Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard), who removes it for her. The two talk for a few minutes and strike immediate sparks, but they end up catching different trains. However, both return to the station once a week to meet and, as the film progresses, they grow closer, sharing stories, hopes, and fears about their lives, marriages, and children. One day, when Alec's train is late, both become frantic that they will miss each other. When they finally find each other, they realize that they are in love. But what should be a joyous realization is fraught with tragedy, since both care greatly for their families. Howard and Johnson give flawless performances as two practical, married people who find themselves in a situation in which they know they can never be happy. Don Kaye
Title :  Brief Encounter (1945)  
Directed by David Lean
Duration : 86 min.
Subtitles : Portuguese, Spanish
Genres : Drama, Romance
Countries :  United Kingdom
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Monday, March 11, 2024

The Paradine Case (1947) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
Based on a novel by Robert Hichens, The Paradine Case concerns Anna Paradine (Alida Valli), on trial for the murder of her wealthy husband. British barrister Anthony Keane (played by the aggressively American Gregory Peck) takes on the case-and in the process, falls in love with Anna, despite being married himself. Despite his client's protests, Keane summons Anna's lover, unkempt stableman Andre Latour (Louis Jourdan), hoping to prove in court that Latour was the killer. Only after a series of stunning upsets does Keane realize that, for the first time in his career, he has allowed his heart to rule his head. In a typically perverse Hitchcockian development, the film's most unpleasant character, an autocratic, vindictive judge played by Charles Laughton, is one of the few who can see through Anna's facade. Hitchcock had wanted Greta Garbo to play Anna Paradine, and indeed a screen test was filmed, but Garbo ultimately declined. At the time of filming, Hitchcock was enamored with uninterrupted, 10-minute takes (later used to the extreme in Rope); thus, the Old Bailey courtroom set where much of the action takes place was designed to accommodate multiple cameras and elaborately conceived crane movements. Such techniques were cumbersome in 1947, and as a result the over-illuminated set ended up costing $70,000, jacking up the film's overall budget to a whopping $3 million (quite a pretty penny in those days). The film was a box-office disappointment, spelling the end of the always-rocky association between Alfred Hitchcock and producer David O. Selznick. Hal Erickson
Title : The Paradine Case (1947)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Duration : 125 min.
Subtitles : English, Portuguese, Spanish
Genres : Drama, Romance, Mystery, Crime, Thriller
Countries : USA


Sunday, March 10, 2024

It Happened One Night (1934) Directed by Frank Capra | VIDEO (ISO)

Synopsis :
Frank Capra's seminal screwball comedy, which won all five major Academy Awards for 1934, is still as breezy and beguiling today. Claudette Colbert plays Ellie Andrews, a spoiled heiress who has married fortune-hunting aviator King Westley (Jameson Thomas), despite her father (Walter Connolly)'s objections. To keep Ellie from marrying this lothario, her father has been holding her prisoner aboard his yacht. But Ellie bolts from the yacht, swims ashore in her clothes, and eventually slips onto a Greyhound bus bound for New York. Aboard the bus is newspaper reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable), who has recently been fired for drinking on the job. Peter gets the last seat on the bus -- but when he gets up to argue with the bus driver, Ellie takes his seat. Since it is the last seat on the bus, they have to share it. When Ellie has her purse stolen and she refuses to report it, Peter begins to suspect something. The next morning, they both miss the bus after a leisurely breakfast, and Peter reveals that he knows her identity. She makes a deal with him: if he helps her get to New York, he can write a scoop about her for his paper. Peter thinks she is a spoiled brat, however, and refuses a monetary bribe: "I'm not interested in your money or your problem. You, King Westley, your father -- you're all a lot of hooey to me!" But as they travel northward and engage in a series of misadventures, the gruff newspaperman and the spoiled rich girl, thrown together by circumstances, fall in love with each other. This movie set the pace for the "screwball" comedy, the witty and romantic clash of temperaments between a man and a woman mismatched in both personality and social position, a type of movie often associated with Katherine Hepburn in such classics as Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), and, with Spencer Tracy, Adam's Rib (1949), Pat and Mike (1952), and Desk Set (1957), among others. The only other movies to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay) were One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Paul Brenner
Title : It Happened One Night (1934)
Directed by Frank Capra
Duration : 105 min.
Subtitles : English, Portuguese, Spanish
Genres : Comedy, Drama, Romance
Countries : USA

The Birdcage Inn (Palan Taemun, 1998) Directed by Kim Ki-Duk | VIDEO (MKV)

Synopsis : Birdcage Inn is a drama about experiences moulding people's lives. After the clearing of the red light districts in Seoul, a ...