Synopsis :
Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play You Can't Take It With You was transformed into a paean to populism by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin. This is the story of the zany Sycamore household, presided over by Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore), a former businessman who has turned his back on commerce to enjoy life. At the Sycamores', everyone does just what he or she pleases. Penny Sycamore (Spring Byington), Grandpa's daughter, has become a novelist because someone delivered a typewriter to her home by mistake. Penny's husband makes firecrackers in his basement with the help of Mr. DePinna (Halliwell Hobbes), an iceman who showed up at the Sycamore doorstep one day and never left. Their daughter, Essie (Ann Miller), imagines that she's a prima ballerina, even though her dour teacher, Boris (Mischa Auer), assesses her work with, "Confidentially, it steenks!" Essie's husband, Ed (Dub Taylor), who'd rather play a xylophone than work, spends his free time selling Essie's candy, wrapping each package in paper from a used printing press that dispenses anarchistic slogans. The one normal member of the household is Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), in love with wealthy Tony Kirby (James Stewart). Naturally, when the stuffy, aristocratic Kirbys come to the Sycamores' for dinner, the event is a disaster, capped with the arrest of everyone in the household. Hart and Kaufman's third act found the previously judgmental Kirby softening his attitude toward the freewheeling Sycamore clan, admitting that he's never had so much fun in his life. Screenwriter Riskin altered the focus of the play by throwing out the third act and concentrating upon Tony Kirby's father, Kirby Sr., who as played by Edward Arnold is transformed from a stock stuffed shirt into a ruthless, grasping tycoon, eager to buy up every house on the Sycamores' block to make room for a munitions plant. The film thus became the story of Kirby's regeneration at the hands of the carefree Sycamores. Enough of the play's screwball elements are retained to compensate for Riskin's speechifying and plot distortions (though the softening of one of the play's vital ingredients, Grandpa's refusal to pay his income tax, borders on the sacrilegious). You Can't Take It With You earned several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Capra's third Oscar). Hal Erickson
Title : You Can't Take It With You (1938)
Directed by Frank Capra
Duration : 126 min.
Subtitles : English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Japanese
Audio in English
Genres : Comedy, Drama, Romance
Countries : United States
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
You Can't Take It With You (1938) Directed by Frank Capra | VIDEO (ISO)
Monday, April 15, 2024
Landscape After Battle (Krajobraz Po Bitwie, 1970) Directed by Andrzej Wajda | VIDEO (ISO)
Synopsis :
Based on the writings of Tadeusz Borowski, a child survivor of Auschwitz who committed suicide at 29, this is the story of two concentration camp survivors. A sensitive young poet is approached by a pretty Jewish girl with a plan to move to the West. Fueled by hatred over his experience in prison, he is reluctant to go and seeks revenge on his former captors. His hatred of the Germans prevents him from realizing the girl has fallen in love with him. The woman is accidentally shot by an American soldier, causing the poet to cry for the first time in years. He must reckon with his past and is finally awakened to the feelings that allowed his initial creativity that was suppressed by his Nazi captors. Dan Pavlides
Title : Landscape After Battle (1970)
Original Title : Krajobraz Po Bitwie
Directed by Andrzej Wajda
Duration : 109 min.
Subtitles : English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French
Audio in Polish
Genres : Drama, War
Countries : Poland
Note:
Video restricted to viewers over 18 years old defined by YouTube
Saturday, April 13, 2024
They Live by Night (1948) Directed by Nicholas Ray | VIDEO (ISO)
Synopsis :
"This boy...and this girl...were never properly introduced to the world we live in." With this superimposed opening title, director Nicholas Ray inaugurates his first feature, They Live by Night. Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell play a "Bonnie and Clyde"-type fugitive couple, who in trying to escape their past are hell-bent down the road to Doom. Despite their criminal activities, Bowie (Granger) and Keechie (O'Donnell) are hopelessly naïve, fabricating their own idyllic dream world as the authorities close in. The entrapment -- both actual and symbolic -- of the young misfit couple can now be seen as a precursor to the dilemma facing James Dean in Ray's 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause. A box-office disappointment upon its first release, They Live by Night has since gained stature as one of the most sensitive and least-predictable entries in the film noir genre. The film was based on a novel by Edward Anderson, and in 1974 was filmed by Robert Altman under its original title, Thieves Like Us. Hal Erickson
Title : They Live by Night (1948)
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Duration : 97 min.
Subtitles : Portuguese
Audio in English
Genres : Mystery, Drama, Romance, Crime
Countries : United States
Thursday, April 11, 2024
Ivan's Childhood (Ivanovo Detstvo, 1962) Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky | VIDEO (ISO)
This debut feature-length wartime drama by noted Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky was a remarkable introduction to a remarkable career. The poetic touch of Tarkovsky's hand and his measured pace is already evident as the tale of the young, twelve-year-old Ivan (Nikolai Burlyayev) evolves. Ivan is orphaned after his village is wiped out by an invading Nazi army and as a consequence, he ends up in a prison camp. The inventive lad escapes and is adopted by Captain Kholin (Valentin Zubkov), whose intention is to send the boy away to school. But Ivan is determined to help the Russian army and so he starts spying on the German forces. Because of his tender years he manages to pass freely back and forth behind enemy lines -- at least for awhile. This exemplary film won the top prize, the Golden Lion award at the 1962 Venice Film Festival and also won the Grand Prize at the 1962 San Francisco Film Festival. Eleanor Mannikka
Title : Ivan's Childhood (1962)
Original title : Ivanovo Detstvo
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky
Duration : 97 min.
Subtitles : English, Portuguese, Spanish
Audio in Russian
Genres : Drama, War
Countries : No rated
Note : This video contains content protected by copyright. In some countries you cannot see this video.
Friday, April 5, 2024
Utamaro And His Five Women (Utamaro o meguru gonin no onna, 1946) Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi | VIDEO (ISO)
Synopsis :
The central character in this Kenji Mizoguchi film is Utamaro, the famed 18th-century Edo artist. Somewhat inarticulate, Utamaro expresses his love for five women through his paintings. The director uses this plot contrivance to articulate his plea for fairer and more equitable treatment of women. And, as in such earlier Mizoguchi films as Sisters of Gion, prostitutes figure prominently into the scheme of things. Mizoguchi's second postwar effort, Utamaro and His Five Women was originally titled Utamaro o meguru gonin no onna. Hal Erickson
Title : Five Women Around Utamaro (1946)
Original title : Utamaro o meguru gonin no onna
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
Duration : 106 min.
Subtitles : English, Portuguese
Audio in Japanese
Genres : Drama
Countries : Japan
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 ...
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Synopsis : With a structure similar to an organic poem, "FINIS TERRAE" transcends the linear narrative of a mere documentary. Film...
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Synopsis : How typical of the great German director F. W. Murnau that he used Moliere's scathing satirical comedy Tartuffe as a launchin...
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Synopsis : The German The Haunted Castle (Schloss Vogelrod) has been described as director F.W. Murnau's "warm-up" for his su...