Don’t Look Now (1973)
Pass the warning.
Filmmaker(s): Nicolas Roeg
While grieving a terrible loss, a married couple meet two mysterious sisters, one of whom gives them a message sent from the afterlife.
Black Angel (2002)
Filmmaker(s): Tinto Brass
Trapped in an unhappy marriage, the wife of a high ranking Fascist official starts a dangerous, self-destructive relationship with a duplicitous S.S. Officer.
23 Feb Black Angel (2002)
Europa’s Butt Franco and Brass, even Argento matter to me. They have intuition that inspires. Yes, they make vulgar and sometimes nonsensical films. But that is just a matter of degree compared to Hollywood fare, right? What I like about Brass isn’t about the women...
Nathalie… (2003)
Can you ever control another person's sexuality?
Filmmaker(s): Anne Fontaine
Paris doctor Catherine starts to think her husband, Bernard, is having an affair when she hears an unfamiliar woman's message on his voice mail. Hoping to learn more about his extramarital activities, Catherine heads to a strip club, where she hires call girl Nathalie to have a fling with Gerard. As the affair progresses, Nathalie gives Catherine regular status reports, and the relationship between the women evolves from business to personal.
23 Feb Nathalie… (2003)
Womanly Closeness A film about two women, or rather the two hemispheres of a woman, made by a woman. I find nothing to like in most French films. The burst of reflexivity in the 60s where film critics became the most important filmmakers has had...
The Flower of My Secret (1995)
Every woman has a secret...
Filmmaker(s): Pedro Almodóvar
Leo is a middle-aged writer of popular romantic novels who writes under a pseudonym, but despises her own work. At home, her husband, who works overseas, is distant both physically and emotionally. As she reevaluates her life and writing, Leo is led to an unexpected relationship with Angel, a sensitive newspaper editor.
23 Feb The Flower of My Secret (1995)
Pedro’s Layered Neuroses I’d travel half a day to see one of his films properly projected. Even though some of his fantasies are hard to connect to, he would never fail to deliver on the cinematic front. Most viewers think the story here too melodramatic...
True Grit (2010)
Punishment comes one way or another.
Filmmaker(s): Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Following the murder of her father by a hired hand, a 14-year-old farm girl sets out to capture the killer. To aid her, she hires the toughest U.S. Marshal she can find—a man with 'true grit'—Reuben J. 'Rooster' Cogburn.
23 Feb True Grit (2010)
Pumice The Coens are important to me because they invented an approach to film that has had effect in the world of film, dreams and my life. What they are able to do is take us to the edge of a genre, showing us the...
Chloe (2009)
If the one you love was lying to you, how far would you go to find out the truth?
Filmmaker(s): Atom Egoyan
A doctor hires an escort to seduce her husband, whom she suspects of cheating, though unforeseen events put the family in danger.
23 Feb Chloe (2009)
The Son Thinking about film and how it works is made easier when you have two films that in some way are similar. Here we had an original French film that was really quite effective. It powerfully gave us the inner dance of two conflicting...
The Grocer’s Son (2007)
Filmmaker(s): Eric Guirado
Antoine Sforza, a thirty-year-old young man, left his village ten years before in order to start a new life in the big city, but now that his father, a traveling grocer, is in hospital after a stroke, he more or less reluctantly accepts to come back to replace him in his daily rounds.
22 Feb The Grocer’s Son (2007)
Background Clouds Some films are just ribbon. They do not intend anything beyond being a simple palliative. You’ll find these in the ‘feel good‘ section. In this case, we have our man, unhappy with himself and with father and girlfriend problems. By the end he...
Let the Right One In (2008)
Eli is 12 years old. She's been 12 for over 200 years and she just moved in next door.
Filmmaker(s): Tomas Alfredson
Set in 1982 in the suburb of Blackeberg, Stockholm, twelve-year-old Oskar is a lonely outsider, bullied at school by his classmates; at home, Oskar dreams of revenge against a trio of bullies. He befriends his twelve-year-old, next-door neighbor Eli, who only appears at night in the snow-covered playground outside their building.
22 Feb Let the Right One In (2008)
Choosing Vampire (and werewolf) films have always been built on a foundation of sex, some approach to sex. Often the reference is blunt and the sexual issues unsophisticated, as in the ‘Twilight‘ franchise. Here we have something rather extraordinary, a well made film with a...
The Girl on the Bridge (1999)
Filmmaker(s): Patrice Leconte
It's night on a Paris bridge. A girl leans over Seine River with tears in her eyes and a violent yearning to drown her sorrows. Out of nowhere someone takes an interest in her. He is Gabor, a knife thrower who needs a human target for his show. The girl, Adele, has never been lucky and nowhere else to go. So she follows him. They travel along the northern bank of the Mediterranean to perform.
22 Feb The Girl on the Bridge (1999)
On and Off The main character here is played by a young woman who we discover in an extraordinary opening sequence, an interview placed outside of the film proper, where we learn her character and her way of carrying it. This scene is memorable, because...
How Do You Know (2010)
How do you know it's love?
Filmmaker(s): James L. Brooks
After being cut from the USA softball team and feeling a bit past her prime, Lisa finds herself evaluating her life and in the middle of a love triangle, as a corporate guy in crisis competes with her current, baseball-playing beau.
