Good Bye Lenin! / Гудбай Ленин

Good Bye, Lenin!is a 2003 German tragicomedy film, released internationally in 2003. Directed by Wolfgang Becker, the cast includes Daniel Brühl, Katrin Sass, Chulpan Khamatova, and Maria Simon. Most of the scenes were shot at the Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin and around Plattenbauten near Alexanderplatz.

Directed by Wolfgang Becker
Produced by Stefan Arndt
Written by Wolfgang Becker
Bernd Lichtenberg
Starring Daniel Brühl
Katrin Sass
Chulpan Khamatova
Maria Simon
Alexander Beyer
Music by Yann Tiersen
Claire Pichet
Cinematography Martin Kukula
Editing by Peter R. Adam
Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics
Release date(s) February 27, 2004
Running time 121 min
Country Germany

In a prologue, Alex Kerner (Daniel Brühl) recalls as a child (in 1978) how proud he was along with his countrymen when the first German to enter space, Sigmund Jähn, came from the East.

The rest of the film is set in East Berlin, spanning from October 1989 to just after German unification a year later. Alex lives with his sister, Ariane (Maria Simon), his mother, Christiane (Katrin Sass), and Ariane's infant daughter, Paula. His father fled to the West in 1978, apparently abandoning the family. In his absence, Christiane has become an ardent idealist and supporter of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (the Party). When she sees Alex being arrested in an anti-government demonstration, she suffers a near-fatal heart attack and falls into a coma. The police ignore Alexander's plea to assist his mother, rather releasing him later that evening to go and see her.

Shortly afterward, the Berlin Wall falls. In that time, capitalism comes to East Berlin, and Alex loses his job before "winning" a new position in a ballot to install satellite dishes with West Berlin resident Dennis (an aspiring filmmaker) while Ariane leaves university to work at a Burger King drive-thru. After eight months, Christiane awakes, but is severely weakened both physically and mentally. Her doctor asserts that any shock might cause another, possibly fatal, heart attack. Alex realizes that the discovery of recent events would be too much for her to bear, and so sets out to maintain the illusion that things are as before in the German Democratic Republic. To this end, he and Ariane revert from the gaudy decor of the west to the previous decor to their bed-ridden mother's bedroom in the family apartment, dress in their old clothes, and feed Christiane new Western produce from old-labeled jars. Their deception is successful, albeit increasingly complicated and elaborate. Christiane occasionally witnesses strange occurrences, such as a gigantic Coca-Cola advertisement banner unfurling on a building outside the apartment. With Dennis, Alex edits old tapes of East German news broadcasts and creates fake reports on TV (played from a video machine hidden in an adjacent room) to explain these odd events. Since the old news shows were fairly predictable, and Christiane's memory is vague, she is initially fooled.>>>

BAFTA Awards

* Best Film not in the English Language (nominated – lost to In This World)

European Film Awards

* Best Actor (Brühl, won)
* Best Actress (Sass, nominated – lost to Charlotte Rampling, Swimming Pool)
* Best Director (Becker, nominated – lost to Lars von Trier, Dogville)
* Best Film (won)
* Best Screenwriter (Lichtenberg, won)

German Film Awards

* Outstanding Actor (Brühl, won)
* Outstanding Actress (Sass, nominated – lost to Hannelore Elsner, Mein letzter Film)
* Outstanding Direction (Becker, won)
* Outstanding Editing (Adam, won)
* Outstanding Film (won)
* Outstanding Music (Tiersen, won)
* Outstanding Production Design (Holler, won)
* Outstanding Supporting Actor (Lukas, won)
* Outstanding Supporting Actress (Simon, nominated – lost to Corinna Harfouch, Bibi Blocksberg)

Golden Globe Awards

* Best Foreign Language Film (nominated – lost to Osama)

Goya Awards

* Best European Film (Becker, won)

London Film Critics Circle

* Best Foreign Language Film (won)

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HOME PAGE (ENGLAND)

Wings of Desire/ Der Himmel über Berlin / Небо Над Берлином

Wings of Desire is a 1987 film by the German director Wim Wenders. Its original German title is Der Himmel über Berlin, which can be translated as The Sky (or Heaven) over Berlin. Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry partially inspired the movie; Wenders claimed angels seemed to dwell in Rilke's poetry. The director also employed Peter Handke, who wrote much of the dialogue, the poetic narrations, and the film's recurring poem "Song of Childhood." The film was followed by a sequel, Faraway, So Close!

Directed by Wim Wenders
Produced by Wim Wenders
Anatole Dauman
Written by Wim Wenders
Peter Handke
Starring Bruno Ganz
Solveig Dommartin
Otto Sander
Curt Bois
Peter Falk
Music by Jürgen Knieper
Cinematography Henri Alekan
Distributed by Orion Classics (U.S. only)
Release date(s) 23 September 1987
Running time 127 minutes
Country Germany
France
Language German, English, French and Italian


Set in West Berlin in the late 1980s, toward the end of the Cold War, it follows two angels, Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander), as they roam the city, unseen and unheard by the people, observing and listening to the diverse thoughts of Berliners: a pregnant woman, a painter, a broken man who thinks his girlfriend no longer loves him. Their raison d'être is not that of the stereotypical angel, but as Cassiel says, to "assemble, testify, preserve" reality. In addition to the story of two angels, the film also is a meditation on Berlin's past, present, and future. Damiel and Cassiel have always existed as angels; they existed in Berlin before it was a city, and in fact before there were even any humans.

Among the Berliners they encounter in their meanderings is an old man named Homer (Curt Bois), who, unlike the Greek poet of war Homer, dreams of an "epic of peace." The angel Cassiel follows the old man as he looks for the then-demolished Potsdamer Platz in an open field, where all he finds is the graffiti-covered Berlin Wall.

Although Damiel and Cassiel are pure observers, invisible to all but children, and incapable of any physical interaction with our world, Damiel begins to fall in love with a circus trapeze artist named Marion (Solveig Dommartin), who is talented, lovely, but profoundly lonely. Marion lives alone in a trailer, dances alone to the music of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and drifts through the city.

A subpart of the film follows Peter Falk, cast as himself, who has arrived in Berlin to make a film about Berlin's Nazi past. As the movie progresses, it turns out that Peter Falk was also once an angel, who renounced his immortality to become a mortal participant in the world after he grew tired of always observing and never experiencing.

Eventually, Damiel too longs for physicality, and to become human. When he sheds his immortal existence, he experiences life for the first time: he bleeds, sees colors for the first time (the movie up until now is filmed in a sepia toned monochrome, except for brief moments when the angels are not present or looking), tastes food and drinks coffee. Meanwhile, Cassiel inadvertently taps into the mind of a young man just before he commits suicide by jumping off a building; Cassiel tries to save the young man but is unable to do so, and he is left haunted and tormented by the experience. Eventually, Damiel meets the trapeze artist Marion at a bar, and they greet each other with familiarity as if they had long known each other. In the end, Damiel is united with the woman he had desired for so long. The film ends with the message: "To be continued."

The story is concluded in Wenders' 1993 sequel, In weiter Ferne, so nah! (Faraway, So Close!).(WIKI)


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The Road

he Road is a 2009 drama film directed by John Hillcoat and written by Joe Penhall. Based on the 2006 novel of the same name by American author Cormac McCarthy, the film stars Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee as a father and his son in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Filming took place in Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and Oregon. The film received a limited release in North American cinemas from November 25, 2009 and was released in UK cinemas on January 4, 2010

"The Road shares the premise of the novel on which it is based: a father (Mortensen) and his young son (Smit-McPhee) struggle to survive a number of years after an unspecified, devastating cataclysm has destroyed civilization, killed all plant and animal life, and obscured the sun; only remnants of mankind remain alive, reduced to scavenging or cannibalism. Man and boy are traveling southward, in the hope that it will be warmer. Along the way, they search for shelter, food, and fuel, and avoid bands of cannibals while trying to maintain their own sense of humanity. The man carries a revolver, but has only two bullets which he wants to keep in case they need to commit suicide. Flashback and dream sequences spaced throughout the narrative show how the man's wife, who has a much more expanded role in the film than in the book, committed suicide after delivering the child and losing the will to go on in a seemingly doomed world".

Directed by John Hillcoat
Produced by Nick Wechsler
Steve Schwartz
Paula Mae Schwartz
Written by Joe Penhall (screenplay)
Cormac McCarthy (book)
Starring Viggo Mortensen
Kodi Smit-McPhee
Michael K. Williams
Robert Duvall
Guy Pearce
and Charlize Theron

Music by Nick Cave
Warren Ellis
Cinematography Javier Aguirresarobe
Editing by Jon Gregory
Studio 2929 Productions
Distributed by Dimension Films
The Weinstein Company
Release date(s) November 25, 2009 (limited)

Official website

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Animation. MARY AND MAX

International Narrative Feature Films
Australia, 2008, 92 mins., color & b/w

{Mary and Max} is unique. A claymation animation by Academy Award–winning filmmaker Adam Elliot (Harvie Krumpet), it tells the simple story of a 20-year pen-pal friendship between two very different people: Mary Dinkle, a chubby, lonely 8-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max Horowitz, a 44-year-old Jewish man, who is severely obese, suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, and lives an isolated life in New York City. It is very much a triumph of emotion, insight, and eccentricity—a complete delight.Animation's ability to capture the intricate complexity of life has never been on display in as absorbing fashion as with the storytelling of this Australian filmmaker, who truly makes you forget what you are watching. The originality of the voices in this ever-spinning kaleidoscope of innocence and idiosyncrasy comes straight from an incredibly rich imagination and complete artistic vision. This desire for acceptance and love amid the pain of existence is masterfully narrated by Barry Humphries and fleshed out by the voices of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette.This film that explores friendship, autism, taxidermy, psychiatry, alcoholism, where babies come from, obesity, kleptomania, trust, copulating dogs, sexual and religious differences, agoraphobia, and more, and is rooted in a very personal relationship, is proof of why we go to the movies and a truly exceptional portrait of compassion and love.

Director(s): Adam Elliot
Screenwriter(s): Adam Elliot
Executive Producers: Mark Gooder, Paul Hardart, Tom Hardart, Bryce Menzies, Jonathan Page
Producer: Melanie Coombs
Cinematographer: Gerald Thompson
Editor: Bill Murphy
Production Designer: Adam Elliot

CAST:
* Toni Collette as Mary Daisy Dinkle
* Philip Seymour Hoffman as Max Jerry Horowitz
* Eric Bana as Damian Popodopoulos
* Barry Humphries as the Narrator
* Bethany Whitmore as Young Mary
* Renée Geyer as Vera
* Ian "Molly" Meldrum as Homeless Man

Schläft ein Lied in allen Dingen/Колыбельные / SLEEPING SONGS

"An artist's search for new ideas leads him on a journey of self-discovery in this drama from German filmmaker Andreas Struck. Martin (Stefan Rudolf) is a musician who works with a well-respected experimental jazz ensemble. Martin is a man driven to break the rules and defy creative convention at every turn, but he feels he's losing touch with his muse, and has begin to suspect his girlfriend is more interested in dating a well-known musician than in his true nature. One evening, it all becomes too much for Martin, and he leaves the stage midway through a performance, stopping by the banks of a river to toss his horn into the water. Martin becomes a drifter, wandering for the sake of wandering, until he crosses paths with Hannah, an eccentric elderly woman who writes poetry. Hannah may not seem like the sort of person Martin has been waiting to meet, but the longer he reads her work, the more he suspects she has an understanding of both art and life that he lacks. Schlaeft ein Lied in Allen Dingen (aka Sleeping Songs) was an official selection at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide"



Credits
SCHLÄFT EIN LIED IN ALLEN DINGEN

Director
STRUCK, Andreas
Production Company
Neue Mediopolis Filmproduktion
Production Company
WDR - Westdeutscher Rundfunk
Production Company
ARTE
Producer
HENGGE, Petra
Producer
RIS, Alexander
Producer
ROTHE, Jörg
Production Manager
HESS, Hans Christian
Assistant Director
SEIBERT, Dirk
Casting
DIHRBERG, Anja
Screenplay
GABLER, Dagmar
Director of Photography
DOUB, Andreas
Editor
JACOBS, Karin
Production Designer
FREYER, Jutta
Costume Designer
WEGNER, Elena
Music
MOLVAER, Nils Petter
Sound Design
SCHMIDT, Sebastian
Mixer
MEHL, Olaf
Sound
VARZA, Siddh


Martin
RUDOLF, Stefan
Kristina
KHAMATOVA, Chulpan
Hanna
HÖSS, Traute
Rio
METSCHURAT, Barnaby
Atze
ALTMANN, Michael
Maggie
KALENBERG, Paula
Wiesel
KIEFER, Martin
Konrad
PACKHÄUSER, Wolfgang
Rick
FRISCH, Arno
Jakob
GROTHGAR, Andreas
policewoman
ENGELHARDT, Bettina

O Lucky Man!/О, счастливчик! (1973)

This sprawling, surrealist musical serves as an allegory for the pitfalls of capitalism, as it follows the adventures of a young coffee salesman in Europe. Many actors play multiple roles, giving the film a stagy tone...

O Lucky Man! is a 1973 British comedy film, intended as an allegory on life in a capitalist society. Directed by Lindsay Anderson, it stars Malcolm McDowell as Mick Travis, whom McDowell had first played as a disaffected public schoolboy in his first film performance in Anderson's film if.... (1968). The film was entered into the 1973 Cannes Film Festival.

During his journey, Travis learns the amoral lesson, reinforced by numerous songs in the soundtrack by Alan Price, that he must abandon his principles in order to succeed, but unlike the other characters he meets he must retain a detached idealism that will allow him to distance himself from the evils of the world: a fact which causes the film to often be considered a reappropriation of Candide by Voltaire. As one of the film's songs says:

Smile while you're makin' it, Laugh while you're takin' it, Even though you're fakin' it, Nobody's gonna know.

In O Lucky Man!, Travis progresses from coffee salesman (working for Imperial Coffee in the North East of England and Scotland), a victim of torture in a government installation and a medical research subject, under the supervision of Dr Millar (Crowden), where he is almost turned into a sheep.

In parallel with Travis' experiences, the film shows 1960s Britain retreating from its imperial past, but managing to retain some influence in the world by means of corrupt dealings with foreign dictators. After finding out his girlfriend is the daughter of Sir James Burgess (Richardson), an evil industrialist, he is appointed Burgess' personal assistant.

With Dr Munda, the dictator of the fictitious Zingara, a brutal police state which nevertheless manages to be a playground for wealthy people from the developed world, Burgess sells the regime a chemical called PL45 'Honey' for spraying on rebel areas (the effects resemble those of Napalm). Burgess connives at having Travis found guilty of fraud, and he is imprisoned for five years.

The final scene of the film shows him becoming involved in a casting call for a film, with Lindsay Anderson himself playing the director of the film. He is given various props to handle, including a stack of school books and a machine gun. When asked to smile Mick continually asks why. The director slaps Travis with his script book after he fails to understand what is being asked of him. After a cut to black (a device used throughout the film) a slow look of understanding crosses Mick's face. The scene then cuts to a party with dancing which includes all of the cast celebrating.(WIKI)

Directed by Lindsay Anderson
Produced by Lindsay Anderson
Written by David Sherwin and Malcolm McDowell (Story)
Starring Malcolm McDowell
Ralph Richardson
Rachel Roberts
Arthur Lowe
Helen Mirren
Graham Crowden
Dandy Nichols
Music by Alan Price
Cinematography Miroslav Ondříček
Editing by David Gladwell
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) 1973
Running time 183 min.
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Preceded by if....
Followed by Britannia Hospital

O Lucky Man! on IMDb

Transylvania / Трансильвания (2006)

Zingarina arrives in Transylavania, accompanied by her close friend Marie and her guide and interpreter Luminitsa. She is not there only to visit this region of Romania but to trace her lover Milan, a musician who has made her pregnant and who left her without a word of explanation. When she finds him back, he brutally rejects her and Zingarina is terribly upset. She leaves her two companions and having become a wreck she hardly survives by following a wandering little girl. Her destiny changes for the best when she meets Tchangalo, a traveling trader...

Starring: Beata Playa, Alexandra Beaujard, Birol Unel, Amira Casar, Asia Argento
Directed by: Tony Gatlif
Produced by: Tony Gatlif



Genres: Art/Foreign and Drama
Running Time: 1 hr. 43 min.

Bacheha-Ye Aseman / The Children of Heaven / Дети небес (1997)

Ali takes his little sister Zahra's shoes to the shoemaker to be repaired, but loses them on the way home. The siblings decide to keep the predicament a secret from their parents, knowing that there is no money to buy a replacement pair and fearing that they will be punished. They devise a scheme to share Ali's sneakers: Zahra will wear them to school in the morning and hand them off to Ali at midday so he can attend afternoon classes. This uncomfortable arrangement leads to one adventure after another as they attempt to hide the plan from their parents and teachers, attend to their schoolwork and errands, and acquire a new pair of shoes for Zahra. Zahra sees the shoes on a schoolmate's feet, and follows her home, but the two soon become friends...

Directed by Majid Majidi
Produced by Amir Esfandiari, Mohammad Esfandiari
Written by Majid Majidi
Starring Amir Farrokh Hashemian, Bahare Seddiqi
Music by Keivan Jahanshahi
Cinematography Parviz Malekzaade
Editing by Hassan Hassandoost
Distributed by United States Miramax Films
Release date(s) United States January 22, 1999
Running time 89 min.
Country Iran

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Раны / Rane (1998)

Directed by: Srdjan Dragojevic
Genre: Comedy,Drama
User Rating: 8.0/10 (1,401 votes)
Runtime: Canada:103 min | Hungary:100 min
Awards: 2 wins
Cast (first 5): Milan Maric, , , Vesna Trivalic, Nikola Kojo

Awards
Stockholm Film Festival 1998 Won Bronze Horse Srdjan Dragojevic
Thessaloniki Film Festival 1998 Won FIPRESCI Prize Parallel Sections Srdjan Dragojevic For its powerful, dramatic depiction of the brutal reality and complexity of life in the Balkans today.

How easy is it for desperate youngsters to become dangerous gangsters in a decaying society washed all over by the blood of war? Fairly easy indeed. Rane shows incidents, probably somewhat facts, that took place in Serbia of the war era. Things similar to what you see on this film could happen virtually everywhere, but this film gives a very Yugoslavian feeling to everything. Yugo style mafia, Yugo style murder, and all that. Revolting politicians and their greed are to blame, not only the desperate young men who lose their reasoning while trying to be someone. The film and the casting is overall successful, and it's so very Serbian. I recommend it to anyone who.. well anyone who likes a good film. But don't expect anything American style on this one, as I say it's Yugo to the bone...

Sweet Rain / Shinigami no seido /Accuracy of Death (2008)

Sweet Rain: Shinigami no Seido (Sweet Rain 死神の精度, lit. "The precision of the agent of death") is a 2008 Japanese movie based on a Kotaro Isaka novel and directed by Masaya Kakehi.
CAST:
* Takeshi Kaneshiro
* Manami Konishi
* Sumiko Fuji

Adapted from the bestselling novel by Kotaro Isaka “The Accuracy of Death”. Chiba (Takeshi Kaneshiro) appears seven days before a person dies an unexpected death. His job is to observe the person for seven days, and then decide either to ‘execute’ or ‘pass over’. Getting his work quickly out of the way, he goes to the listening booth of a CD shop and indulges in his favorite pastime, listening to ‘humanity’s greatest invention’: music.

He is...a Grim Reaper. Today, again, in the rain, he waits. His subject, her death due in seven days, is Kazue Fujiki (Manami Konishi), 27. She works for a manufacturing company, in the complaints department. Exhausted after her day, she emerges from her office. It’s time for the Reaper to go to work.

Yarik / Ярик (Russia, 2007)

In the last five years 62,000 Russian children have been abducted, taken out of the country and sold.THIS HARD-HITTING DRAMA is the remarkable story of one of these children."The lucky ones are adopt...( read more read more... )ed by rich families in the West. Others are sold into a life of prostitution, drugs or crime. But many are murdered so their organs can be sold on the black market, often with the collusion of the Russian police.


PRODUCER
Konstantin Serebryakov

DIRECTOR
Cecile Henry

WRITER
Andrey Sherbinin, Cecile Henry

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Alexander Gusev

COMPOSER
Vadim Sher

PRODUCTION DESIGNER
Serguei Filenko

SOUND
Yakov Geronimus

PRODUCTION COMPANY
Project WE, Krasnaya Strela, SD Cinema Park
CAST:
Yarik - Maxim Kolesnikov
Boris - Anatoly Bely
Major - Dmitry Persin
Buyer - Mikhail Gorevoi
Gurgen - Armen Djigarkhanya
Samokhin - Sergey Badichkin
Boris's Wife - Inessa Moskvicheva
Boris's Daughter - Polina Arsentieva
Mother - Elena Ksenofontova
Master - Sergey Vexler

Jim Jarmusch. Mystery Train (1989)

Mystery Train is a 1989 independent anthology film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch and set in Memphis, Tennessee. The film comprises a triptych of stories involving foreign protagonists unfolding over the course of the same night. "Far From Yokohama" features a Japanese couple (played by Youki Kudoh and Masatoshi Nagase) on a blues pilgrimage, "A Ghost" focuses on an Italian widow (Nicoletta Braschi) stranded in the city overnight, and "Lost In Space" follows the misadventure of a newly single and unemployed Englishman (Joe Strummer) and his companions (Rick Aviles and Steve Buscemi). They are linked by a run-down flophouse overseen by a night clerk (played by Screamin' Jay Hawkins) and his dishevelled bellboy (Cinqué Lee), a scene featuring Elvis Presley's "Blue Moon",[3] and a gunshot.

The starting point for the script was the ensemble cast of friends and previous collaborators Jarmusch had conceived characters for, while the tripartite formal structure of the film was inspired by his study of literary forms. Cinematographer Robby Müller and musician John Lurie were among the many contributors who had been involved in earlier Jarmusch projects and returned to work on the film. Mystery Train's US$2.8 million budget (financed by Japanese conglomerate JVC) was considerable compared to what the director had enjoyed before, and allowed him the freedom to rehearse many unscripted background scenes. It was the first of Jarmusch's feature films to depart from his trademark black-and-white photography, though the use of color was tightly controlled to conform with the director's intuitive sense of the film's aesthetic.

Mystery Train was released theatrically by Orion Classics under a restricted rating in the United States, where it grossed over $1.5 million. It enjoyed critical acclaim on the film festival circuit, and like the director's earlier films premiered at the New York Film Festival and was shown in competition at Cannes, where Jarmusch was awarded the Best Artistic Achievement Award. The film was also shown in the Edinburgh, London, Midnight Sun, Telluride, and Toronto film festivals, and was nominated in six categories at the Independent Spirit Awards. Critical reaction was overwhelmingly positive, with reviewers praising the structure, humor, and characters of the film, though there were discontented rumblings that the director had not been sufficiently adventurous.

The film consists of three stories that take place on the same night in downtown Memphis. The three stories are linked together by the Arcade Hotel, a run-down flophouse presided over by the night clerk (Screamin' Jay Hawkins) and bellboy (Cinqué Lee), where the principal characters in each story spend a part of the night. Every room in the hotel is adorned with a portrait of Elvis.

The first story, "Far From Yokohama", features Mitsuko (Youki Kudoh) and Jun (Masatoshi Nagase), a teenage couple from Yokohama making a pilgrimage to Memphis during a trip across America. Mitsuko is obsessed with Elvis to the point where she believes that there is a mystical connection between Elvis, Madonna and the Statue of Liberty. The film follows the couple as they travel from the train station, through downtown Memphis and an exhausting tour of Sun Records, to the Arcade hotel.

The second story, "A Ghost", is about an Italian widow, Luisa (Nicoletta Braschi), who is stranded in Memphis while escorting her husband's coffin back to Italy. Luisa, who has been conned twice and stuck with armfuls of magazines, is forced to share a room at the hotel with Dee Dee (Elizabeth Bracco), a young woman who has just left her husband and who plans to leave the city in the morning. Luisa is kept awake by Dee Dee's constant talking, and when the young woman finally does go to sleep, visited by an apparition of Memphis' most famous icon – Elvis Presley.

In the final story, "Lost In Space", Dee Dee's husband Johnny (Joe Strummer) is introduced. Having gotten drunk after losing his job, Johnny – known, much to his chagrin, as Elvis – drives around the city along with his friend Will Robinson (Rick Aviles) and brother-in-law Charlie (Steve Buscemi). They stop at a liquor store, which Johnny attempts to rob using the gun and severely wounds the owner in the process. Fearing the consequences of the incident, Johnny, Will and Charlie retire to the hotel to hide out for the night; there, Johnny gets further drunk. Charlie realizes that Will shares the same name as the character Will Robinson from the television show Lost in Space, which Johnny has never heard of. Charlie and Will proceed to tell him about the show, and Will comments that that is how he feels then with Charlie and Johnny; lost in space. The next morning Charlie discovers that Johnny isn't really his brother-in-law, which angers him because of what they've been through. Johnny attempts to shoot himself, and while struggling to prevent him, Charlie is shot in the leg. Leaving the hotel, the three escape a police car that isn't even looking for them. The closing credits show the train, the airport and the final views of the characters from the first two stories.(WIKI)

Directed by Jim Jarmusch
Produced by Rudd Simmons
Jim Stark
Written by Jim Jarmusch
Starring Youki Kudoh
Masatoshi Nagase
Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Cinqué Lee
Nicoletta Braschi
Elizabeth Bracco
Rick Aviles
Joe Strummer
Steve Buscemi
Music by John Lurie
Cinematography Robby Müller
Editing by Melody London

April Story / Shigatsu monogatari/Апрельская история

Following up on the phenomenal success of his Love Letter and Swallowtail Butterfly, Shunji Iwai spins this sweet tale about a young lass' first steps in the bustle of the big city. Uzuki Nireno (Takako Matsu) is leaving her rural home in the snowy north of Hokkaido for college in Western Tokyo. Her transition to big city life isn't easy; she muffed her self-introduction in class and she had an unfortunate incident in a movie theater with an overly solicitous pervert. In spite of this, she starts to feel settled after she unpacks and after she explores her neighborhood. She also befriends tough-talking Saeko (Rumi) who invites her to join the school's fishing club. Though she initially has no interest in the pursuit, she soon is practicing her cast in a parking lot as upper classmen lavish her with attention. Uzuki, however, is not interested. When she was in high school, she fell for a hunky classmate (Seiichi Tanabe) who just so happens to be working in a local bookshop. Will she summon the courage to say "hi?" ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Directed by: Shunji Iwai
Cast: Takako Matsu, Seiichi Tanaba, Kahori Fujii, Rumi
JAPAN
1998

Poppoya / Railroad Man/ Железнодорожник/

Japanese '60s icon Ken Takakura stars in this beautifully photographed film about an aging railroad conductor. Sato Otomatsu (Takakura) devoted his life to making the trains run promptly in the formerly prosperous mining town of Horomai. When his colleague informs him that the unprofitable line is being closed, he reminiscences on how his workaholic ways robbed him of his personal life. Because of work, he missed the deaths of his wife and only daughter. When an enigmatic high school girl with a passion for railroads pays him a visit, his life changes in unanticipated ways. Takakura received a Best Actor award at the 1999 Montreal Film Festival for this film.

Cast: Ken Takakura || Nenji Kobayashi || Shinobu Otake || Ryoko Hirosue,Hidetaka Yoshioka || Masanobu Ando || Ken Shimura || Tomoko Naraoka || Yoshiko Tanaka

Director: Yasuo Furuhata
Producer: Sunao Sakagami
Released: 1999 [Japan]
Genre: Romance
Sub-Genre: Drama

Book/Film: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

This article is about the 1997 book. For the 2007 film, see The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (film).
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jean-Dominique Bauby.jpg
Author Jean-Dominique Bauby
Country France
Language French
Genre(s) Autobiography, Memoir
Publication date March 6, 1997


The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a translation of the French memoir Le scaphandre et le papillon by journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby. It describes what his life is like after suffering a massive stroke that left him with a condition called locked-in syndrome. It also details what his life was like before the stroke.

On December 8, 1995, Bauby, the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, suffered a stroke and lapsed into a coma. He awoke 20 days later, mentally aware of his surroundings but physically paralyzed with the exception of some movement in his head and eyes (one of which had to be sewn up due to an irrigation problem). The entire book was written by Bauby blinking his left eyelid, which took ten months (four hours a day). A transcriber repeatedly recited a French language frequency-ordered alphabet (E, S, A, R, I, N, T, U, L, etc.), until Bauby blinked to choose the next letter. The book took about 200,000 blinks to write and an average word took approximately two minutes. The book also chronicles everyday events for a person with locked-in syndrome. These events include playing at the beach with his family, getting a bath, and meeting visitors.

In 2007 the book was adapted into a feature film of the same name, directed by Julian Schnabel, written by Ronald Harwood and starring Mathieu Amalric as Bauby. Julian Schnabel won best director that year at the Cannes Film Festival.[3] The film was nominated for four Academy Awards in 2008 for directing, cinematography, editing and writing.[4] It would go on to win numerous international awards, including a BAFTA for adapted screenplay, and Golden Globes for best foreign language film and best director.[5][6]

Since the film's release, a number of Bauby's friends have gone on record saying that several aspects of Bauby's personal life were fictionalized in Schnabel's film, most notably his relationships with the mother of his children and his girlfriend.[7]

While Bauby was still alive, French director Jean-Jacques Beineix made a 25-minute film, "Assigné à résidence" (or "House Arrest"), that captured Bauby in his paralysed state, and the process of the book's composition (WIKI)

Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josée Croze, Anne Consigny, Patrick Chesnais

Director(s)
Julian Schnabel

Distributor(s)
Miramax

Still Life/Sānxiá hǎorén/Натюрморт

Still Life (Chinese: 三峡好人; pinyin: Sānxiá hǎorén; literally "Good people of the Three Gorges") is a 2006 Chinese film directed by Jia Zhangke. Shot in the old village of Fengjie, a small town on the Yangtze River which is slowly being destroyed by the building of the Three Gorges Dam, Still Life tells the story of two people in search of their spouses. Still Life is a co-production between the Shanghai Film Studio and Hong Kong-based Xstream Pictures
The film premiered at the 2006 Venice Film Festival and was a surprise winner of the Golden Lion Award for Best Film.[2] The film premiered at a handful of other film festivals, and received a limited commercial release in the United States on January 18, 2008 in New York City.

Like The World, Jia Zhangke's previous film, Still Life was accepted by Chinese authorities and was shown uncensored in both mainland China and abroad.
Still Life takes place in the city of Fengjie, a city upstream of the massive Three Gorges Dam. Now marked for flooding, the city undergoes a process of self-deconstruction. Into this dying town comes Han Sanming, a coal-miner from the province of Shanxi who has returned in search of a wife that ran away sixteen years ago. Upon arriving, he asks a local motorcyclist to drive him to his former address on "Granite Street." The driver takes him to the river bank, revealing that his entire neighborhood has been flooded since the building of the dam. After a failed attempt to obtain his wife's information from the local municipal office, Han Sanming settles into a local hotel. Sanming's next stop is a rickety boat owned by his wife's elder brother. The brother informs Sanming that his wife and daughter (the real reason for his return) work downriver in Yichang but that if he remains in the city, they will eventually return.

Sanming then befriends a local teen (and a fan of the actor Chow Yun-Fat), Brother Mark who helps him with a job with his demolition crew. Together the two spend their days tearing down buildings.

The film then cuts to a second story with the arrival of Shen Hong, a nurse. Shen Hong's husband, Guo Bing had left their home in Shanxi two years earlier and had made only superficial attempts to keep in contact. She eventually enlists the help of one of her husband's friends, Wang Dongming, who allows her to stay at his home as the two seek Guo Bin. The two discover that Guo Bin had become a fairly successful businessman in Fengjie though Dongming refuses to answer whether he has found a girl on the side. Shen Hong later found out her husband is indeed having an affair with his wealthy investor. When Guo Bin and Shen Hong at last meet, she simply walks away. As her husband pursues her, she reveals to him that she has fallen in love with someone else and wishes to divorce. When he asks with whom and when she had fallen in love, she responds, "Does it really matter?"

The film then cuts back to Sanming for the final third. Sanming has been working at demolishing buildings for sometime when Brother Mark is fatally injured in a collapse of a wall, or perhaps he was murdered during a "job" contracted out by Guo Bin to gather a gang of youths to intimidate the inhabitants of a rival piece of real estate. Soon afterwards, his brother-in-law calls informing him that his wife, Missy Ma has returned. Sanming and Missy then meet, where she tells him that their daughter works further south, and that she works for a boat-owner essentially as an indentured servant due to her brothers debt. Sanming attempts to take his ex-wife with him, but is informed that he will have to pay 30,000 RMB to cover the debt. He promises to do so, and makes the decision to head back to Shanxi to work in the mines. His new friends and coworkers announce that they will be following, but Sanming reminds them of the intensely dangerous nature of the work. The film ends as Sanming prepares to depart. A man walking across a tight-rope appears in the background...(WIKI)

Directed by Jia Zhangke
Produced by Xu Pengle
Wang Tianyun
Zhu Jiong
Written by Jia Zhangke
Sun Jianming
Guan Na
Starring Zhao Tao
Han Sanming
Music by Lim Giong
Cinematography Yu Lik-wai
CHINA

Shijie / The World/ Мир (2004) DVDRip

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A young dancer, her security-guard boyfriend and others work at World Park, a bizarre cross-pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center where visitors can interact with famous international monuments wi...( read more read more... )thout ever leaving the Bejing suburbs. Daily lavish shows are performed amongst replicas of the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, St. Mark's Square, Big Ben, the Pyramids and even the Twin Towers. But working beyond the kitsch potential, 'The World' casts a compassionate eye on the daily loves, friendships and desperate dreams of these provincial workers.

Taisheng Chen, Zhong-wei Jiang, Jue Jing, Yi-qun Wang, Tao Zhao

Soom / Breath/ Вздох (2007)

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In Dancer in The Dark, Lars von Trier told the story of a girl who could create such a vivid interior life that it could soar over any misfortune, even death. In Breath, Director Ki-duk Kim tells the story of a girl who tries to transfer a similarly strong vision to a condemned man on death row.

What do you do to raise your spirits? Listen to a song? Walk through the countryside? Go on holiday somewhere nice? Take any of these things, and they are heightened if love and desire are added.

When I was seventeen, I used to walk five miles every night. Just to hold my sweetheart's hand and kiss her goodnight. Even in winter, I felt as if I were walking on air. Sounds kinda stupid, looking back. Especially as it didn't last. But those miles disappeared in seconds.

Breath opens unremarkably. Jang Jin is on death row and attempts suicide by sharpening a toothbrush and stabbing himself with it. (He's played by Chen Chang, the sexy outlaw suitor to Zhang Ziyi in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.) The incident makes the evening TV news.

Yeon's husband is having an affair. He tells her to get out and meet people instead of staying at home making sculptures. On an impulse, she goes to visit Jang Jin. On a subsequent visit, she decorates the visiting room with blown-up pictures of spring, fills the area with artificial flowers, and sings to him. She wears a summer dress even though it is mid-winter. Yeon's poetry of life has a profound effect on Jang Jin. They fall passionately in love. But trouble brews from Jang Jin's jealous cellmates and Yeon's violent husband.

When Breath started, I admit I found it less than engaging. But suddenly these scenes that Yeon constructs for Jang Jin explode with a powerful emotional force. Have you ever been on one of those simulator machines where you step in and it starts moving about, replicating sensations that match the screen in front of you? It's that sudden. One second you are watching an ordinary prison drama, interspersed with inconsequential domestic stuff. Then Wham! You are suddenly catapulted, knocked sideways, jolted out of your seat. And that, of course, is a pale reflection of the effect we realise it must be having on Jang Jin. We start living for these intense (yet emotionally draining) moments in the film, just as Jang Jin does.

Throughout precisely architectured cinematography, Ki-duk Kim weaves a poetry of life and death. "We are already crazy inmates on death row. Until we can breathe no more." Contrasts between the two protagonists' lives outside the meeting room and what goes on inside are mirrored in verbal contrasts where one person will speak and the other stays mute. Breathing in and breathing out. Locked in a passionate kiss. Or holding one's breath underwater.

Breath also has a bitter edge. Is she preparing him for the moment when he takes his last breath? (South Korea is one of the very few fully developed democracies where the death penalty is still allowed.) Don't expect any nice redemptive ending. Like Dancer in The Dark, Breath mostly gets darker. "Even though I call with sorrow, Only the white snow falls." It may also be too laboured – even artificial – for some audiences.

Breath is an icy, chilling love story. It looks at a bond that goes beyond the simplicities of life and death. And it's as finely chiselled as a piece of sculpture. Some scenes contain a rare combination of animal intensity and poetic tenderness. The whole unfolds as a dazzling testament to the artistry of Ki-duk Kim.

Significant Names: Chen Chang, Jung-woo Ha, Ki-duk Kim, Ji-a Park,
Director: Ki-duk Kim
Studio: Video Express
Year: 2007

Les Diables (2002)

Review:
...This French drama follows two orphans — Joseph (Vincent Rottiers) and the possibly autistic Chloe (Adele Haenel) — as they set out to find the parents who abandoned them in the streets years earlier. Joseph and Chloe, who does not speak, have been on their own for years, shuffling between foster homes and institutions... usually running away and being brought back over and over again. It's not really clear what's wrong with Chloe, but she's soothed by savant-like mosiacs she creates with pieces of broken glass. As the pair carry on with their journey towards a dreamed-up home they imagine to be their own, they commit crimes, flee bullies, escape an orphanage and slowly begin to discover the truth about themselves and growing up... - moviepie.com

Credits

* Director: Christophe Ruggia
* Script: Olivier Lorelle, Christophe Ruggia
* Photo: Eric Guichard
* Music: Fowzi Guerdjou
* Cast: Adele Haenel (Chloé), Vincent Rottiers (Joseph), Rochdy Labidi (Karim), Jacques Bonnaffé (Doran), Aurélia Petit (La mère de Joseph), Galamelah Lagra (Djamel), Dominique Reymond (La directrice), Frédéric Pierrot (L’homme de la maison)
* Country: France
* Language: French
* Runtime: 105 min
* Aka: The Devils