The Stone Raft (2003) George Sluizer adapts Nobel-Prize winning Jose Saramago’s satirical allegory about the continent of Iberia breaking off and sending Spain and Portugal toward a collision with the Azores. Five people come together, each feeling somehow responsible for causing this natural disaster, and together with a stray dog journey to find a way … More The Stone Raft (2003)
The Harder They Come (1972) Penny Henzell directs Jimmy Cliff in this reggae crime drama, which became a breakthrough sensation in Jamaica for shooting on location using the local Creole dialogue. Roger Ebert wrote, “the movie’s ending is an exercise in plot; its beginning and its music deserve better than that.” The film made a … More The Harder They Come (1972)
The Wasp Woman (1959) Roger Corman directed, and has a brief cameo in this drive-in cult horror film, in which a cosmetics company owner, Janice Starlin (Susan Cabot) tries to save her company from sliding sales by hiring a scientist, Dr. Eric Zinthrop (Michael Mark) who proposes to use enzymes from the royal jelly … More The Wasp Woman (1959)
Gold (1934) Brigitte Helm speaks! For ten minutes, she vamps in a science fiction film about corporate espionage made during the early Nazi period and directed by Karl Hartl. The ghost of the UFA’s great Metropolis lurks everywhere. John Wills (Michael Bohnen) is the villain, a British billionaire driven by greed to control world … More GOLD (1934)
La Noire de… [Black Girl] (1966) Ousamane Sembène directs the elegant dressmaker Mbissine Thérèse Diop in what has come to be recognized as the first ” Sub-Saharan African film by an African filmmaker to receive international attention.” Winner of the Prix Jean Vigo for best feature film, Sembène dramatizes the conflict between French colonialism … More La Noire de… [Black Girl] (1966)
The Magic Christian (1969) Joseph McGrath directs a comedy cornucopia of wacky characters, starting with Peter Sellers as Guy Grand, the richest man in the world, who adapts a bum off a park bench, Ringo Starr, to assist him in his enterprise of proving that “everyone has their price.” Freely adapted from the novel by … More The Magic Christian (1969)
Bulworth (1998) In a despondent moment, Democratic Senator Bulworth (Warren Beatty) makes a deal with the Insurance Lobby for a ten million dollar policy and then hires an assassin to kill himself. Along the way, from lack of sleep and food, he become delirious and begins to tell large crowds the truth about the … More Bulworth (1998)
Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (1998) Michael Apted directs Walter Mosley’s adaptation of his own novel, with Laurence Fishburne as Socrates Fortlow, an ex-con convicted for murder, who wants to set his life straight in Watts. One day at a time, picking up cans For recycled change, a recycled con Looking for any job he … More Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (1998)
Sugar Cane Alley (1983) Euzhan Palcy directed this adaptation of Joseph Zobel’s novel Black Shack Alley that takes place in rural Martinique during the 1930’s. The film centers on a young boy, José, and his grandmother. Ma’Tine, as they struggle to rise in the world. The actress, Darling Légitimus, 76 years old, won multiple … More Sugar Cane Alley (1983)
The Manchurian Candidate (1962) John Frankenheimer, using documentary techniques from live television, created this classic of paranoid cinema, starring Frank Sinatra as the Major, Lawrence Harvey as the war hero, and Angela Lansbury as his mother, the Red Queen. It addressed unfounded public fears that soldiers captured by North Korea had been returned brainwashed … More The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
