Ciné regards: Jacques Tourneur (1978)

Phas Gaye Re Obama

Om, a debt-ridden NRI, wants to sell his ancestral property to pay his debts, but things turn awry when he is kidnapped by gangsters who believe him to be a rich target.

'o Re

One of the key factors in Italian unification was the overthrow in 1860 of Francesco, the King of Naples and the two Sicilies, who went into elegant but impoverished exile in Rome with his Queen, Maria Sofia. This seriocomic drama follows the deposed royals as they adapt to their new lives. The former king has recognized the political finality of his deposition, but his queen has taken to traveling in men's clothing all over Italy trying to foment an uprising to restore them to the throne. She is also frantic to have a baby, an heir, but the king has become celibate as a kind of homage to his beloved mother; he spends all his time lobbying the Vatican to get her declared a saint.

Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult

Frank Drebin is persuaded out of retirement to go undercover in a state prison. There he has to find out what top terrorist, Rocco, has planned for when he escapes. Adding to his problems, Frank's wife, Jane, is desperate for a baby.

The Absent One

Denmark, 2014. A former police officer asks Carl Mørck, head of Department Q, to find out who brutally killed his young twins in 1994. Although a local inhabitant confessed and was convicted of murder, Carl and his partner Assad soon realize that there is something in the case resolution that is terribly wrong.

Shotgun Stories

Shotgun Stories tracks a feud that erupts between two sets of half brothers following the death of their father. Set against the cotton fields and back roads of Southeast Arkansas, these brothers discover the lengths to which each will go to protect their family.

The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice

The arranged marriage between a capricious woman from Tokyo high society and a quiet and rustic man is tested by a marital crisis.

Under Suspicion

A lawyer is asked to come to the police station to clear up a few loose ends in his witness report of a foul murder. "This will only take ten minutes", they say, but it turns out to be one loose end after another, and the ten minutes he is away from his speech become longer and longer.

Never Cry Wolf

A scientific researcher, sent on a government study: The Lupus Project, must investigate the possible "menace" of wolves in the north. To do so, he must survive in the wilderness for six months on his own. In the course of these events, he learns about the true beneficial and positive nature of the wolf species.

The Woman in the Window

A seductive woman gets an innocent professor mixed up in murder.

And Now for Something Completely Different

A collection of Monty Python's Flying Circus skits from the first two seasons of their British TV series.

Child's Play 3

Eight years after seemingly destroying the killer doll, teen Andy Barclay is placed in a military school, and the spirit of Chucky returns to renew his quest and seek vengeance after being recreated from a mass of melted plastic.

Outrage

When a tough yakuza gangster is betrayed by his bosses, it means all out war. Bodies pile up as he takes out everyone in his way to the top in a brutal quest for revenge.

10 Items or Less

An actor who is considering the role of a supermarket manager arrives at a grocery store on the outskirts of Los Angeles to do some field research. He subsequently becomes stranded, without a car or cell phone, and accepts a ride home with Scarlet, a cashier who is about to interview for a new job. The actor rediscovers the essence of his craft while helping Scarlet gain the confidence she needs to change her life.

Body Bags

A horror anthology containing three stories: a female college student working a graveyard shift is terrorized by a serial killer; a hair transplant goes horribly wrong; and a baseball player loses an eye and gets a new one from a recently executed murderer.

Tel chi el telùn

A comedy show.

Bridegroom

A documentary that tells the emotional journey of Shane and Tom, two young men in a loving and committed relationship — a relationship that was cut tragically short by a misstep off the side of a roof.

Guarding Tess

Doug is a Secret Service Agent who has just completed his stint in charge protecting Tess Carlisle—the widow of a former U.S. President, and a close personal friend of the current President. He finds that she has requested that he not be rotated but instead return to be her permanent detail. Doug is crushed, and—after returning—wants off her detail as she is very difficult to guard and makes her detail crazy with her whims and demands.

The Longest Day

The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day"

I ♥ Huckabees

A husband-and-wife team play detective, but not in the traditional sense. Instead, the happy duo helps others solve their existential issues, the kind that keep you up at night, wondering what it all means.

Android Re-Enactment

Ermus Daglek, retired Empathtek engineer, commandeers a defunct factory where he creates androids based on persons from his past and recreates a dinner party where he lost the love of his life - until they malfunction and escape.

Outrage Coda

Five years after the all-out war between the Sanno and Hanabishi crime families, former yakuza boss Otomo works in South Korea for Mr. Chang, a noted fixer. When tensions rise between Chang and the Hanabishi, and Chang's life is endangered, Otomo returns to Japan to settle things once and for all.

Mesrine: Public Enemy #1

After nearly two decades of legendary criminal feats, making him France's most notorious criminal while simultaneously feeding his desire for media attention and public adoration, Mesrine becomes increasingly paranoid and isolated, leading to a dramatic confrontation with the law that ultimately seals his fate as the nation's most infamous public enemy.

The Cameraman

A photographer takes up newsreel shooting to impress a secretary.

Accattone

A pimp with no other means to provide for himself finds his life spiralling out of control when his prostitute is sent to prison.

Hello

An emotionally unavailable flight attendant meets a potential love interest and later finds out that her "perfect guy" has ulterior motives. As the clock ticks down on New Year's Eve, she must fight to keep her murdered ex-boyfriend's secrets or find herself dead.

Firefighters 2: Heroic Mission

Following a twinning between the national fire brigade and the special forces of the Canadian firefighters, Captain Carter arrives in Rome.

Super Fantozzi

Superfantozzi (1986) is an Italian film from 1986. It is the fifth film in the saga of the unlucky clerk Ugo Fantozzi, played by its creator, Paolo Villaggio. In this film, Fantozzi is portrayed in a surreal historical journey, from Genesis to 1980s.

Zach Galifianakis: Live at the Purple Onion

From an inauspicious beginning performing comedy routines in the back of a burger joint in New York, unorthodox stand-up star Zach Galifianakis has made a splash on the scene with his inimitable brand of humor. In this live show filmed at San Francisco's Purple Onion nightclub, the versatile funnyman serves up a healthy dose of his signature wit.

The Man with One Red Shoe

A man is mistaken as a spy by the CIA when he arrives at the airport with one red shoe.

Les Sous-Doués En Vacances

A group of friends are planning how to spend their summer vacation. One plans to go to the Seychelles with his American girlfriend. At the airport she dumps him for another guy. He has no money so he steals a backpack and goes camping. Somehow he meets a pretty girl and convinces her to share his tent. But a famous singer sees the girl and wants her too. He convinces the luckless guy to act like a fool and the girl leaves him and goes with the singer to the French Rivera.

Stardust Memories

While attending a retrospect of his work, a filmmaker recalls his life and his loves: the inspirations for his films.

The Kid with a Bike

Abandoned by his father, a young boy is left in the hands of an unqualified childcare provider.

36 China Town

An inspector heads to 36 China Town to investigate a murder, where every suspect is hiding a secret.

Big

Marco, a nine year old boy, is in love with his elementary teacher, and feels neglected by his workaholic parents. When they forget about his birthday he wishes he could grow up at once. This really happens and Marco begins a new life as an adult. He rents a room in his teacher's flat and she falls in love with him. He even fakes a kidnapping when he runs out of money but he is mistaken for the kidnapper.

The Insider

A research chemist comes under personal and professional attack when he decides to appear in a 60 Minutes exposé on Big Tobacco.

The Man Who Would Be King

Tired of life as soldiers, Peachy Carnehan and Danny Dravot travel to the isolated land of Kafiristan, where they are ultimately embraced by the people and revered as rulers. After a series of misunderstandings, the natives come to believe that Dravot is a god, but he and Carnehan can't keep up their deception forever.

The Son

A joinery instructor at a rehab center refuses to take a new teen as his apprentice, but then begins to follow the boy through the hallways and streets.

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films

A documentary about the rise and fall of the Cannon Film Group, the legendary independent film company helmed by Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus.

Cannes Man

Film producer Sy Lerner makes a bet with a fellow film executive that he can turn any nobody into a star at the Cannes Film Festival. A New York cab driver who is visiting the festival is chosen as the test subject to settle the bet and Sy uses his skills of hype and manipulation to try and turn the cab driver named Frank into the talk of the town. Many celebrities make cameos throughout the film.

Burden of Dreams

The Amazon rain forest, 1979. The crew of Fitzcarraldo (1982), a film directed by German director Werner Herzog, soon finds itself with problems related to casting, tribal struggles and accidents, among many other setbacks; but nothing compared to dragging a huge steamboat up a mountain, while Herzog embraces the path of a certain madness to make his vision come true.

Volker Schlöndorff: The Beat of the Drum

The life and work of the brilliant German filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff, a cross-border artist who, by leaving Germany and making the whole world his place of work, acquired the objective perspective necessary to portray his country's society better than anyone else while providing a unique and original point of view on the troubled history of the European continent.

Nightmares in Red, White and Blue

An exploration of the appeal of horror films, with interviews of many legendary directors in the genre.

Moving Through Time: Fire Walk With Me Memories

Documentary about the making of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse

A chronicle of the production problems — including bad weather, actors' health, war near the filming locations, and more — which plagued the filming of Apocalypse Now, increasing costs and nearly destroying the life and career of Francis Ford Coppola.

E. T., an Emotional Blockbuster

E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Steven Spielberg's endearing movie released in 1982, achieved the triple feat of bringing to life one of the most iconic characters in pop culture, revolutionizing science fiction cinema and establishing itself as one of the highest-grossing family movies in the history of cinema, capable of making the whole world laugh and cry.

Disney: Through the Looking Glass

Tito del Amo, a passionate 72-year-old researcher, takes the final step to unravel the enigma about the alleged Spanish origin of the American cartoonist Walt Disney, making the same journey that his supposed mother made to give him up for adoption in Chicago. A journey that begins in Mojácar, Almería, Spain, and ends in New York. An exciting adventure, like Alicia's through the looking glass, to discover what is truth and what is not, with an unexpected result.

Spielberg

A documentary on the life and career of one of the most influential film directors of all time, Steven Spielberg.

Tasmanian Devil: The Fast and Furious Life of Errol Flynn

The story of Tasmanian-born actor Errol Flynn whose short & flamboyant life, full of scandals, adventures, loves and excess was largely played out in front of the camera - either making movies or filling the newsreels and gossip magazines. Tragically he was dead from the effects of drugs and alcohol by the time he was only 50 & the myths live on. But there is another side of Flynn that is less well known - his ambitions to be a serious writer and newspaper correspondent, his documentary films and his interest in the Spanish Civil War and Castro's Cuba

Dark Glamour: The Blood and Guts of Hammer Productions

The greatness, fall and renaissance of Hammer, the flagship company of British popular cinema, mainly from 1955 to 1968. Tortured women and sadistic monsters populated oppressive scenarios in provocative productions that shocked censorship and disgusted critics but fascinated the public. Movies in which horror was shown in offensive colors: dreadful stories, told without prejudices, that offered fear, blood, sex and stunning performances.

Todos los nombres de Sara

Born in Campo de Criptana, a small village in the Spanish region of La Mancha, Sara Montiel (1928-2013) conquered Mexico, Hollywood, and the hearts of people. The recognition of an unparalleled professional career, an intimate dialogue with a tireless worker who took the stage at the age of twelve and never got off. A movie star who seduced millions of viewers around the world, a singer who reinvented a musical genre, a woman who broke the mold…

Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film

This historical and critical look at slasher films, which includes dozens of clips, begins with Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Prom Night. The films' directors, writers, producers, and special effects creators comment on the films' making and success. During the Reagan years, the films get gorier, budgets get smaller, and their appeal wanes. Then, Nightmare on Elm Street revives the genre. Jump to the late 90s, when Scream brings humor and TV stars into the mix.

Nollywood Babylon

Nigeria's film industry, Nollywood, is the third-largest in the world--an unstoppable economic and cultural force that has taken the continent by storm and is now bursting beyond the borders of Africa. "Nollywood Babylon" is a feature documentary detailing the industry's phenomenal success. Propelled by a booming 1970s soundtrack of African underground music, the movie presents an electric vision of a modern African metropolis and a revealing look at the powerhouse that is Nigerian cinema.

The Pixar Story

A look at the first years of Pixar Animation Studios - from the success of "Toy Story" and Pixar's promotion of talented people, to the building of its East Bay campus, the company's relationship with Disney, and its remarkable initial string of eight hits. The contributions of John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs are profiled. The decline of two-dimensional animation is chronicled as three-dimensional animation rises. Hard work and creativity seem to share the screen in equal proportions.

21 Years: Richard Linklater

A journey through the professional life of innovative film director Richard Linklater: 21 years creating films, carving his signature in pop culture; an analysis of his style and motivations, through the funny and moving testimonies of close friends and collaborators, actors and other filmmakers.

The Go-Go Boys: The Inside Story of Cannon Films

Cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus relive the creation, rise and fall of their independent film company, Cannon Films. This documentary recounts their many successes and discusses their eventual downfall.

Ciné regards: Tess: Roman Polanski

Television documentary about the making of Roman Polanski's 1979 film, Tess.

Mantrap – Straw Dogs: The Final Cut

Documentary about the making of Sam Peckinpah's 1971 film "Straw Dogs."