Focus on Film & Television Reviews and writings about these subjects. As well as Pop Culture at times. With a bit of an edge and some color
Directed By: Takashi Miike
Written By: Daisuke Tengan
Story By: Shoichirou Ikemiya
Based on A Screenplay By: Kaneo Ikegami
Cinematography: Nobuyasu Kita
Editor: Kenji Yamashita
Cast: Koji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Yusuke Iseya, Arata Furuta, Sosuke Takaoka, Koen Kondo, Masataka Kubota, Ikki Sawamura, Seiji Rokkaku
A group of assassins come together for a suicide mission to kill an evil lord.
Directed By: Rene Clement
Written By: Jean Aurenche, Pierre Bost & Francois Boyer
Based On The Novel By: Francois Boyer
Cinematography: Robert Juillard
Editor: Roger Dwyre
Cast: Georges Poujouly, Brigitte Fossey, Jaques Marin
A girl of perhaps five or six is orphaned in an air raid while fleeing a French city with her parents early in World War II. She is befriended by a pre-adolescent peasant boy after she wandered away from the other refugees, and is taken in for a few weeks by his family. The children become fast friends, and the film follows their attempt to assimilate the deaths they both face, and the religious rituals surrounding those deaths, through the construction of a cemetery for all sorts of animals. Child-like and adult activity are frequently at cross-purposes.
Written & Directed By: Christopher Honore
Cinematography: Jean-Louis Vialard
Editor: Chantal Hymans
Cast: Roman Duris, Joanna Priess, Louis Garrel, Guy Merchand, Alice Butand, Marie-France Pisier
Anna has just left Paul who, annihilated by the separation, moves back with his father in Paris. His younger brother Jonathan, a casual student, still lives in his father’s apartment and spends most of his time womanizing and fooling around. But what this apparent lightness conceals is a deep wound. Jonathan, in fact, has never been able to overcome the death of his beloved sister. Meanwhile Paul sinks into depression.
Directed By: Houda Benyamina
Written By: Houda Benyamina, Romain Compingt & Malik Rumeau
Cinematography By: Julien Poupard
Editor: Louic Lallemend & Vincent Tricon
Cast: Oulaya Amamra, Deborah Lukumuena, Kevin Mishel, Jisca Kalvanda, Yasin Houicha, Majdouline Idrissi
A street teenager from a dysfunctional family from a banlieue (HLMs) in Paris comes across a young dancer who turns her life upside down.
Directed By: Yann Martinez
Written By: Yann Martinez & Cristiano Mangione
Cinematography: Simon Beaufils
Editor: Raphael Leferve
Music By: M83
Cast: Vanessa Paradis, Nicolas Maury, Katie Moran, Jonathan Genet, Felix Maritaud, Romane Bohringer, Elina Lowensohn, Pierre Pirol, Jacques Nolot
Anne produces third-rate gay porn. After her editor and lover Lois leaves her, she tries to win her back by shooting her most ambitious film yet with her trusted, flamboyant sidekick Archibald. But one of her actors is brutally murdered and Anne gets caught up in a strange investigation that turns her life upside down.
Written & Directed By: Celine Sciamma
Cinematography: Crystel Fournier
Editor: Julien Lacheray
Cast: Pauline Acquart, Louise Blachere, Adele Haenel, Warren Lacquin
Three girls, each about 15, deal with puberty, the onset of sexual attraction, and, for two, the pressure of virginity. Marie, who’s slight and diffident, quiet and nearly expressionless, is friends with Anne, who’s a bit chunky and impulsive and has decided that François will be her first love. Watching synchronized swimming, Marie is suddenly attracted to the team captain, Floriane, beautiful, aloof, tall, and rumored to be a slut. François pursues her. Marie begins to hang around her; they trade favors, and soon it’s an odd sort of friendship. Each of the three experiences her own first, and Marie must sort out attraction and friendship.
Written & Directed By: Lukas Moodysson
Cinematography By: Ulf Brantas
Editor: Michael Leszcylowski, Oleg Morgunov & Bernhard Winkler
Cast: Oksana Akinshina, Artyom Bogutjarskij, Lyubov Agapova, Elina Benenson, Liliya Sjinkarjova, Pavel Ponomatjov
Sixteen-year-old Lilja and her only friend, the young boy Volodja, live in Estonia, fantasizing about a better life. One day, Lilja falls in love with Andrej, who is going to Sweden, and invites Lilja to come along and start a new life.
Written & Directed By: Pedro Almodovar
Cinematography By: Jose Luis Alcaine
Editor: Jose Alcedo
Music By: Alberto Iglesias
Cast: Hugo Silva, Antonio De La Torre, Javier Camara, Miguel Andre Silvestre, Cecilia Roth, Blanca Suarez, Paz Vega, Carmen Machi, Penelope Cruz, Antonio Banderas, Laya Marti
A technical failure has endangered the lives of the people on board Peninsula Flight 2549. The pilots are striving, along with their colleagues in the Control Center, to find a solution. The flight attendants and the chief steward are atypical, baroque characters who, in the face of danger, try to forget their own personal problems and devote themselves body and soul to the task of making the flight as enjoyable as possible for the passengers, while they wait for a solution. Life in the clouds is as complicated as it is at ground level, and for the same reasons, which could be summarized in two: sex and death.
Written & Directed By: Eva Husson
Cinematography By: Mattias Troelstrup
Editor: Emilie Orsini
Cast: Finnegan Oldfield, Marilyn Lima, Daisy Broom, Lornezo Leferbvre, Fred Hotier
In a small town of France, life seems to be still and somewhat boring for a group of teenage friends, who day in, day out, are asked to cope not only with the usual issues in the life of a high school student but also with the search for love and sex. How do you blow the steam off, when you are a puzzled, sexually-frustrated youngster? Eventually, a party is thrown on a Saturday night and the solution is about to be found in a very simple idea… A game of truth or dare that will be rapidly transformed into a mandatory, dare only, series of sexy challenges between friends, will provide the means to unfold the true self and hidden potential in everyone present. Beer, drugs, spin the bottle and the “Bang Gang” revolution is born. But what deceptively appeared as a way to deal with boredom, strained family relationships, emancipation and above all liberty, quickly turned into the biggest scandal, a mockery of a modern fairy tale, a story of a child given a toy, not knowing what to do or how to play with it.
Directed By: David Wnendt
Written By: Claus Faulkenberg & David Wnendt, Sabine Pochhammer
Based on the Book By: Charlotte Roche
Cinematography By: Jakub Bejnarowicz
Editor: Andreas Wodraschke
Cast: Carla Juni, Christoph Letkowski, Marlen Kruse, Meret Becker, Axel Milberg, Peri Baumeister
The eccentric 18 year-old Helen narrates the story of her life, including stories about her preferred sexual practices that involve vegetables, her attitude towards hygiene, drugs, her best friend Corinna and her challenging childhood. The frame story takes place in a hospital where she is treated because of an anal fissure. During her stay she plans to reunite her divorced parents and falls in love with the male nurse Robin.
