Jean Stapleton stars as Eleanor Roosevelt in this made-for-TV biography, first telecast May 12, 1982. The film recounts Mrs. Roosevelt’s life after the 1945 death of her husband, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. At the request of new president Truman, Eleanor serves as a United Nations delegate, spending much of her time tilting with dedicated anti-FDR politico John Foster Dulles. She goes on to spearhead the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proving to Dulles–and to Soviet delegate Freddie Jones–that she’s anything but soft on Communism.
Month: February 2022
Jesse Peretz made his directorial debut with this intimate romantic drama adapted from a short story by Ian McEwan, switching McEwan’s setting from an industrial English seaside town to the Louisiana bayou. Joey and Sissel live in a drab house on stilts, along with Sissel’s lonely younger brother Adrian. After Sissel introduces Joey to her father, Vietnam-vet Henry, the two men form a business catching eels. However, mistrust, anxieties, and arguments threaten the love Joey and Sissel share, and they begin to drift apart.
Alan Clarke’s film of a day in the life of a professional footballer makes for fascinating viewing today. Knowing Clarke’s passion for Everton FC, producer Lambert attached him to Brian Clark’s 1973 script, which captures the moment where money, glamour and celebrity begin to enter the world of football.
The film tells the story of Frau Concha a femme fatale or as the story points out, a “fille perdue”, a lost girl who has no feelings or scruples, toying with men as she pleases.
While it’s not really a part of the Hillman-movies, Vita frun features Holmsten as the detective Hillman and along for the ride is also regulars Hallberg and Granhagen. The plot is simple enough: A ghost, called “vita frun” (The White Lady), is blamed for the strange deaths that occur at a country manor. But is it really a ghost?
This Weimar Germany film classic uses an avant-garde, fragmented narrative to tell the story of a working-class family in Berlin in 1931. Survival is difficult, with massive unemployment in the wake of the Great Depression. After Anni’s brother commits suicide in despair, her family finds itself forced to move to Kuhle Wampe, a lakeside camp on the outskirts of Berlin, now home to increasing numbers of unemployed. When Anni’s relationship with Franz ends, she moves back to Berlin and gets involved in the workers’ youth movement. Already censored in March 1932, the film was then banned by the Nazis in 1933 for having “communist tendencies.”
Marcos is a professional jai alai player undefeated on the court in 26 matches. The super confident Marcos has acquired a Trumpian disdain for weak losers, including a fellow player who suffers a fracture as a result of Marcos’ carelessness. When he’s not dominating his opponents, he’s trying to balance his relationships with several women, including recently widowed old flame Sara, nightclub thrush Lucrecia, and mother-to-be Rebeca. Marcos promises to wed Rebeca without telling her he’s about to leave Mexico permanently, setting in motion a plot by Rebeca’s brother Armando to blackmail the first class heel while also getting out of his debt to gambler Marcial.
A documentary profiling a Japanese taiko drumming group based in the remote Sado Island, Japan. The film blurs the line between real-life documentary footage of the troupe’s training and practice regimes, and staged performances of their varied musical acts, with sets designed by artist Tadanori Yokoo and an additional experimental electronic music score by Toshi Ichiyanagi.