In this 19th-century drama, an American family from the Northeast heads to Wyoming in search of a better life, only to face tragedy and hardship. Maggie Sergent, the hard-driving matriarch of the clan, is totally unprepared when her husband, John, is murdered. Left to handle the farm on her own, Maggie must choose whether to stay in Wyoming and run the farm with her children, or head back to the East Coast and the life she knows.
Category: TV Movie
Kurosawa’s lost masterpiece has finally come to light. Filmed in 1970 and aired on Japanese television “Song of the Horse” is his visual poem for the horse, the creature that he loved the most. Told through narration by an old man speaking with his grandson while the visual mastery of one of the greatest filmmakers of all time expands before one’s eyes. Kurosawa ordinarily avoided television work and this is the only time that he had any involvement with the small screen. A rare and beautiful ode to the most gallant member of the animal kingdom!
11-year-old Nick moves into a large old house with his sisters Jennie and Clare, left in the care of Helga the Swedish au pair while their parents are away in America. Nick is unhappy at his new school, where he is befriended by a boy named Sam and intimidated by scripture teacher Mr. Crabb, who is interested in the occult and demonology. Nick hears voices in the house and receives messages on his computer screen; he also suffers inexplicable blisters on his feet and grazes on his elbows and knees. When he dreams of burning and wakes up in a bed full of ashes, Nick tells a psychiatrist that he feels he is possessed by a demon.
The Idea of North is part filmed docudrama, part fantasy, part forerunner of music television. Based on the radio play by Glenn Gould, North’s montage of words, images and music tells a universal story of the quest for our last frontier. A young man boards a train going North. It is a real train on a scheduled run, yet also a train of mind and mythology. As the journey unfolds, he chats with a seasoned guide, and passes his time in reading, watching the rugged landscape and speculating about his fellow travelers. He encounters four of them in his imagination, sharing their memories and the challenges that transformed their lives in the North.
The film deals with the fate of the Roman merchant Piacchi, who lost his eleven-year-old son in a plague and now takes in a foundling of the same age, raises him and bequeaths all his possessions to the young man. Nicolo, as the adopted son is called, however, uses his power to deceive and destroy Piacchi and his young wife.
HOBO is a travelogue of sorts, a portrait of life lived by homeless men on and off the railways in America. John T. Davis spent three months travelling on the boxcars with his principal subject, Beargrease, who each year leaves his home to ride the rails and scavenge for food. It is a world mostly populated by men, many of them ‘misfits’, who for various reasons find life on the margins of settled society easier than being a part of it. The film confronts the romance and mythology created by the many songs about life as a hobo, but finds romance and beauty in the landscapes of the American west.
An early film by American film director George Moorse. Kuckucksjahre portrays a clique of “dropouts” in the 1960s. There is Hans, who lives aimlessly into the day until he finds someone he can admire in the successful guy Ardy. Because he suddenly wants to stop doing nothing, however, he is abandoned by his girlfriend Petra. Then there is Sybille, who loves both Hans and Ardy. Ardy, however, falls in love with Astrid, with whom he eventually leaves.
Griffin Byrne is a newly assigned teacher to a Catholic high school in an inner-city near slum neighbourhood of New York, which is run down by headmaster Father Frank Larkin. There, he meets and tries to help Lee Cortez, a smart boy from a poor and troubled family. Lee has a good heart and artistic skills, but is constantly dragged down by his social environment and about to leave the school. Byrne’s struggle to help Lee reflects the struggles and difficulties which the school is being subjected to every day.