Tag: 1980s

June 19, 2023 / Short

10-year-old Kathy prefers pigtails to curls and runs away for the day to avoid a hair appointment. While she’s off having adventures with her best pal Jeeter, her parents clash over how to handle the situation. Kathy’s mother worries that her daughter doesn’t “fit in” while her father believes she’s “just an individual” and should be allowed to grow up at her own pace. At the end of the day, Kathy must return home to face the inevitable.

June 19, 2023 / Documentary

Over an eight-year period in the 1970s, Leo Hurwitz made this film tribute to his deceased wife and colleague, the film editor and director Peggy Lawson. His most personal work and his last major production, Hurwitz’s film is at once epic and lyrical; a portrait of an individual and chronicle of the times; an ode to the spirit of artistic collaboration and a testament to political idealism. The film contains beautiful original material plus documentary footage and reconstructions — excerpts from a number of Hurwitz’s films; the voices of Paul Robeson, Kaiulani Lee and Alfred Drake; and music that ranges from Bach to Marc Blitzstein.

June 8, 2023 / Comedy

Janet is an overweight girl who has a knack for making the other children in school laugh… by making fun of her own weight. In seeing the other kids’ reaction, she feels that she might have a career as a comedian. She visits the local comedy club, where she finds Tony Moroni, a struggling comedian whose jokes often fail. Together, Tony helps Janet build self-esteem and she helps him with his material.

May 17, 2023 / TV Movie

In this lightweight made-for-television domestic comedy, a beautiful divorcee, who got the house and the kids, finds herself allowing her husband and his ditzy young fiancee to stay with them after he gets into financial dire straits.

May 16, 2023 / Theatre

This comedy is about three generations of a Jewish family. All the action takes place around an all purpose dining table, sometimes a restaurant table and other times the dining table of a Jewish mother to end all Jewish mothers. Other characters include an exceedingly irreverent younger son, his martini swilling older brother who is married to a shiksa, and the older brother’s two kids.

May 16, 2023 / Documentary

A documentary covering the R&B (rhythm and blues) field from the 1940s to the early 1950s. Included is footage of performances by major R&B singers of the time, and interviews with singers, producers and others involved in the field.

May 16, 2023 / Comedy

Lawyer Amy finds herself courted by two very different men: her client, a roguish street musician named Will, and her old boyfriend John Michael. A curious triangle develops as Amy gets pregnant by Will and both men vie for her affections.

April 12, 2023 / Drama

Never one to shy away from uncomfortable topics, Kei Kumai adapted Shusaku Endo’s 1957 novel The Sea and Poison into one of the most complex studies on film of medical ethics. The movie (sometimes graphically) describes the use of eight downed American fliers as subjects of experimental surgical techniques at Kyushu University’s medical school and hospital in the summer of 1945, in the course of which all eight prisoners were murdered.