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.
Tag: 1980s
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.
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.
With the help of special lenses we enter a world where Sisyphus in miniature fights stubbornly to fulfill his life’s purpose: survival. The continuous defeats don’t discourage him and he continues with doggedness even if he will never be sure of the final success.
Saxophonist Danny witnesses the murder of his band manager and a deaf-mute girl after a gig. Questioned by the police, he remembers only the orthopedic shoes of the killers’ leader. So begins his quest to avenge her. He seeks an answer to the simple question ‘Why?’ but finds only more, and deeper, questions which resonate with the wider context of ‘the Troubles’, the inter-communal strife gripping the modern-day Northern Ireland which is the film’s setting.
In America the powers-that-be at a wacky New York cable TV station unexpectedly gain worldwide public exposure when their signal somehow bounces off the moon. This works for them because they’re trying to finagle a recent $10-million-lottery winner to donate to their cause, and the exposure doesn’t hurt.
Package Tour is one of the key works processing the history of the Holocaust in Hungary. It features people who personally experienced the horrors of the death camps, thus based on their witness statements we learn of events first hand. At the time of its debut, in 1985, there was still a whole generation of survivors who could be reached out to and the Holocaust was part of a still living but long-held taboo social memory. However, the subjects of the interviews not only talk about the past but also reflect on the present.
A strange, homeless motorcyclist named Kaze who is suffering from amnesia finds himself in a Shinjuku slum with no recollection of who, or where he’s from. Impervious to pain and fear he soon strikes up an odd friendship with Yamazaki, a local mid level yakuza having trouble with rivals over drug territory.