Alex Andero feels stuck washing dishes in his family’s trattoria in New York City. He wants to write screenplays, and he has a great idea. Trouble is, he’s not much with a typewriter; so, when his cousin calls and says a producer likes the idea and wants a script, Alex swallows his homophobia and asks for help from Elliot Springer, a talented writer who’s an insecure, gay, Jewish nebbish. Elliot doesn’t want the job, but Alex sets him up with Joey, a good-looking actor who works in the cafe. Elliot and Joey are soon getting it on, the script is slowly emerging, and Alex is discovering the beauty of Gwen, a woman in his writing class. Then, ego and greed threaten the partnership.
Tag: 1990s
The inhabitants of a Spanish village gather for the visit of a death defying tightrope walker. He comes with his own attractive aura of danger and drama, and the crowd are not disappointed. Animated in a sketchy style on paper, this film powerfully uses the graphic freedom of this technique to select and embellish, to swoop and wander around the village. Austere sound effects and an Albeniz guitar piece are used to heighten this charmingly modest drama in which ordinary things – a hammer driving a nail, a flock of birds wheeling in the sky – are given their due.
Trip tells the story of a young boy from the province who eagerly rides a jeepney to Manila yet ends up disillusioned of what city life is really all about just by meeting all the passengers.
Streetwise, tough cop “Nails” Niles and his partner are lured into a deathtrap from which only Niles survives. Obsessed with finding his partner’s murderer, Niles burrows deep into the underground of the L. A. crime scene to find the guilty parties at any cost.
In this complex, gripping made-for-TV courtroom drama, the new DA of a small town is given the job of prosecuting the alleged murderer of a stripper. Unfortunately, his own father is in charge of the defense. To make matters worse, both attorneys are in love with the wife of the accused.
Fisher, a fine art dealer, goes to Prague after the death of a friend, the Baron von Utz, to see if he can obtain some of the pieces of the Baron’s priceless Meissen porcelain collection. He meets up with an old mutual friend, Orlik, who tells him about the Baron’s past, his struggle to keep his collection intact, while Fisher struggles to discover what happened to the collection.
Flame was the first Zimbabwean film since independence and is a tribute to the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army’s female guerrillas. In the 1970s in former Rhodesia, the people stand up against the oppressors. As war reaches rural villages, friends Florence and Nyasha run away from home to join the fighters in Mozambican training camps. Both adopt revolutionary identities: Nyasha becomes Liberty, while Florence brands herself Flame. Flame created controversy in Zimbabwe, as the realistic depiction of the treatment of women in the liberation army was seen as anti-nationalist. The film also serves as a critique for post-independence Zimbabwe, and Mugabe’s rule.
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Mambéty describes what would be his final film as “a hymn to the courage of street children,” but like all of his works, it is also a hymn to Senegal, to post-colonial Africa and to resourceful visionaries like the courageous girl of the title. Undaunted by poverty or handicap, the young Sili Laam leaves her blind grandmother begging in the street to seek out a better existence for them both. As the only female newspaper seller, she encounters constant obstacles along the way, yet reacts by simply standing up for herself and others. Nonchalantly fighting for equality and justice, Sili’s courage and resilience are depicted with a mix of joy and hardship, but no saccharine.