The story of a young boy (Izzy) and his family, living in New York. His father (Paul) has recently had a stroke, completely debilitating him mentally and physically. Izzy tries to escape the reality of it all by breaking into nearby homes. His mother (Sue) struggles to keep the family together, battling Izzy’s outbursts and the strains of the entire situation.
Tag: USA
A farm woman is accused of murdering her husband on a desolate farm in early 1900s Midwest America. Two women, a neighboring farmer’s wife and the sheriff’s wife, find themselves alone in the jailed woman’s kitchen while the prosecuting attorney and their husbands search the farm for evidence that would prove a motive for murder. As the women gather some things together for the accused, they uncover details of her life and discover what may be just what the men are looking for. Adapted from Susan Glaspell’s 1917 short story of the same name, the film illuminates a women’s world largely unnoticed by the men.
Born to Film is, among other things, intimately autobiographical, interspersing footage of Danny Lyon’s own young son with film shot in the 1930’s by Lyon’s father, a doctor who immigrated from Germany… Lyon’s passionate vision has deepened and grown in resonance and the film is not just family or even social history, but about human continuity, the power of instinct to survive, the grace that love and play bring to it, the wonder of being alive.
Rock Hudson narrates a compilation of clips from Marilyn Monroe’s 20th Century-Fox movies. The documentary traces Monroe’s early studio beginnings as a bit player in “A Ticket to Tomahawk” to her final screen moments in the unfinished “Something’s Got to Give.”
Otto Kruger once again plays a dynamic, bombastic attorney in Columbia’s Counsel for Crime. Kruger plays William Mellon, a shifty shyster whose underhanded methods loses him the love of his sweetheart Anne, who subsequently marries a powerful senator. What Mellon doesn’t know is that Anne has borne him a son, whom the senator has adopted. Reaching adulthood, Paul opts for a legal career himself, taking a clerical job with his own father’s firm. In typical “B”-picture, Mellon is charged with murdering one of his more odious clients – and Paul is appointed prosecuting attorney in the case.
Growing Up Female is the very first film of the modern women’s movement. Produced in 1971, it caused controversy and exhilaration. It was widely used by consciousness-raising groups to generate interest and help explain feminism to a skeptical society. The film looks at female socialization through a personal look into the lives of six women, age 4 to 35, and the forces that shape them–teachers, counselors, advertising, music and the institution of marriage. It offers us a chance to see how much has changed–and how much remains the same.
Tom Noonan’s dark comedy features a husband-and-wife team of psychotherapists who run a New-Age therapy group out in the wilderness. Late one night, Jack and Rita are visited by one of their patients, Cosmo, and his wife, Arlie. Cosmo’s wife has felt “left out,” since her husband spends so much time with the therapists and confides all of their secrets to them. Arlie has insisted on meeting them–the evening begins awkwardly, then painfully grinds on, as various tensions and power struggles emerge between and among the two couples.
Tom Noonan’s play-turned-film What Happened Was… won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Best Dramatic Feature in 1994. 20 years later, Noonan returned to his roots with The Shape of Somethng Squashed, an independent film developed from his latest theatrical hit. It tells the story of an older ‘has been’ actor who is asked to participate in a read-through of a play at a legendary theater company. The production depends on the success of the read-through, but unbeknownst to the actor he is only standing in for a star playing hard to get.