Tag: USA

September 11, 2023 / Animation

A young boy and girl, dressed in costumes based on Dutch traditional clothes, find their idyllic, windmill-laden countryside is being over-run by unfeeling, unthinking mechanical men that lay waste to everything in their path. The cartoon (note the title) was a very thinly veiled propaganda film in support of the Netherlands resistance fighters during Nazi occupation in World War 2 (The film was completed when Nazi Germany had completely occupied the Netherlands).

September 11, 2023 / Biography

This movie tells the story of the early life and rise to fame and fortune of French fashion designer Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, beginning with her upbringing in an orphanage and training as a milliner, but concentrating on her relationship with Etienne de Balsan and her tempestuous love affair with his friend Boy Capel, and the role the two men played in setting her up as an independent business woman.

August 27, 2023 / Experimental

Bette Gordon explores the cinematic representation of women in this feminist experimental work, which, in the words of the filmmaker, centers on “women’s inability to place and define themselves in language and politics, the location of radical struggle.”

August 27, 2023 / Documentary

CBS TV news special hosted by Harry Reasoner explores the way-out world of the Hippies and the Haight-Ashbury psychedelic 1960s LSD scene. Footage of LSDs users experiencing bummer trips. The Diggers, the Oracle and cool street and Golden Gate Park scenes with hippies tripping out. The Grateful Dead are interviewed and are shown performing “Dancin’ in the Streets” on a flatbed truck in Golden Gate Park. 

August 27, 2023 / Drama

A low-budget tale about young lovers on the run from an uncaring adult world – they just want to get married but are thwarted at every turn – remains something of landmark in English-Canadian feature production. Sidney J. Furie’s directorial debut.

August 27, 2023 / Short

Tells the story of Ben Helwig and his important contribution to the American war effort. Ben’s story starts in the Great Depression when he, a young teen, is separated from his parents leaving him for a better life at an institution as they search for work. A freak baseball accident at the home leads to Benny losing sight permanently in one eye, followed by losing sight permanently in the other eye. As Ben is despondent over his new life situation, his mother realizes that she has to do something to make him feel productive again, she turning to one of his old favorite pastimes of building model planes, with his hands, sensitive to his new situation, taking over as his eyes in they being able to “see” things through touch.

August 27, 2023 / Biography

A biography of renowned escape artist Harry Houdini, examining his fascination with the occult and his promise to his wife on his deathbed that he would contact her from the great beyond, if it were at all possible.

August 26, 2023 / Comedy

A group of down-home Italians from Brooklyn, with Anthony in the lead, settle into a vacation beach house with another group of teens from Philadelphia. Anthony finds his interest focusing on blond Philadelphian Cindy, and the rest of the film follows with the usual pairing off, disagreements, and discussions.