Friday, December 31, 2010

Batman Returns (1992)


Director: Tim Burton

In this, the second Batman movie, megalomaniac businessman Max Shreck sets a plot against Gotham City in motion. He is joined by Penguin, a deformed and rather deranged man abandoned at birth by respectable parents. Penguin, backed by hoodlums and real penguins, runs for mayor. The plot is further complicated by Selena, a wronged secretary who transforms into Catwoman, a villain with mixed motives.





Thursday, December 23, 2010

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)


Director: George Seaton

Doris Walker a no-nonsense Macy's executive, desperately searches for a new store Santa. She hires Kris Kringle who insists that he's the real Santa Claus. But, he has many skeptics like Doris and her six year old daughter, Susan. So Kris goes to court to try and prove it. Is he the real Santa Claus?



Sunday, December 19, 2010

The Narrow Margin (1952)


Director: Richard Fleischer

When a mobsters wife decides to testify against his evil deeds she goes undercover to avoid being killed. Now that he's coming to trial she has to be escourted across country via train in order to testify. Cop Walter Brown and his partner are assigned the task, but the mob are on their trail.




Thursday, December 16, 2010

Crossfire (1947)


Director: Edward Dmytryk

Homicide Capt. Finlay finds evidence that one or more of a group of demobilized soldiers is involved in the death of Joseph Samuels. In flashbacks, we see the night's events from different viewpoints as Sergeant Keeley investigates on his own, trying to clear his friend Mitchell, to whom circumstantial evidence points. Then the real, ugly motive for the killing begins to dawn on both Finlay and Keeley...




Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Kansas City Confidential (1952)


Director: Phil Karlson

A down-on-his-luck ex-GI finds himself framed for an armored car robbery. When he's finally released for lack of evidence--after having been beaten up and tortured by the police--he sets out to discover who set him up, and why. The trail leads him into Mexico and a web of hired killers and corrupt cops.





Monday, December 13, 2010

Fitzcarraldo (1982)


Director: Werner Herzog

Fitzcarradlo is an obsessed opera lover who wants to build an opera in the jungle. To accomplish this he first has to make a fortune in the rubber business, and his cunning plan involves hauling an enormous river boat across a small mountain with aid from the local Indians.





Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Chinatown (1974)


Director: Roman Polanski

JJ 'Jake' Gittes is a private detective who seems to specialize in matrimonial cases. He is hired by Evelyn Mulwray when she suspects her husband Hollis, builder of the city's water supply system, of having an affair. Gittes does what he does best and photographs him with a young girl but in the ensuing scandal, it seems he was hired by an impersonator and not the real Mrs. Mulwray. When Mr. Mulwray is found dead, Jake is plunged into a complex web of deceit involving murder, incest and municipal corruption all related to the city's water supply.





Days of Heaven (1978)


Director: Terrence Malick

Bill and Abby, a young couple who to the outside world pretend to be brother and sister are living and working in Chicago at the beginning of the century. They want to escape the poverty and hard labour of the city and travel south. Together with the girl Linda (who acts as the narrator in the movie) they find employment on a farm in the Panhandle, Texas. When the harvest is over the young, rich and handsome farmer invites them to stay because he has fallen in love with Abby. When Bill and Abby discover that the farmer is seriously ill and has only got a year left to live they decide that Abby will accept his wedding proposal in order to make some benefit out of the situation. When the expected death fails to come, jealousy and impatience are slowly setting in and accidents become eventually inevitable.





River's Edge (1986)


Director: Tim Hunter

It follows the lives of a group of teenagers after their friend Samson (known as John) kills their friend Jamie. Their reactions vary- some want to report it, others want to cover it up as best as possible, and others don't want anything to do with it. Yet above all, no one seems to be that disturbed by the girl's death. A drama that will have you laughing out loud as the characters experience pot, sex, beat-up cars, police interrogations, insanely out of control 12 year olds, and of course, murder.



Monday, December 6, 2010

JFK (1991)


Director: Oliver Stone

Details the actions of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who takes it upon himself to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, in 1963. Garrison is extremely suspicious of the official story presented by the FBI, and what he already knows and what he subsequently learns lead him to suspect that there is more to the story than the public is being told.