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Amadeus (1984)

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Director: Milos Forman Writer: Peter Shaffer, based on his stage play Stars: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Roy Dotrice, Simon Callow, Christine Ebersole, Jeffrey Jones, Charles Kay, Kenny Baker Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), court composer to Emperor Joseph II of Austria (Jeffrey Jones), is both horrified and amazed by the musical prodigy Mozart (Tom Hulce).  He sees himself as a worthy receptacle for genius due to his reverence to God, self denial, elevated sensibilities, and reputation among high society.  However, his entire worldview is shaken when he encounters true musical genius in the form of a vulgar, comical man who flouts convention.  His monstrous sense of entitlement is exposed as he curses everything he formally held holy and plots against Mozart behind his back, ultimately devising a scheme to pass off the dying man’s last composition as his own and performing it in church at the funeral for God himself to hear.  He is one of ...
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The Piano Teacher (2001)

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Director: Michael Haneke Writers: Michael Haneke, from the novel by Elfriede Jelinek Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Annie Girardot, Benoit Magimel, Susanne Lothar, Udo Samel, Anna Sigalevitch, Cornelia Kondgen,  Thomas Weinhappel A repressed, tightly controlled professor at a music conservatory (Isabelle Huppert) meets a self-confident young man (Benoit Magimel) who thinks that he is just the one to unlock the passion buried within her.  Unknown to him, the passions that stir within her are far more destructive and disturbing than he could have suspected.  I realize that my synopsis makes this excellent film sound like a thriller a la “Fatal Attraction.”  Rather, it is an absorbing, hypnotic character study that generates more suspense than most conventional thrillers as we ponder the mysterious inner scars that motivate this damaged woman.  Huppert is by turns incredibly sympathetic and genuinely repulsive in one of the most powerful performances I have seen in ...
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Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997)

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Director: Errol Morris Featuring: Dave Hoover, George Mendonca, Ray Mendez, Rodney Brooks Documentarian Errol Morris points his lens at four men attempting to exert control over and wrest meaning from the raw stuff of nature through highly idiosyncratic means.  They include a topiary gardener, a lion tamer, an expert on the naked mole rat (the only mammal that has the same social organization as insects), and a roboticist.  They each discuss the intricacies of their individual callings; the parallels and recurring themes that emerge result in a rather touching meditation on man's drive to impose control on his environment.
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El Norte (1983)

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Director: Gregory Nava Writers: Gregory Nava and Anna Thomas, original story by Gregory Nava Stars: Zaide Silvia Gutierrez, David Villalpando, Ernesto Gomez Cruz, Alicia del Lago, Lupe Ontiveros, Trinidad Silva, Enrique Castillo, Tony Plana A brother and sister (David Villalpando and Zaide Silvia Gutierrez) flee to the North from unrest in their native Guatemalan village to make a life for themselves in the United States.  This is a very moving film about undocumented immigrants, who have been caricatured in the political arena but exist in a world that is invisible to many Americans.  The three sections of this film dramatize the conditions at home that drive our protagonists to escape, the journey itself with its hardships, and their attempts to start new lives once they have arrived in the North.  Gutierrez and Villalpando give fine naturalistic performances.  The story may be faulted for stepping over the line into melodrama, but there is no denying its heart-bre...
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Hosts (Repairman Jack #5) (2001)

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by F. Paul Wilson Jack goes to the aid of his sister, whose partner has become involved with a cult that displays an unusual degree of cohesion and likemindedness among its members.  This tight thriller with a Body Snatchers vibe is among the better Repairman Jack novels I have read.   The main story is meaty enough to fill the pages without resorting to an extended digression in which Jack performs one of his fixes as is so common in these books.  "Death Frequency" (German) I have not particularly enjoyed those parts in earlier installments of the series because they always feel like filler to me.   F. Paul Wilson Getting to know a member of Jack's family adds to the interest.
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The Hands of Aten (1931)

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by H.G. Winter (AKA Harry Bates) An adventurer discovers three long-frozen Egyptians, thaws them, and tracks them back to the ancient colony from which they came. This is lower tier pulp page filler, dull mechanical by-the-numbers lost world storytelling. If anyone ever tries to tell you that there is no craft or skill involved in penning pulp fiction that stands the test of time, hand them a copy of this. It does manage to build to a suspenseful standoff toward the end, but that is nowhere near enough to redeem this tale. The author of this short novel, which appeared in the July 1931 issue of Astounding Stories, also wrote "Farewell to the Master," the story that inspired the classic film The Day the Earth Stood Still. Harry Bates
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Cinema Speculation (2022)

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by Quentin Tarantino Quentin Tarantino examines some films of personal significance from the New Hollywood movement of the 1970s, a decade during which the author was forming his taste in cinema.  Quentin Tarantino It is a pretty intoxicating ride.  Sections of this book also provide a kind of origin story for one of American cinema’s most distinctive auteurs, telling the story of a boy whose single mother allowed him access to adult cinema (not in the porn sense of the term) and brought him into contact with Floyd, a black man who loved movies and brought Quentin along to grindhouse theaters showing blaxploitation flicks and others.  "Cinema Speculation" (German) That decade’s independent producers broke the stranglehold of the big studio establishment to exert unprecedented creative control and utilize stylistic innovation to treat subject matter that had often been considered verboten.  "Cinema Speculation" (Hungarian) Small-time producers could make money with e...
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