Repast – 1951, Mikio Naruse

  by Allan Fish (Japan 1951 97m) DVD2 Aka. Meshi All over a nosebleed p  Sanezumi Fujimoto  d  Mikio Naruse  w  Toshiro Ide, Sumie Tanaka, Yasunari Kawabata  novel  Fumiko Hayashi  ph  Masao Tamai  ed  Mikio Naruse  m  Fumio Hayasaka  Ken Uehara (Hatsunosuke Okamoto), Setsuko Hara (Michiyo Okamoto), Yukiko Shimazuki (Satoko Okamoto), Yoko Sugi (Mitsuko Murata), [...]

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24. Pleasures of War

(United Kingdom 1998 11min) Director Ruth Lingford; Writer Sarah Maitland; Music Andy Cowton; Voice Acting Pablo Duarte, Mildred Lee, Corinne Strickett by Stephen Russell-Gebbett Although animation, colourful and free, is most attractive to young eyes it plays host to all subjects and all audiences. There are many animators who take advantage of the association of [...]

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Jon Lanthier, “The Grapes of Wrath”, “Tokyo Story”, “The King’s Speech”, “Tangled”, “Burlesque” and stage play at Irish Repetory Theatre on Monday Morning Diary (November 29)+-

Colin Firth as King George VI in “The King’s Speech,” one of the year’s best films by Sam Juliano With Thanksgiving Day 2010 now a footnote in history, focus is now in the direction of Christmas cards, shopping and home decorating, while those in the snow belt brace themselves for what Farmer’s Almanac has promised [...]

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25. Allegro Non Troppo

(ITALY 1976 85 min) Director Bruno Bozzetto; Writers Bruno Bozzetto, Guido Manuli, Maurizio Nichetti; Cinematography Luciano Marzetti, Mario Masini by Stephen Russell-Gebbett Allegro Non Troppo comprises six shorts, animated to well-known classical pieces, that have little in common with each other. However, the thematic coherence of portmanteau films, in the same way as an album [...]

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The Sunday Matinee – Loves of a Blonde

(by Joel) Loves of a Blonde, Czechoslovakia,1965, dir. Milos Forman Starring Hana Brejchová, Vladimír Pucholt Story: A young woman sleeps with a charming young pianist, but when she pursues him to Prague, she discovers that he did not take their romance as seriously as she did. The title, like so much else in Milos Forman’s [...]

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26. Story of a Street Corner

(Japan 1962 37 min) Directors Yusaku Sakamoto, Eiichi Yamamoto; Writer Osamu Tezuka; Producer Osamu Tezuka; Animator Gisaburo Sugii by Stephen Russell-Gebbett Given that animation is the creation of the illusion of movement or life from ‘inanimate’ material, is it any wonder that so many animated films are about objects coming to life? Sometimes sculptures, sometimes [...]

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Plug In, Turn On, Wipe Out: Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse” and the Fractured Psyche of Millennial Sci-Fi

By Bob Clark At the heart of every plausible dystopia in science-fiction, there must always be an element of paradise. After all, the root term for the very word stems from St. Thomas Moore’s satirical novel “Utopia”, which in its own way was really attempting to describe the fallen state of man’s world by painting [...]

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27. La Joie de Vivre

 (France 1934 9 min) Directors Anthony Gross, Hector Hoppin by Stephen Russell-Gebbett They, every inch the good time gals, bounce and sway with fresh white smiles. He, top to toe the dapper chap, pursues them. Oh no, it’s not like that at all. He just wants to give them back one of their shoes. [...]

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Wife! Be Like a Rose! – 1935, Mikio Naruse

by Allan Fish (Japan 1935 77m) not on DVD Aka. Tsuma yo bara no yo ni Neglected I remain these many years d/w  Mikio Naruse  novel  “Two Wives” by Minoru Nakano  ph  Hiroshi Suzuki  ed  Mikio Naruse  m  Noboru Ito  art  Kazuo Kuho Sachiko Chiba (Kimiko Yamamoto), Sadao Maruyama (Shunsaku Yamamoto), Tomoko Ito (Etsuko Yamamoto), [...]

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28. Only Yesterday

(JAPAN 1991 118 min) Director / Writer Isao Takahata by Stephen Russell-Gebbett Isao Takahata is less well known than his Studio Ghibli colleague Hayao Miyazaki. People may know his film about a pair of children orphaned by war, Grave of the Fireflies, but might not be able to put a name to it; let alone [...]

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