ABCs at the Movies: The Doubles Round!

[Lynne]

From IMDb:

The only person that Vanessa wants to marry is Benjamin and they are finally engaged. When a fire sweeps through her fathers house, Benjie is able to save Vanessa, but he cannot save her already dead father. Since Vanessa blames him in her fathers death, they separate and Benjie marries Marion, the barmaid. After realizing that she was mistaken, Vanessa finds that he is married and she then reluctantly accepts the proposal of Ellis. However, Ellis is slowly going insane and Vanessa is not told. With her married life becoming intolerable, she tries to leave Ellis, but she cannot divorce him as long as he is insane. 

[southendmd]

Plot:  On the eve of World War II, a British officer revisits Waterloo Bridge and recalls the young man he was at the beginning of World War I and the young ballerina he met just before he left for the front. Myra stayed with him past curfew and is thrown out of the corps de ballet. She survives on the streets of London, falling even lower after she hears her true love has been killed in action. But he wasn't killed. Those terrible years were nothing more than a bad dream is Myra's hope after Roy finds her and takes her to his family's country estate.

[oilgun]

Plot: It's 3:07am and two girls burst into a run down London toilet. Joanne is crying her eyes out and her clothing is ripped. Kelly's face is bruised and starting to swell. Duncan Allen lies in his bathroom bleeding to death. Duncan's son, Stuart, has found his father and wants answers. Derek, Kelly's pimp, needs to find Kelly or it will be him who pays. Kelly and Joanne need to get through the next 24 hours alive...

[memento]

From Time Out Film Guide:
The script credits list Kurosawa's writer Shinobu Hashimoto, Professor Alan Turney, and John Bird - which just about sums it up. This is a highly eccentric spy fable about a 'yellow dog' (Japanese private eye) who comes to London on a mission, only to find himself working in rather strained tandem with MI5. Kimura is given to making rice balls, moving into his superior's garden shed, and running round (literally) in small circles. The film is directed with much amiable if incoherent humour by Donovan, image maker of the '60s, who apparently gave in to his passion for things Japanese and even financed it himself; but somewhere along the line the original thread of Hashimoto's story seems to have got lost. Which doesn't help anyone follow the plot, but does make for a strange experience.

[southendmd]

Plot:  Fledgling writer Briony Tallis, as a 13-year-old, irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit. Based on the British romance novel by Ian McEwan.

Filmed in part in London.

[southendmd]

The Gay Paree Round!

Films with a Paris connection.  Ooh, la la!

[Fran]

Also known as:  Regular Lovers

From IMDb:  The storyline seems also familiar. The movie starts with long scenes of the 1968 "emeutes," maybe among the best done until now. The film is made in black-and-white, and the perspective of the static camera on one side or the other of the barricade reminds one of Eisenstein. Then, as in "The Dreamers," the action moves in the Parisian flat where the heroes of the defeated revolt make art, smoke drugs, dream, and fall for one other. There is no direct social comment, no real explanation of the background of the revolt. The movie focuses on the psychology of the characters and on the love story between the main characters. It's like a premonition of the process of transition to the establishment that the generation of the 1968 went through; it's just that not all the participants may adapt or survive.

[memento]

From IMDB: This is a very rich and entertaining work. The plot revolves around two men and a woman who decide to rob the employer of the woman's aunt. However, Godard uses this slender plot as an excuse to riff on a wide spectrum of subjects. The would-be criminals run around, dance, recite newspapers stories to each other and have pretend shoot-outs.

This film is a lot of fun. Watch out for the celebrated dance sequence in the cafe and the scene where the three hold a minutes silence and all the noise on the soundtrack is cut off for the duration.

Acting wise, the film is stolen by the lovely Anna Karina (who was Godard's wife at the time) as the sweet, vague woman at the centre of the trio. Godard himself does the voice-over narration relating the story.

Filmed on the cold, de-glamorised streets of urban Paris, the film has a spontaneous feel that adds a lot to the exhilarating feel of the whole work.

This film is a charming, fun and suspense filled picture from one of the world's most interesting film-makers.

[oilgun]

Plot:   Guilt. Anne and Georges Laurant have a book-lined Paris townhouse, jobs at a publishing house and as the host of a high-brow talk show, and a teenage son, Pierrot, who's on the swim team. Their dinner parties sparkle, but there's tension. They have little to say to each other: Anne may be on the verge of an affair with a close family friend, and Pierrot is monosyllabic and out with friends some evenings. There's new strain when they begin to receive tapes of their home under surveillance--tapes accompanied by childlike drawings of a boy and blood. Anne and Georges are unnerved, dreams give Georges a clue, but he shares little with Anne. What part of himself and his past has he kept hidden?

[Fran]

From IMDb:  The tumultuous political landscape of Paris in 1968 serves as the backdrop for a tale about three young cineastes who are drawn together through their passion for film. Matthew, an American exchange student, pursuing his education abroad in Paris, becomes friends with a French brother and sister duo, named Theo and Isabelle, who share a common love of the cinema. While the May 1968 Paris student riots -- which eventually shut down most of the French government -- are happening around them, the three friends develop a relationship unlike anything Matthew has ever experienced or will ever encounter again.