Author Topic: ABCs at the Movies: The Doubles Round!  (Read 2532536 times)

Offline memento

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"B" is The Bodyguard (1992)
« Reply #6230 on: November 17, 2010, 12:13:45 pm »

IMDB: A pop singer has been receiving threatening notes, and her manager hires a bodyguard known for his good work. The bodyguard ruffles the singer's feathers and most of her entourage by tightening security more than they feel is necessary. The bodyguard is haunted by the fact that he was on Reagan's secret service staff but wasn't there to prevent the attack by Hinckley. Eventually the bodyguard and the singer start an affair, and she begins to believe his precautions are necessary when the stalker strikes close to home.

Online southendmd

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"C" is Coming Home (1978)
« Reply #6231 on: November 17, 2010, 01:11:06 pm »
IMDb:  Sally Bender is the wife of a Captain in the United States Marine Corps. He is sent over to Vietnam, and Sally is alone. With nothing else to do, she decides to volunteer at a local veteran's hospital, where she meets Luke, who went to high school with Sally. Luke was wounded and is paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. When Sally begins to fall in love with Luke, she has to make a crucial decision about her life.

=aside= Fran
Great theme!

Offline Fran

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"D" is Dandelion (2004)
« Reply #6232 on: November 17, 2010, 01:42:03 pm »

From The New York Times:   Mason lives with his grim parents, Luke (Arliss Howard), a grain-factory worker, and Layla (Mare Winningham), in a farmhouse in Washington State. A mood of cosmic boredom reigns. The few local teenagers have nothing to do on Saturday night but drink beer, take drugs and huddle in couples. Mason's best friend, Eddie (Blake Heron), is dogged by a bullying older brother, Arlee (Shawn Reaves), a crystal-meth user who carries a gun and baits Mason whenever he sees him.

Early in the film, Luke, who is running for county council, goes to pick up some campaign signs he ordered, finds his name misspelled (without the h), and is barely able to contain his rage. Layla forestalls an emotional meltdown by pacifying herself with vodka and pharmaceuticals.

One evening while driving home in a rainstorm after posting his campaign signs on the road, Luke accidentally hits and kills a lone pedestrian. Deciding not to report the death, he drags the body into a field and leaves it there covered with underbrush, then returns to find his car stuck in the mud. While helping his father free the vehicle, Mason discovers the body. Later, when the police call, Mason takes responsibility for the homicide. While the father keeps silent, the son is sentenced to two years in a juvenile correctional center....

Offline memento

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"E" is The Enchanted Cottage (1945)
« Reply #6233 on: November 17, 2010, 05:54:44 pm »

IMDB: This movie takes place over an 18 month period but the entire story of the cottage dates back to the mid 1700's. Oliver (Robert Young) and his fiancee make plans to stay at the Cottage after they marry. Oliver is called to war and the wedding is postponed. Oliver gets injured in the war and comes home. His injuries are a badly scarred face including the cheek, eye and mouth. He has also lost the use of the arm on the same side of his body as the facial injuries. He returns to the Cottage after being released from the armed services and has already seen his fiancee and because of her reaction is hiding out at the cottage. Oliver's fiancee and his parents try briefly to convince him to come back home to no avail. Laura (Dorothy McGuire) is working as a maid at the cottage and feels sorry for herself and unattractive and out-casted as does Oliver. Over the next 3 or 4 months they have bonded and marry more out of need then love. The cottage doused it's magic dust over them and on their wedding night they see each other in a different light. They are both interesting and beautiful. Is it really the cottage or is it true love?

Offline oilgun

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"F" is Family Viewing (1987)
« Reply #6234 on: November 17, 2010, 06:40:32 pm »

IMDb:  The breakthrough film by the most stylish and original critic of the audio/visual age is a sophisticated mock soap opera charting the corrosive influence of TV and video on the fabric of modern family life. With astonishing versatility and a grab-bag of black comic gestures, writer director Atom Egoyan injects an air of deadpan, dispassionate humor into a convoluted melodrama which is less kinky than it sounds: a young man, finding his family identity threatened, rescues some nostalgic home videos before his father can erase them with homemade S&M porn, and then 'kidnaps' his neglected grandmother from her nursing home with the help of a sympathetic woman who earns a living selling phone sex. The screenplay shows a tendency toward over plotting (which should be obvious from even this thumbnail synopsis), but Egoyan unravels the many narrative knots with a rare technical and creative dexterity that earned his film the honor of being the best Canadian film of the year.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy1u1nT8iq4[/youtube]
« Last Edit: November 21, 2010, 11:44:46 am by oilgun »

Offline Fran

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"G" is Gosford Park (2001)
« Reply #6235 on: November 17, 2010, 07:48:22 pm »

From IMDb:  GOSFORD PARK is an update of Jean Renoir's 1939 film LE REGLE DU JEU, in which wealthy relatives of an aristocrat come to a shooting party at a country home. Here, because of the obviously strained relationships between the host and his family has been less than amicable, it serves as a springboard where everyone's worst behavior and heretofore concealed feelings towards each other really come forth with an undertone of mean-spirited cruelty just brimming below the surface, while the servants act as non-entities when in their employers' presence....

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwtZuGvawwY[/youtube]

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"H" is Home (2005)
« Reply #6236 on: November 17, 2010, 08:10:57 pm »
IMDb:  On a hot summer night in Brooklyn, singles and couples converge in a brownstone apartment to flirt, fight, hook uo and break up. A dreamy comedy-drama about sex, love and freedom, "Home" packs a lot of stories into just two floors.

Offline oilgun

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"I" is I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2006)
« Reply #6237 on: November 21, 2010, 10:17:03 am »

IMDb:  Forest fires burn in Sumatra; a smoke covers Kuala Lumpur. Grifters beat an immigrant day laborer and leave him on the streets. Rawang, a young man, finds him, carries him home, cares for him, and sleeps next to him. In a loft above lives a waitress. She sometimes provides care and attention. More violence seems a constant possibility. They find another man abandoned on the street, paralyzed. They carry him. While no one speaks to each other, sounds dominate: coughing, cooking, coupling, opening bags; music and news reports on a radio, the rattle and buzz of a restaurant. It's dark in the city at night. We see down hallways, through doors, down alleys. Who sleeps with whom?

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azu197bM2Zk[/youtube]

Offline memento

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"J" is Junior Bonner (1972)
« Reply #6238 on: November 21, 2010, 12:29:34 pm »

IMDB: A week with Junior Bonner, a rodeo pro on the wrong side of 40, broke, bruised, and headed into Prescott, his home town, for the annual 4th of July Frontier Days. His dad, Ace, is a dissolute dreamer fixed on finding gold in Australia; his mom is resigned to Ace's roving; his brother Curly is tearing up the countryside to make a million in real estate. Junior just wants to stay on a bucking Brahma for eight seconds, hang out with Ace, find a way to spend time with a beautiful woman whose eyes catch his, and earn enough to get to next week's rodeo. As the old West and its code give way to progress, Junior is lonesome, laconic, and on the road - just where he wants to be.

Offline Fran

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"K" is Kotia päin (1989)
« Reply #6239 on: November 21, 2010, 06:48:56 pm »
Also known as:  Homebound


Synopsis:  This bleak melodrama chronicles the life of a masochistic drudge, her obnoxious and abusive second husband, and the effect this unfortunate union is having on Mika (Ilkka Koivula), her bright, previously optimistic son, who is driven to extreme lengths to cope with the ever-deteriorating situation he sees at home. His uncle has hired a man to kill his mother's new husband, and the killer tries to blackmail Mika, who has other ideas about the situation, all of which lead to a messy, violent conclusion. Curiously, the real-life story this Finnish movie is based on had a much happier ending.

-- Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide