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Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.

Expensive Women (Hobart Henley, 1931)

Liliom (Fritz Lang, 1934)

Conquest (Clarence Brown, 1937)
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1408 (Mikael Håfström, 2007)


Professional scary hotel room reviewer John Cusack has no fears of NYC’s deadly room 1408 but that changes soon enough.
The Diplomat (David Holbrooke, 2015)

Gymkata (Robert Clouse, 1985)

RoboCop 3 (Fred Dekker, 1993)

RoboCop 2 (Irvin Kershner, 1990)


RoboCop has a new rival – a deranged crook-turned¬-cyborg.
Run for the Sun (Roy Boulting, 1956)
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A Tale of Two Coreys (Steven Huffaker, 2018)

Touched by Love (Gus Trikonis, 1980)
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Kedi (Ceyda Torun, 2017)


In Istanbul, Turkey, Sari the cat is known as the Hustler but she’s also an obvious ham.
Lake Los Angeles (Mike Ott, 2014)

Never Too Young to Die (Gil Bettman, 1986)

Flaming Gold (Ralph Ince, 1932)

Killer Legends (Joshua Zeman, 2014)


The urban and film legend of the Imperiled Babysitter (The House of the Devil) has a true-life counterpart in the rape and murder of 13-year-old Jannett Christman in Columbia, Missouri, in 1950 which remains unsolved.
Pandemic (John Suits, 2016)

Sgt Pepper's Musical Revolution with Howard Goodall (Francis Hanley, 2017)

The Basketball Diaries (Scott Kalvert, 1995)

Wonderstruck (Todd Haynes, 2017)
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In 1927, deaf Millicent Simmonds comes to NYC and finds Cabinets of Wonder and the American Museum of Natural History where she “hooks up” with a deaf boy (Oakes Fegley) 50 years in the future.
__________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.

Lucky (John Carroll Lynch, 2017)
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Secrets (Frank Borzage, 1933)
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Wonder Wheel (Woody Allen, 2017)

The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro, 2017)
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In a Cold War research facility, mute cleaner Sally Hawkins develops an instant rapport with tortured jungle creature Doug Jones.
The Honeymoon Killers (Leonard Kastle, 1970)
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Beyond the Rocks (Sam Wood, 1922)
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ZIPPER: Coney Island's Last Wild Ride (Amy Nicholson, 2013)
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Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet, 1975)
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During their NYC bank robbery, Sal (John Cazale) responds to the question of his partner Sonny (Al Pacino) with “Wyoming”.
Série noire (Alain Corneau, 1979)
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Sing Your Worries Away (A. Edward Sutherland, 1942)
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My Proletarian Winter’s Tale (Julian Radlmaier, 2014)

Marshall (Reginald Hudlin, 2017)


A quarter-century prior to his becoming the first African-American Supreme Court justice, NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall (Channing Boseman) helps insurance attorney Sam Friedman (Josh Gad) to defend black chauffeur Sterling K. Brown accused of raping a white woman (Kate Hudson) in Connecticut.
Cab Calloway's Hi-De-Ho (Roy Mack, 1937)
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Rebel in the Rye (Kevin Strong, 2017)
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A Spectre Is Haunting Europe (Julian Radlmaier, 2013)

Together (Lukas Moodyson, 2000)
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An extended Swedish family is broken up and paradoxically kept together by their mostly Socialist and free-loving philosophy.
Siren of the Tropics (Henri Étiévant Mario Nalpas & Luis Buñuel, 1927)
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K-9: P.I. (Richard J. Lewis, 2002)

The Unknown Girl (Dardenne Bros., 2016)
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Happy Death Day (Christopher Landon, 2017)
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College student Jessica Rothe must relive her death day over and over a la Groundhog Day until she finds out who keeps murdering her and prevents it.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.

Back Street (Robert Stevenson, 1941)

Sleepwalking in Suburbia (Alex Wright, 2017)

Dancing on the Ceiling (Murray Roth, 1937)

Darkest Hour (Joe Wright, 2017)


King George VI (Ben Mendelsohn) and Prime Minister Winston Churchill argue about England’s approach to the Nazis and Dunkirk.
The Limehouse Golem (Juan Carlos Medina, 2017)

The Secret Land (No Director Listed, 1948)

Aladdin (Bruno Corbucci, 1986)

Into the Wild (Sean Penn, 2007)


Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch) reads Tolstoy’s War and Peace in his bus in Alaska.
Calling on Cape Town (James A. FitzPatrick, 1952)

Fatherly Obsession aka The Landlord (Daniel Ringey, 2017)

Leave It to Blondie (Abby Berlin, 1945)

Icarus (Bryan Fogel, 2017)


Russian antidoping scientist Grigory Rodchenkov and director Fogel sneak the evidence out of Russia to NYC and prove that Russia, at the behest of Putin, has been juicing their Olympic athletes for decades, but the Russians are still on Rodchenkov’s trail.
Self-Criticism of a Bourgeois Dog (Julian Radlmaier, 2017)

Tales of Manhattan (Julien Duvivier, 1942)

You Killed My Mother (Curtis Crawford, 2017)
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The Chaser (Na Hong-jin, 2008)


Pimp Kim Yun-seok tracks down his missing women and finds they’re the victims of serial killer Ha Jung-woo.
Deadly Delusion (Nafeem Soumah, 2018)
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The Trouble Maker (Herk Harvey, 1959)
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Yardbirds (Martin G. Baker, 1992)

Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World (Catherine Bainbridge & Alfonso Maiorana, 2017)





Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.

Who Killed JonBenét? (Jason Lapeyre, 2016)

Flying Leathernecks (Nicolas Ray, 1951)

Aquarius (Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2016)

Caddyshack (Harold Ramis, 1980)
+

Assistant greenskeeper Bill Murray is actually doing something clean here.
Dyketactics (Barbara Hammer, 1974)

A Royal Winter (Ernie Barbarash, 2017)

Being Two Isn't Easy (Kon Ichikawa, 1962)

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (Angela Robinson, 2017)


A polyamorous relationship between Elizabeth Marston (Rebecca Hall), Olive Byrne (Bella Heathcote) and the creator (Luke Evans) of superhero Wonder Woman is explored.
Portrait of a Garden (Rosie Stapel, 2016)

Antoine and Colette (François Truffaut, 1962)

Yogi Bear (Eric Brevig, 2010)

King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis (Joseph L. Mankiewicz & Sidney Lumet, 1970)


Martin Luther King Jr. led a civil rights march on Washington, D.C. and gave his “I have a dream” speech on August 28, 1963.
Shaft (Bordon Parks, 1971)

Crac (Frédéric Back, 1981)

Goodbye Christopher Robin (Simon Curtis, 2017)
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More American Graffiti (B.W.L. Norton, 1979)


In the best of the four intercut episodes, we follow the dark-comic adventures of Terry the Toad (Charlie Martin Smith), Joe the Pharaoh (Bo Hopkins) and an initially-gung-ho newcomer (James Houghton) in Vietnam.
How I Live Now (Kevin Macdonald, 2013)
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Land Without Bread (Luis Buñuel, 1933)

Once a Thief… (W. Lee Wilder, 1950)

Le sang des bêtes aka Blood of the Beasts (Georges Franju, 1949)


One of the most horrific films ever made shows the daily cattle cars bringing the thousands of animals to an abattoir located in the midst of an idyllic French town.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948)



I watched Sierra Madre many times as a teen and it's probably the one movie which made me such a humongous Bogie and John Huston fan. The plot, taken from the mysterious B. Traven's novel, goes through all kinds of complications - being an out of work American in Mexico, getting ripped off by another American, learning about gold from an knowledgeable old-timer, wanting to throw water in Bobby Blake's "ugly mug", worrying about your goods and having to take "look sees", being scared about gila monsters, taking votes on whether to share your gold with an interloper or kill him, dealing with a spitting bandido in a gold hat who defiantly won't show you any stinking badges, performing some weird resuscitation and becoming a medicine man, going murderously beyond paranoia, betting on who can stay awake the longest, learning about a small Mexican town's quick legal system, dreaming about fruit harvests, dealing with strong northers and laughing about fate (among many others). Bogie is at his most terrific yet he's matched by grizzled Walter Huston and honest Tim Holt. John Huston mixes on-location reality and wonderful cinematography with detailed sets, rear-screen projection and obvious stunt men for knockdown fistfights. For a movie with such a dark and serious theme, it's amazingly fun and witty. And remember to never try to put one over on Fred C. Dobbs.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.

Superdyke Meets Madame X (Barbara Hammer, 1975)

Of Horses and Men (Benedikt Erlingsson, 2013)

Eleven Men and a Girl aka Maybe It’s Love (William A. Wellman, 1930)

Call Me by Your Name (Luca Guadagnino, 2017)
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During a 1980s summer in Italy, thirtyish researcher Armie Hammer and teenager Timothée Chalamet seek an emotional closeness and perhaps more.
The Honorable Will H. Hays Welcomes Vitaphone in an Address (No Director Listed, 1926)
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One on One (Lamont Johnson, 1977)

Our Daily Bread (King Vidor, 1934)

The Villainess (Jung Byung-gil, 2017)


Complex but fast-moving action flick involving trained assassins, gangsters and revenge.
Who Killed Rover? (Zion Myers & Jules White, 1930)
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The Structure of Crystal (Krzysztof Zanussi, 1969)

As the Earth Turns (Alfred E. Green, 1934)

The Hangover (Todd Phillips, 2009)


"Odd" Zack Galifianakis randomly summarizes the film's plot.
711 Ocean Drive (Joseph M. Newman, 1950)

Born to Love (Paul L. Stein, 1931)

Borg McEnroe (Janus Metz, 2017)
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Kingsman: The Golden Circle (Matthew Vaughan, 2017)


Kingsman Taron Egerton returns to battle more henchmen of another megalomaniac.
Kept Husbands (Lloyd Bacon, 1931)

Knock on Any Door (Nicolas Ray, 1949)

The Lieutenant Wore Skirts (Frank Tashlin, 1956)
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Midnight Express (Alan Parker, 1978)


American hashish smuggler Billy Hayes (Brad Davis) takes some deep breaths in the bathroom before going through Customs in Turkey with the drugs taped to his body.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.

Blondie’s Lucky Day (Abby Berlin, 1946)
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Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (Stephen Herek, 1989)

Back from Eternity (John Farrow, 1956)

Molly’s Game (Aaron Sorkin, 2017)


Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain) recalls her Olympics Trials as she tells her story about getting in trouble with the FBI.
Orca (Michael Anderson, 1977)

The Night Visitor (Laslo Benedek, 1971)

Back to School (Alan Metter, 1986)
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Exorcist II: The Heretic (John Boorman, 1977)


Regan (Linda Blair) goes through hypnotic “synchronization” to have her repressed memories of her earlier exorcism seen and interpreted by her doctor (Louise Fletcher) and another priest (Richard Burton) losing his faith.
Small Town Crime (Nelma Bros., 2018)
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Great Guns (Montague 1941)
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Airplane II: The Sequel (Ken Finkleman, 1982)

Airplane! (ZAZ, 1980)


Typical exchange from the flick, albeit cleaner.
Despicable Me 3 (Pierre Coffin, Kyle Balda & Eric Guillon, 2017)
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Seduced by a Stranger (Scott Belyea, 2017)

Mom & Dad (Brian Taylor, 2018)

Thor: Ragnarok (Taika Waititi, 2017)
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Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) do battle.
The Survivalist (Stephen Fingleton, 2016)
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Willy 1er (Boukherma Bros., Marielle Gautier & Hugo P. Thomas, 2016)
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’R Xmas (Abel Ferrara, 2001)
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The Post (Steven Spielberg, 2017)


When the The New York Times first publishes some of the Pentagon Papers, Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) wants to learn how to get them to defend his First Amendment right against the Nixon Administration, but he needs the support of the paper’s owner, Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep).



Not surprised you liked The Post, Mark! Surprised others on here didn't.



Oh I wish I did, but I didn't. Surprised to see Mark like Molly's Game as well.
Maybe Mark is part of the Chastain fan club and we didn't know?



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.

The Arizona Cowboy (R. G. Springsteen, 1950)

The Protectors: Walk in the Ranger's Shoes (Kathryn Bigelow & Imraan Ismail, 2017)

Girlfriend Killer (Alyn Darney, 2017)

The Tree of Wooden Clogs (Ermanno Olmi, 1978)


Historical epic about 19th century peasant life in Italy showing how things haven’t changed for them for hundreds of year.
Brubaker (Stuart Rosenberg, 1980)

Backstabbed (Doug Campbell, 2016)

Open Marriage (Sam Irvin, 2017)

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight (Sam Liu, 2018)


Batman and Gotham City are magically transposed to 1890s London.
Marriage of Lies (Danny J. Boyle, 2016)

Family Life (Krzysztof Zanussi, 1971)

Dead Slow Ahead (Mauro Herce, 2015)

Last Days (Kathryn Bigelow, 2014)
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Creative art meets politics short concerning endangered species and terrorism.
Autumn Dreams (Neill Fearnley, 2015)

The Nest (David Cronenberg, 2013)

Suburbicon (George Clooney, 2017)

All the King’s Men (Robert Rossen, 1949)


The Rise and Fall of Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford).
Mission Zero (Kathryn Bigelow, 2007)

The Savage Guns (Michael Carreras, 1962)
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A Stranger in Town (Vance Lewis [Luigi Vanzi], 1967)
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El Norte (Gregory Nava, 1983)
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When Guatemalan brother David Villalpando and sister Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez flee their country's military violence finally make it to America [Los Angeles], they find life better even if their opportunities are extremely limited.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
Art House Rating:



I've actually watched quite a few movies recently, but a couple of them, (Noriko's Dinner Table and Persona) deserve much more thorough discussions than I've had time to get into lately. I've had to deal with some major crap (don't ask, at least not yet), but even though I know I'm only scratching the surface, I feel I've thought enough about what Persona means to me to at least open up a discussion. I'm going to shoot the works and put this out as a thread instead of posting it in Movie Tab II. I've noticed a few people listing it amongst their fave movies, even if many of these members seem to be long gone. My main desire in starting a thread is that I don't want to have to keep linking to my original post when I come up with some more specific ideas (perhaps even this week), plus I'm hoping that enough people share their ideas to make it worthy of a discussion. I'm going to try to make this first post as free of spoilers as possible, but this is the kind of discussion which will lend itself to interpretations of specific actions shown in the movie even if their meaning is unclear. In other words, the theme and "plot" are so open to interpretation that maybe there are no spoilers!

Let me get out of the way what semblance of a plot there is here first. I'm not going to go into too many details because that would be spoiling, but I'm going to discuss what I think the "apparent" plot is. Elisabeth (debuting Liv Ullmann) stops speaking in the middle of a stage performance of Elektra, and she's subsequently taken to a hospital where it's determined that she's physically healthy and may be suffering from something psychosomatic. Either way, she still cannot or will not speak. Outgoing nurse Sister Alma (Bibi Andersson) agrees (perhaps against her better judgment) to accompany Elisabeth to a remote island home where the doctor hopes that Alma's personality will draw out the now-mute actress's voice. Along the way, mysterious things happen, which may be fantasy, dreams or reality. In fact, there may be only one woman on the island, but if there is, which one is it?

Most of the discussions which I've seen about Persona seem to start off with the concept that the film is somehow about transference and is crammed with Freudian imagery, especially in the opening, closing and midway sections. Now, I want to keep those interesting, legitimate ideas in the bank account, so to speak, and spend my initial post discussing that I think there is an even more overriding concept found in the film. Most of the mysteries which the film seems to conceal (more than it reveals) involve communication between people. Now, it's true it could be communication between the two central characters in the film, who are set up to be very similar yet utterly different (or perhaps even two halves of the same person). It can just as easily be communication by any artist who is trying to connect with the audience, and the audience's capability of understanding what the artist intends. Here the artists would be writer/director Bergman and his cinematographer, the incredible Sven Nykvist. I want to bring this up because of the way the film begins and ends with the arc light of the film projector coming on and turning off. The film goes out of its way to tell you that it's a movie, but immediately the viewer seems to be confused, if not at what is being shown, then why it's being shown and what its meaning is.

While it's true that the seemingly-surreal images at the beginning concern sex, violence and death, they also produce some stirrings of life. A boy, who seems to be in a morgue, awakens to find blurred images on a white wall of the two lead characters. Later in the film, "both" women discuss (although only one talks) past experiences concerning their "children". I can accept the young boy as either or both of the women's sons, but I can also see him as a young Ingmar Bergman, straining to make out images on a wall which he feels he is unable to communicate with his audience. This way, the meaning of what happens in the film "proper" can be interpreted in more than one way and still work for the viewer. However, I believe that the easiest way for a viewer who finds Persona or most of Bergman impenetrable is to look at the "weird" scenes as a cry from an artist, or any human being, for that matter, for someone to try to understand his/her message, theme, art and accept it on a personal level. Most art is going to be appreciated by the viewer far more readily than how the artist sees it. The artist just hopes that someone can feel what they are expressing. If they can't feel, maybe their "intelligent admiration" will suffice, but a total rejection is often felt like a sharp knife.

Ultimately, I find Persona to be an initially bewildering movie which opens up upon subsequent viewings. I appreciate the various interpretations which have been passed down for forty-odd years. I watched the film for the first time in the mid-1970s at college, and I felt lost at sea, especially when some of my fellow classmates pontificated pretentiously about its "true" meanings. (You must remember that we watched the movie once, in 16mm. No VCRs, no DVDs, etc.) I now realize that my classmates had no more concept of what the film may be about than I did or even do now, although I truly believe I can find many more complex meanings for what happens in the film. For example, it's often stated as fact that the Elisabeth character only speaks once in the film, but I would have sworn that I heard her speak at least twice, and quite possibly three times. In fact, I will also swear that one of the times that Alma is supposed to have spoken, it definitely wasn't her, and if it wasn't her and it wasn't Elisabeth, who was it? Whether you like it or not, maybe we can agree that Persona is a trip. How many people do YOU see below?

Looking back at my original post, I must have made enough misstatements of fact to qualify me as a Presidential/Vice Presidential candidate.

Here they are:

1. Elisabeth is not considered to be suffering from anything psychosomatic. It appears to be a personal choice for her not to speak.

2. The doctor says that Elisabeth did "apologize" (apparently by voice) after the incident at the theatre, but she stopped talking again soon enough.

3. They don't go to an island; they go to a seaside home.

4. It's so difficult to determine who speaks during the following scenes: 1) The scene at the table where Alma is either told, or "hears" that she shouldn't go to sleep at the table"; 2) The scene where Alma is ready to throw boiling water on Elizabeth. Who cried out not to do it?; 3. The scene where Elizabeth unequivocally talks. Why did she do it? It was in the hospital, after all. Was it a flashback, a dream or a fantasy?

I also need to know if Elixabeth left her letter unclosed for a reason. Why were the points of this letter shown in isolated paragraphs? Why did Elizabeth's husband not recognize her as being different from Alma? I explained to Sarah that Elizabeth possessed Alma, but it didn't fully explain what was going on in that scene. In fact, Sarah asked me if her husband was blind because he pulled off sunglasses and couldn't seem to know who his wife was, but he did seem to know where to kiss her, so I rejected that idea.



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”
I had forgotten about Gotham by Gaslight, good to see that it seems passable.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.

Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (Gary Nelson, 1986)

The Valley of Gwangi (James O’Connolly, 1969)

Online Abduction aka Cyber Case (Steven R. Monroe, 2015)
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My Journey Through French Cinema (Bertrand Tavernier, 2016)
+

A section on France’s coolest actor, Jean Gabin, is a highlight.
The Bride He Bought Online aka Flirting with Madness (Christine Conradt, 2015)

The Girl He Met Online (Curtis Crawford, 2014)
+
A Decent Woman (Lukas Valenta Winner, 2017)

The Foreigner (Martin Campbell, 2017)


Special Forces vet Jackie Chan takes on any and all terrorists he feels were responsible for killing his daughter.
No Blade of Grass (Cornel Wilde, 1970)

The Boy She Met Online (Curtis Crawford, 2010)
+
Tragedy Girls (Tyler MacIntyre, 2017)

Walkabout (Nicolas Roeg, 1971)


Typical Roeg editing for social commentary in story about Australian aborigine David Gulpilil on his coming-of-age walkabout corresponding to a similar journey for two white youth (Jenny Agutter & Luc Roeg)
The Boss Didn't Say Good Morning (Jacques Tourneur, 1937)
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Life with Blondie (Abby Berlin, 1945)

Sometimes the Good Kill (Philippe Gagnon, 2017)

Only the Brave (Joseph Kosinski, 2017)
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The 20 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots take on the Yarnell Hill fire. [Not actually depicted here]
Bad Blood (Adam Silver, 2015)

Buried Secrets (Monica Mitchell, 2014)

David Bowie: The Last Five Years (Francis Whately, 2017)
+ Cult Rating

XTC: This Is Pop (Roger Penny & Charlie Thomas, 2017)
+ Cult Rating


XTC evolved enormously from the quirkiness of the "This Is Pop" video.