A Modern Affair (1995)

A Modern Affair (1995)
Director: Vern Oakley
Writers: Vern Oakley (story) & Paul Zimmerman (screenplay)
Release Date: 6 September 1996 (USA)
Genre: Comedy - Drama - Romance


* Cast :

Lisa Eichhorn ... Grace Rhodes
Stanley Tucci ... Peter Kessler
Caroline Aaron ... Elaine
Mary Jo Salerno ... Lindsey
Robert Joy ... Ernest Pohlsab
Wesley Addy ... Ed Rhodes
Robert LuPone ... Ben
Cynthia Martells ... Ellen
J. Smith-Cameron ... Diane
Vincent Young ... Tony
Tammy Grimes ... Dr. Gresham
Len Stanger ... Older Executive
Jon Huberth ... Suit #1
Jim Lavin ... Suit #2
Claywood Sempliner ... Suit #3


* Plot :


"A Modern Affair" is a romantic comedy about the strain of contemporary relationships, one woman's urgent desire for parenthood, and a solution to it all. Grace Rhodes is the perfect corporate executive -- bright, successful, attractive and with just professional touch. With her career in place, Grace feels she has everything she needs -- until she bumps into an ex-boyfriend bearing photos of his young kids.


Feeling the irresistible urge to have a child, but not sure about waiting around for Mr. Right," Grace knows what she wants, but not how best to get it. Elaine, her wryly pragmatic best friend, suggests that Grace do the unthinkable and enlist the services of a sperm bank. After choosing a donor from the "DNA menu," Grace becomes pregnant and deeply curious about the identity of the donor #247.


Enter Peter Kessler, a handsome photographer who divides his time between his craft, his casual affair with a married woman, and his "other job:" depositing specimens as a sperm donor to earn a little extra cash. When Grace and Peter finally meet, they begin the journey down the rocky road to parenthood and possibly from there to love.

Movie: Sleepwalk (2000)

Sleepwalk (2000)
Director: James Savoca
Writer: James Savoca (writer)
Genre: Drama


* Cast :

Ivan Martin ... Ray
Drea de Matteo ... Henrieta
John Lurie ... Frank
Catherine Kellner ... Nina
Ron Ryan ... Robert Madon


* Plot :

Writer/director James Savoca's super low-budget first film "Sleepwalk" opens out with an intoxicated man named Ray, lost, but for some reason drifting along an apartment rooftop in New York. Angry at society, he shouts down air vents leading to the apartments below. Soon he gets a threatening response from a strong young woman, but with a likable charm he has, he manages to get invited into her room. Of course they fall in love, and the film progressively follows these two people who come to symbolize the American dream.

The characters are what really shine in "Sleepwalk". Ray is a man filled with mystery. We learn that he is not completely honest, but who is when they fall in love at first. This leads to discovery and character revelation. Savoca isn't so much interested in where the relationship ends up, but more in the complexities of the leads. Good for him. His story has a great setup for a good romance film, but he gracefully keeps it thought-provoking and intelligent enough to prevent it from morphing into a corny chick flick.


The performances compliment the writing well. Ivan Martin plays Ray passionately. His character isn't the most accomplished person on the planet, and in fact lays at the bottom of the barrel socially, but Martin draws in remarkable sympathy and creates a character that becomes absorbing, not annoying. The woman in the apartment (named Henrietta) is played by another underknown, Drea De Matteo. She is beautiful, but also skillful, credibly portraying a woman who is trying to find success, but remain true to herself in the process.


However, a problem with "Sleepwalk", one of those movies that are simple in form but deep in ideas, is that it has some trouble introducing scenes. Movies like these, with tiny casts and little location changes often rely on a lot of dialogue (Richard Linklater's "Tape" or James Toback's "Two Girls and a Guy" for example). This is where Savoca has trouble shifting into his ideas. The meeting is random, but the dialogue comes on too fastly, making the characters unrealistically comfortable with eachother. This is a movie that moves along on a very slow pace, but Savoca needs to ease on into his scenes.


I would recommend "Sleepwalk", because of its good performances and adroit, subtle direction. Not a whole lot happens here, but (wonderfully enough) it lies on an intellectual level most romance films don't. This is a stylish, good debut.


Source: www.Imdb.Com

Strange Culture

Strange Culture (2007)
Director: Lynn Hershman-Leeson
Writer: Lynn Hershman-Leeson (writer)
Release Date: 5 October 2007 (USA)
Genre: Documentary


Alternately teasing and terrifying, "STRANGE CULTURE" molds one man¹s tragedy into an engrossing narrative.


In 2004, Steve Kurtz (Thomas Jay Ryan), an associate professor of art at the State University of New York, Buffalo, was preparing an exhibition on genetically modified food for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art when his wife, Hope (Tilda Swinton), died in her sleep of heart failure.


But when paramedics noticed petri dishes and other scientific paraphernalia in the home, they alerted the F.B.I.; within hours Mr. Kurtz found himself suspected of bioterrorism, his home quarantined and his wife¹s body removed for autopsy. Filmmaker Lynn Hershman-Leeson bends the nonfiction form to her own unconventional will.


The result is a fascinating collage of re-enactments, news clips and interviews, illuminating not only the implications of corporate meddling in the food chain but the ease with which innocent civilian behavior can become a suspicious act.

The Legend of Alfred Packer

The Legend of Alfred Packer (1980)
Director: James W. Roberson
Writers: Chuck Meyers(writer), Burton Raffel(screenplay).
Release date: 1980
Genre: Adventure - Biography - Drama - Thriller - Western
Length: 01:33:49


The Legend of Alfred Packer is a 1980 film by Jim Roberson from a script by acclaimed poet/translator Burton Raffel, a biopic of Alfred G. Packer starring Patrick Dray in the title role. The film features a score by Bolivian-Argentinian composer Jaime Mendoza-Nava, though the main theme is a not-quite copy of Mason Williams's "Classical Gas".


The film has several anomalies. Its opening scene features an unnamed appearance by gunman W.W. "Plughat" Anderson (William Broder) making his attempt on Polly Pry's life. It also does not make clear Pry's association with the Packer story, though she serves as a narrator at the beginning, and, in voiceover, at the end, suggesting that the film was cut. Finally, although no one, not even Packer, denied that Packer shot Shannon Wilson Bell, the film depicts Bell accidentally falling on a knife, as if to exonerate Packer of any potential wrongdoing.


Unlike, Cannibal! The Musical, the film depicts many members of Packer's initial party, before the group dwindled to those that Packer supposedly ate. These include brothers Isaac "Ike" and Tom Walker, Charlie and Art Smith, and Mike Burke. O.D. Loutsenhizer is included, but Jean "Frenchy" Cabazon is omitted.


The "Alferd" spelling and pronunciation of his first name is not used in the film.


* Plot :


McMurphy (Bleir) comes to Denver, Colorado to see Polly Pry (Nessin) about the Packer case. As Pry leaves for her scheduled meeting with McMurphy, she is stalked and shot at by a gunman (whose appearance is almost entirely camera-eye). The bullets hit her skirts and lessen the blows inflicted on her publishers behind her.


McMurphy and Pry meet in a tavern to discuss the Packer story over whiskey. She begins with the five prospectors who will become victims meeting up for the first time at a boardinghouse, where the landlady (Ruth Seder) tells them that Alfred Packer is the best guide in the area.


The men find Packer in a small prison, and pay his bail so that he can be their guide. They join together with the larger group, but are soon split up, and they get suckered into the hospitality of a trapper (Dick Morgan) and his sidekick, known as Weasel (George Farrar), who intend to rape George Noon (Dratfield).


Packer and the men escape, but get hopelessly lost in Ute territory. When Packer is scouting ahead, he returns to find that Shannon Wilson Bell (Haines), a Mormon missionary, has killed and begun to eat the other prospectors. Packer and Bell fight; Bell falls, landing on a knife, and is killed.


After several months, Packer comes out of the mountains into the nearest town and makes his report to General Adams (Don Donovan). Later, while at Dolan's Bar, his story having been investigated, he is captured and brought to trial. The remainder of the film depicts his trial. Judge Gerry (Sam Kirbens) reads his sentence as per the court records, though omitting the two consecutive repeats of "dead". As Packer walks through the courthouse door, a blue glow emanates from behind it, the image freezes, and, in voiceover and overlain title cards, Pry briefly summarizes what happened to Packer after the trial.

Goethe's Faust (German With English Subtitles)

Faust - F.W. Murnau, 1926 - Full Movie (English Subtitles)
Director: F.W. Murnau
Writers: Johann Wolfgang Goethe (play) & Gerhart Hauptmann (titles)
Release Date: 6 December 1926 (USA) more
Genre: Fantasy - Mystery
Length: 1:46:00


German expressionist silent film by the director of Nosferatu, F. W. Murnau. It is an adaptation of the notorious Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust.


Fuast is a tragic play, although more appropriately it should be defined a tragicomedy, despite the very title of the work. It was published in two parts: Faust. Der Tragödie erster Teil (translated as: Faust: The First Part of the Tragedy) and Faust. Der Tragödie zweiter Teil (Faust: The Second Part of the Tragedy). The play is a closet drama, meaning that it is meant to be read rather than performed. It is Goethe's most famous work and considered by many to be one of the greatest works of German literature.


Goethe completed a preliminary version of Part One in 1806. The 1808 publication was followed by the revised 1828–1829 edition, which was the last to be edited by Goethe himself. Prior to these appeared a partial printing in 1790 of Faust, a Fragment. The earliest forms of the work, known as the Urfaust, were developed between 1772 and 1775; however, the details of that development are no longer entirely clear.


Goethe finished writing Faust Part Two in 1832, the year of his death. In contrast to Faust Part One, the focus here is no longer on the soul of Faust, which has been sold to the devil, but rather on social phenomena such as psychology, history and politics. The second part formed the principal occupation of Goethe's last years and appeared only posthumously in 1832.

The Message (Story Of Islam)

The Message (1976)
Director: Mustapha AQAD
Runtime: 02:51:00


* Cast :

* Anthony Quinn - Hamza
* Irene Papas - Hind
* Michael Ansara - Abu Sufyan
* Michael Forest - Khalid
* Johnny Sekka - Bilal
* Donald Burton - Ammar
* Ewen Solon - Yasir
* André Morell - Abu-Talib
* Wolfe Morris - Abu-Lahab
* Rosalie Crutchley - Sumayyah
* Damien Thomas - Zayd




The Message is a 1976 film directed by Moustapha Akkad, chronicling the life and times of the prophet of Islam, Muhammad. Released in both Arabic and English, Mohammad, Messenger of God serves as an introduction to early Islamic history.


Director Akkad faced resistance from Hollywood to making a film about the origins of Islam and had to go outside the United States to raise the production money for the film. Lack of financing nearly shut down the film as the initial backers pulled out, financing was finally provided by Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi. The film was shot in Libya and Morocco, with production taking four and a half months to build the cities of Mecca and Medina as they looked in Muhammad's time.


The film follows Muhammad's first years as a prophet starting with the Islam's beginnings in Mecca in which the Muslims are persecuted, the exodus to Medina, and ending with the Muslims' triumphant return to Mecca. A number of crucial events, such as the Battle of Badr and Battle of Uhud are depicted, and the majority of the story is told from the point-of-view of peripheral individuals such as Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib (Muhammad's uncle), Abu Sufyan (the leader of Mecca) and his wife Hind bint Utbah (enemies of Islam who later become Muslims themselves).


The film was nominated for an Oscar in 1977 for Best Music, Original Score for the music by Maurice Jarre.


In October 2008, producer Oscar Zoghbi revealed plans to "revamp the 1976 movie and give it a modern twist," according to IMDB and the World Entertainment News Network. He hopes to shoot the remake, tentatively titled The Messenger of Peace, in the cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

The Movie: Virus

Virus is a 1980 post-apocalyptic science-fiction movie.


* Plot :


A plane carrying biological warfare crashes, causing a deadly virus to be released, killing off most of the world's population.


A handful of surviving scientists are in a hurry to find a cure.



Will they succeed?