25 years after she was exiled, dressmaker Myrtle “Tilly” Dunnage (Kate Winslet) returns to her home town of Dungatar in Australia. Myrtle soon turns heads and livens up the fashions of the townsfolk, all the while getting to the bottom of why she was banished as a child, and exacting revenge where necessary.
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Category Archives: Choose Life
Sedmikrásky (Daisies)
Two girls, both named Marie (Jitka Cerhová & Ivana Karbanová) decide that since the world has gone bad, surely they must be allowed to as well. Thus initiates a series of increasingly anarchic and madcap escapades as the two wreck havoc wherever they go.
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Caravaggio
Michelangelo “Mikaeli” Caravaggio (Dexter Fletcher) is a painter and street hustler in late 16th Century Italy when he catches the eye of the wealthy Cardinal Del Monte (Michael Gough), who proceeds to fund the boy’s artwork. Growing up (into Nigel Terry) Caravaggio lives a hedonistic lifestyle, fornicating with his models – both male and female – eventually leading to a complicated love triangle between himself, street fighter Ranuccio (Sean Bean) and his manager/lover Lena (Tilda Swinton) which is unlikely to end well for anyone involved.
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1900 (Novecento)
This review was originally written for Blueprint: Review.
Two boys, Alfredo and Olmo, are born within minutes of each other in January 1901. Alfredo is the grandson of landowner and family head Alfredo Berlinghieri (Burt Lancaster) whilst Olmo’s grandfather, Leo (Sterling Hayden), is a peasant and Alfredo Sr.’s foreman. The two boys grow up together, never forgetting their respective places within society and, once grown (into Robert DeNiro and Gérard Depardieu) they find themselves on opposite sides of a class struggle, exacerbated by the presence of fascist guards led by the new foreman, Attila (Donald Sutherland).
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The Exterminating Angel
After an upper class dinner, the hosts and guests all adjourn to the parlour for after-dinner drinks and discussions. When the hour becomes late, the guests all decide to stay instead of heading home, sleeping on chairs and the floor instead of to some of the numerous bedrooms. Come the morning, still none of them leave, and they soon begin to wonder if perhaps there is some unseen force keeping them retained within the room.
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Three Brothers
This review was originally written for Blueprint: Review.
When their mother passes away, three very different brothers return to their family home to pay their respects, but their opposing lifestyles and outlooks on life cause them to clash.
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Cléo from 5 to 7
Two days ago, singer Cléo (Corinne Marchand) underwent some tests to determine if she has stomach cancer, and how bad it is. She is scheduled to visit the hospital at 7pm, in two hours time, so whiles away the inbetween hours wandering the streets, first having her fortune told before going to a cafe with her maid (Dominique Davray), having a meeting with two musical collaborators (Serge Korber and Michel Legrand) spending time with a friend (Dorothée Blanck) before meeting a soldier (Antoine Bourseiller) in the park and eventually making her way to the hospital to receive her results.
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Rocco and His Brothers
This review was originally written for Blueprint: Review.
After the death of her husband, Rosario Parondi (Paxinou) takes her four youngest sons Simone (Salvatori), Rocco (Delon), Ciro (Cartier) and Luca (Vidolazzi) to stay with their oldest brother Vincenzo (Focás) in Milan. However, Vincenzo is trying to build his own life there, having just celebrated his engagement to Ginetta (Cardinale). The family are forced to stay in very humble lodgings, all sharing one room and not enough beds, whilst the boys struggle to find work in the city. Eventually the multitude of vices commonplace to city life begin to drive the brothers apart, especially by the beautiful yet troubled Nadia (Girardot).
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The Lovely Bones
Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) is an ordinary 14-year old girl. She has a younger sister Lindsey (Rose McIver), an even younger brother Buckley (Christian Ashdale), a perfectionist father obsessed with building model ships in bottles (Mark Wahlberg), a stressed out mother (Rachel Weiz) who knits terrible headwear, an alcoholic grandmother (Susan Sarandon) and is developing her first crush on fellow schoolmate Ray Singh (Reece Ritchie). One day, however, Susia doesn’t make it all the way home from school. Whilst crossing a field near her family home she is lured into an underground bunker by her creepy neighbour George Harvey (Stanley Tucci), Harvey kills Susie, and the ramifications of this will throw her family into turmoil.
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Naked Lunch
A bug exterminator, Bill Lee (Peter Weller) discovers the supply of his bright yellow bug-killing powder is running low, because it turns out his wife Joan (Judy Davis) has been shooting it up like heroin. Bill gives the powder/drug a try too, leading to some rather bizarre possible-hallucinations involving giant bugs, alien-like creatures and who knows what else?
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