Set in the backyard of a blue-collar South Philadelphia neighborhood early in the summer of 1973, the comedy-drama focuses on the 21st birthday celebration of Harvard student Francis Geminiani. In attendance are his divorced blue collar father Fran and Fran’s widowed girlfriend Lucille, next-door neighbor Bunny Weinberger and her overweight son Herschel, and Francis’ classmates, the wealthy WASP Hastings siblings; Judith (who seeks romance with Francis) and Randy (the object of Francis’ unexpressed affection), who have arrived unexpectedly, much to their friend’s dismay. All are dysfunctional to varying degrees, and the interactions among them provide the play with its comic and dramatic moments.
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The story opens in 1911 at Dr. Seward’s sanitarium. A sensual and charismatic vampire known as Count Dracula has already slain several girls on the English countryside. Abraham Van Helsing, with the help of Dr. Cedric Seward, Lord Gordon Godalming, Jonathan Harker, Freudian psychologist Helga Van Zandt and the reluctant Renfield try to stop Count Dracula from making the lovely Wilhelmina his next willing victim.
A slaughterhouse worker appears to be romantically involved with his boss’s wife. They plan to leave the country together, but at the airport she waits for him in vain. Slowly but surely the three of them get entangled in a fateful web of betrayal, jealousy, and revenge.
A profile of American author Paul Auster and his personal history with New York City, accompanied by readings from his work, clips from “Smoke” and “Blue in the Face”, and a dual interview with the author and Lou Reed.
The story of how Norma Jean, once an orphan in Hollywood, becomes Marilyn Monroe, the movie star and celebrity. The movie begins with her as a child and ends with the mysterious way she dies. Throughout the movie, we see the highlights and lowlights of her career, including the parts of her private life not so widely known. Based loosely on Norman Mailer’s highly suspect biography of the actress, Marilyn: The Untold Story premiered on September 28, 1980.
In this 19th-century drama, an American family from the Northeast heads to Wyoming in search of a better life, only to face tragedy and hardship. Maggie Sergent, the hard-driving matriarch of the clan, is totally unprepared when her husband, John, is murdered. Left to handle the farm on her own, Maggie must choose whether to stay in Wyoming and run the farm with her children, or head back to the East Coast and the life she knows.
Kurosawa’s lost masterpiece has finally come to light. Filmed in 1970 and aired on Japanese television “Song of the Horse” is his visual poem for the horse, the creature that he loved the most. Told through narration by an old man speaking with his grandson while the visual mastery of one of the greatest filmmakers of all time expands before one’s eyes. Kurosawa ordinarily avoided television work and this is the only time that he had any involvement with the small screen. A rare and beautiful ode to the most gallant member of the animal kingdom!
Journey into Life follows the struggles of three concentration camp survivors-Yehuda Bacon of Israel, Gerhard Durlacher of the Netherlands, and Ruth Kluger of the United States-in rebuilding their lives after World War II. In on-camera interviews, these extraordinary individuals discuss their childhood memories of Auschwitz, internment in Displaced Persons camps, and their search for a new homeland after World War II. Using U.S. Army archival film footage to illustrate these powerful stories, Mitscherlich’s film focuses on the subjects’ attempts to cope with the psychological trauma of their experiences and to comprehend the meaning of the Holocaust.