Afro Promo is a feature-length compilation of one-of-a-kind, archival coming attractions trailers from black films of the 1940s, ’50s, ’60s and early ’70s. This historical overview scans the social issue films, plantation dramas, and African safari movies of the 1950s and ’60s, blaxploitation, music and sports biographies, and other genre examples of the ’70s, as it tracks the burgeoning careers of such popular stars as Sidney Poitier, James Earl Jones, Billy Dee Williams, Bill Cosby, and Dianna Ross. Entertaining and educational, Afro Promo provides a compact glimpse at the representation of African Americans through thirty dynamic years of American cinema history.
Tag: 1990s
Franta Louka is a concert cellist in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia, a confirmed bachelor and a lady’s man. Having lost his place in the state orchestra, he must make ends meet by playing at funerals and painting tombstones. But he has run up a large debt, and when his friend, the grave-digger Mr. Broz, suggests a scheme for making a lot of money by marrying a Russian woman so that she can get her Czech papers, he reluctantly agrees. She takes advantage of the situation to emigrate to West Germany, to her lover; and leaves her five-year-old son with his grandmother; when the grandmother dies, Kolya must come and live with his stepfather, Louka.
1985, Alexandria. A group of Palestinian terrorists of the PLO embarks on the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro with the purpose of reaching Haifa and perform a suicide mission against Israel. However, when they’re found out during the trip, they decide to hijack the ship and take all passengers in hostage: Among them are Mr. Leon Klinghoffer, a disabled Jewish-American, and his wife Mrs Marilyn Klinghoffer. Given the situation, the terrorists change their purposes, asking for the liberation of almost 50 other Palestinian terrorists detained in Israel, but both Egypt and Israel refuse to negotiate.
In homage to one of France’s great directors, this highly personal documentary features those that knew him best, including his daughter Ewa and fellow filmmaker Claude Chabrol as they offer their comments and analysis of his career and his fascinating life.
The 50-minute “Madagascar” has the resonance and eloquence of the best poetry, as it deftly turns an adolescent’s search for identity into a metaphor for post-revolutionary Cuba. Laura is a professor at a shabby, stultifying college. Her daughter, Laurita, stops going to school, wishes to move to Madagascar and quickly races through several phases.
Somewhere in the future the environmental overkill had come. Many people had died. The rich were able to build the underworld, the poor had to stay on the surface building gangs to survive. Jason Storm, an underworld guard gets knowledge of a conspiracy to kill all people on the surface. He needs to flee to the surface, and wins Sumai, a respected martial arts master, as his ally to stop the dirty plot.
When the Viking space capsule suddenly returns to Earth from its long ago trip to Mars, it brings with it an intelligent visitor that is part “Alien” and part “ET”. Encased in armor, it extends a humanlike form from its shell to examine its surroundings and shows an interest in humans including a soft caress of a female scientist prior to the Army killing it. This only enrages its sibling.
A cold-blooded killer jumps a million dollar bail, and now he’s back in town looking for his stashed loot. But now he’s in dead trouble as he’s just made two mistakes.. and they go by the neames of HARDBALL and GOMEZ. These two modern day bounty hunters stand to make a fortune working on this case and reluctantly agree to work together. Armed with a Gatling gun and a dozen major league baseballs, Hardball and Gomez are on the chase of their lives. Together they’ve got to find a kidnapped baby, save a girl and catch the killer.. before they kill each other!