United States
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Do you believe in UFOs? Extraterrestrials? If so, this film is for you! Rachel, NV, population 100, is about 110 miles northeast of Las Vegas next to ''Area 51.'' Over the decades, folklore has it that this base is involved in UFOs and extraterrestrials. The more prosaic story is that this facility is used to test top secret advanced aircraft. Interviews with the locals are funny and fascinating for what they tell you about human nature, terrestrial rather than alien. --Ed Soohoo
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To tell you the truth, I never would have been born if it wasn't for a mob of Asian haters.'' With these words and with the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop, a smiling Renee Tajima-Pena introduces My America (... or Honk if You Love Buddha). My America is part road movie, part memoir: filmmaker and narrator Tajima-Pena takes to the highway to explore how individuals of Asian descent establish identities in the U.S.
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Director Jon Carnoy may have grown up in Palo Alto, but he sure knows Brooklyn in the O-50s: the turf of Mafia Don Joey ''The Heart'' Aorta. When Joey's key advisor meets with a tragic death, opportunity knocks for a devoted lackey named George. To buy the Don's favor, George gets him a date with Glorice, a tall, attractive prostitute with incredible oral skills. The gambit works as Don Joey falls head over heels for the tough and ballsy Glorice. All is rosy until George discovers that Glorice is not quite the woman he thought.
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Some of the best films which have illuminated American life have been by foreign directors who often see beyond the standard Hollywood cliches. Midnight Cowboy, directed by John Schlesinger who won the director's Oscar for it, has become one of those movie milestones which are reference points for other film makers because it is impossible to forget. It received an X rating in 1969 for its frank portrayal of prostitution and homosexuality but which today seems relatively tame. The very popular musical theme of the title adds to the impact.
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The expressionless Men in Black, who monitor the presence of the roughly fifteen hundred thousand landed aliens on Earth, are onto the source of real news: supermarket tabloids. Scanning one screaming headline, "Aliens Stole My Husband's Skin," Man in Black "K" (Tommy Lee Jones) calls the tabs "the best damn investigative reporting on the planet," although he grants that the New York Times gets lucky sometimes. The talents behind Men in Black are onto something, too--lovely, laser-keen wit that comes at warp speed with modesty and effortless cool.
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As part of the Cinequest tribute to John Schlesinger, this taut, harrowing, Nazi-hunt thriller is vastly entertaining. The film twists and turns in the most unexpected ways. Dustin Hoffman and you are challenged to keep up with and keep track of who knows what and who's on whose side. Hoffman is Babe Levy, a Columbia University student and marathon runner. He's very well educated but doesn't have a clue that his own brother, Doc (Roy Scheider), is a government agent seeking Nazi war criminals-or is he collaborating with them?
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Based on the late Nelson Algren's gritty novel of Chicago's underside, this picture was one of the earliest serious depictions of drug addiction from Hollywood. Frank Sinatra, as a small-time poker dealer and heroin addict who is trapped by his own drives, gives one of his very best performances. The jazz score by Elmer Bernstein stands out as the most memorable of that era and is very effective in underlining the film's action.
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It's no matter that John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven is an American version of Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai. It still is an excellent film and deserves the accolades it has received through the years. A small Mexican village is pillaged regularly by the bandit Calvera (Eli Wallach) and his cutthroats. Without the courage to stand up to the desperadoes, the town hires seven of the toughest hombres this side of the Rio Grande. Soon the townsfolk find themselves being trained by the seven to learn to defend their town upon the bandits' return.
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John Schlesinger's Madame Sousatzka can probably be placed in Cinequest's Produced and Abandoned series this year, as it is certainly one of those rare masterpieces to which the studios did not give proper attention. It may seem at first to be another teacher/student film leading to that big test or, in this case, a concert and the growth of a child. But Schlesinger's masterful storytelling ability proves otherwise. In one of the best role of her career, Shirley MacLaine portrays the multi-leveled Madame with complete and total awareness of character.