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Raising Arizona
»rank: 14290
: essential video:Blood Simple made it clear that the cinematically precocious Coen brothers (writer-director Joel and writer-producer Ethan) were gifted filmmakers to watch out for. But it was the outrageously farcical Raising Arizona that announced the Coens' darkly comedic audacity to the world. lt wasn't widely seen when released in 1987, but its modest audience was vocally supportive, and this hyperactive comedy has since developed a large and loyal following. lt's the story of 'Ed' (for Edwina, played by Holly Hunter), a policewoman ...
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Emmanuelle in Space: A World of Desire (Unrated Edition)
»rank: 9303
:Description:Leos Carax's (Pola X, Lovers on the Bridge) brilliant feature debut follows the relationship of an aspiring filmmaker (Denis Lavant), who has just been left by his lover and a suicidal young woman (Mireille Perrier), who is also reeling from a failed romance.
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High Plains Drifter
»rank: 4967
: essential video:Clint Eastwood's second film as a director (and his first Western) is a variation on the 'man with no name' theme, starring Eastwood as the drifter known only as 'the Stranger.' He rides into the desert town of Lagos and is quickly attacked by three gunmen. Recovering with the aid of a local dwarf (a memorable role for Billy Curtis), the Stranger is hired by the intimidated townsfolk to fend off a band of violent ex-convicts. After teaching the citizens self-defense ...
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A Fistful of Dollars
»rank: 15441
: essential video:A Fistful of Dollars launched the spaghetti Western and catapulted Clint Eastwood to stardom. Based on Akira Kurosawa's 1961 samurai picture Yojimbo, it scored a resounding success (in ltaly in 1964 and the U.S. in 1967), as did its sequels, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The advertising campaign promoted Eastwood's character--laconic, amoral, dangerous--as the Man with No Name (though in the film he's clearly referred to as Joe), and audiences loved the movie's ...
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The Night Porter
»rank: 16018
:Description:After World War ll, writer-director Liliana Cavani interviewed a Nazi-concentration camp survivor who had been involved in a sadomasochistic relationship with a brutal guard. That interview was the inspiration for this perverse and explicit cult classic :For those who like their love stories dipped in decadence, Liliana Cavani's dark and disturbing 1974 drama--about a concentration camp survivor who fatefully comes face to face with her ex-Nazi captor and lover--has held up quite well over the years despite its sensationalistic tone. lt helps that ...
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Penitentiary 2
»rank: 15288
:Description:After World War ll, writer-director Liliana Cavani interviewed a Nazi-concentration camp survivor who had been involved in a sadomasochistic relationship with a brutal guard. That interview was the inspiration for this perverse and explicit cult classic :For those who like their love stories dipped in decadence, Liliana Cavani's dark and disturbing 1974 drama--about a concentration camp survivor who fatefully comes face to face with her ex-Nazi captor and lover--has held up quite well over the years despite its sensationalistic tone. lt helps that ...
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The Hunger
»rank: 15361
: :Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie are rich, beautiful, and oh-so chic as denizens of the night. Dressed in sleek outfits and stylish sunglasses, they haunt rock & roll clubs on the prowl for young blood, whom they bring home to their impossibly luxurious mansion for a late-night snack. Being a vampire never looked more sexy, but there's a price: Bowie starts to age so fast he wrinkles up in the waiting room of a doctor's (Susan Sarandon) office. The agelessly elegant Deneuve, evoking ...
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Texas Chainsaw Massacre
»rank: 13783
: essential video:This sensational, extremely influential, 1974 low-budget horror movie directed by Tobe Hooper (Poltergeist, Lifeforce, Salem's Lot), may be notorious for its title, but it's also a damn fine piece of moviemaking. And it's blood-curdling scary, too. Loosely based on the true crimes of Ed Gein (also a partial inspiration for Psycho), the original Jeffrey Dahmer, Texas Chainsaw Massacre follows a group of teenagers who pick up a hitchhiker and wind up in a backwoods horror chamber where they're held captive, tortured, ...
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Quick & The Dead
»rank: 15749
: essential video:Director Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead) tries gamely to recapture the exotic mysteries of spaghetti Westerns in this stylish but empty film, which stars Sharon Stone as a stranger who comes to the town of Redemption in time for an annual shooting contest. Her real motivations for being there are the stuff that might have found their way into a film by Sergio Leone--in fact, much of this film is a pastiche of Leone's greatest hits, including A Fistful of Dollars ...
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Cotton Comes to Harlem
»rank: 999
: :Based on Chester Himes's novel, this film marked actor-writer 0ssie Davis's directing debut. Godfrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques play Himes's volatile police detectives, Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, who are on the trail of white men who pulled an armed stickup at a Back to Africa rally in Harlem. The money belongs to the poor people who paid for a chance to return to the motherland--but was it really a stickup? 0r is the flashy preacher at the center of the ...
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