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Imitation of Life
Douglas Sirk’s iconic masterpiece about race, class and gender in the 1950s. An aspiring actress with a 6 year old daughter arranges to live with a black widow and her 8 year old light-skinned daughter. Voted 37th best US movie in 2015 survey of film critics, received 2 Oscar nominations in 1960. Among the most
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The Rocket
This Australian underdog drama about a young boy thought to bring bad luck to his family is set in the little-filmed country of Laos (one of the world’s few remaining communist states and one of the poorest countries in East Asia), and spoken in the Lao language. While some of the film was filmed in
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Sherlock Jr
A film projectionist dreams of becoming a private detective. His wish comes true when he is framed for a theft. Suddenly, he must apply his scant sleuthing skills to save himself. Meanwhile his girlfriend takes a more practical approach. They don’t make ’em like they used to, or do they? This silent classic gives us
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Ninotchka
Garbo stars in a comedy romance, yes, this is the film where she laughs for the first time on screen. Gone is any trace of the tragic actor as Garbo plays a serious Russian sent to Paris on official business. Inculcated with loathing for Western values, she meets a roué out to charm her, played
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Love Affair
Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, and then… Often cited, most famously in Sleepless in Seattle, this instant hit was twice remade: in 1957 with Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Cathleen Nesbitt; and in 1994 with Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Katherine Hepburn. McCarey, who directed the first two, was a key figure in 1930’s Hollywood, mainly
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Tomboy
Summer holidays are when young people can find the freedom to push boundaries and explore their identity; relocating to a new home and school can let them change how they are perceived.
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A Foreign Affair
Billy Wilder has a filmography like none other. Between the mid-forties and early 60s, he directed such classics as Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard, The Seven Year Itch, Witness For the Prosecution, Some Like it Hot, and The Apartment. Born 1906 in a small town near Vienna, Wilder spent eight years as a
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The Lady Eve
Barbara Stanwyck shines in this hilarious revenge rom-com: a con woman sets her sights set on a likeable rich boob (Henry Fonda). One of the finest achievements of Golden Age Hollywood’s first writer-director, Preston Sturges.
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All That Heaven Allows
All That Heaven Allows turns the ‘May-December’ romance on its head as attractive widow Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) falls in love with younger, handsome gardener Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson). Douglas Sirk’s influential 1955 classic is regarded as his finest work.
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La Grande Illusion
Widely regarded as a masterpiece of French and humanist cinema, Jean Renoir’s 1937 tale of French POWs during the Great War deals with themes of class and social value as well as chivalry and resistance, reflecting the tensions in French society as another war approached. “The “grand illusion” of Jean Renoir’s great film referred originally
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