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ALPHABETICAL LISTING OF FILMS
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BABETTE'S FEAST

A woman flees to a small god-fearing community in Jutland, where she works for two old spinsters. Years of unpaid work end in a financial gift which she uses to give a feast to the community. E.S.T.

 

BABY DOLL
Elia Kazan classic which in 1956 shocked with Carroll Baker's child-woman oozing a mix of sex and vulnerability. Karl Madden.

 

A BAG OF RICE 

 Iran 1996 80 mins  Four-year-old Jairan is often lonely as her big noisy family never seems to have time for her. One day she joins her elderly neighbour on a shopping trip to buy rice but as the unlikely pair battle through the busy colourful streets of Tehran their mission begins to seem impossible…Specially recommended for children/family viewing

 

BAGDAD CAFE
Off beat comedy  about a deserted German Hausfrau who winds up helping to run an almost derelict cafe in the Nevada desert.

 

THE BALLAD OF JOE HILL
Directed by Bo Widerberg, this story of Joe Hill, young immigrant from Sweden who becomes a trade union organizer and balladeer, writer of many political folk songs. Striking if partisan picture of America in transition, on brink of economic and industrial pre-eminence.

 

THE BALLAD OF THE SAD CAFE
Strange, savage love story set in Depression era in U.S.A. Vanessa Redgrave & Rod Steiger. A Merchant Ivory film.

 

BANANAS
Mad Woody Allen film in which he is a gadget tester who somehow becomes a revolutionary leader in a mythical South American country.

 

Banking on Life & Debt. 

 USA 2001  30 mins.(11)  NTSC  Study Guide supplied Changes are argued for in current world monetary policies debts  and financial instability for developing countries. Ghana, Brazil and The Philippines are examples of  influences of the international banking community resulting in diminished living conditions. 

 

BARON MUNCHAUSEN
Full length cartoon of the incredible adventures of the Baron who is the world's greatest yarn spinner.

 

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS
Pontecorvo's acclaimed masterful study of terrorism set in the struggle of the Algerian nationalist movement to free themselves from French domination. A tense and exciting political thriller.

 

THE BATTLE FOR BERLIN
The original Russian documentary made in 1945 with English commentary. Over 40 Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian cameramen contributed footage to this remarkable documentary.

 

THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN
Eisenstein's most famous film. On this tape are two versions, each with a different famous musical score, one by Kryukov and the other by Meisel. Both versions with English subtitles.

 

BEAT THE DEVIL
Bogart, Lorre, Lollbrigida and Robert Morley as an eccentric gang searching for uranium in North Africa. Everyone is double-crossing. Dir. John Huston. Thoroughly recommended.

 

BECKET
Burton & O'Toole. A bitter personal feud develops between Becket and Henry II even though they were friends in their youth.

 

THE BEDFORD INCIDENT
Taut cold war thriller about ruthlessly efficient US destroyer captain hunting a Russian submarine in the Arctic Ocean.

 

BEETLEJUICE
A crazy story. Recently deceased couple seek help of freelance bio-exorcist to rid their home of the dire and dreary new owners.

 

BEING THERE
Peter Sellers as a feeble minded gardener who through an improbable chain of events becomes regarded as the font of real folk wisdom, a philosopher and a likely presidential candidate.

 

BELLE de JOUR
By Bunuel with Catherine Deneuve. English subtitles. A bored housewife indulges her masochistic tendencies by working afternoons in a brothel. Encountering a variety of bizarre clients, she falls in love.

 

THE BEST OF ELVIS COSTELLO
22 of his best hits. A 'new wave' (what ever that meant) artist from the late seventies.

 

THE BELLY OF AN ARCHITECT
Outrageous, hard drinking American architect in Rome with wife to set up an exhibition becomes obsessed with his health.

 

BEND IT WITH BECKHAM  

 UK 1998  108 mins.   Football-mad Jess is 18, beautiful, intelligent and can bend a ball better than any boy she knows. She has her heart set in getting into a top women’s team but her Indian background is against her. An enjoyable film to watch which also does more for good race relations than any amount of preaching.

 

THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE in TEXAS
Dolly Parton as brothel keeper in a song and dance musical based on the real life Chicken Ranch.

 

BETHUNE
The dramatised life of Dr Norman Bethune, Canadian surgeon-inventor who, from private practice in the slums of Detroit, became one of the folk heroes of China in the 1930's. A brilliant surgeon, and a great humanitarian, he also had a streak of egoism (don't we all?).

 

BETRAYAL
The principles of truth, the sanctity of friendship, the boundaries of faith are about to be shattered by a never revealed secret.

 

BEVERLY HILLS COP
Murphy's hilarious portrayal of Detective Axel Foley made this one of the top ten box office hits and made his name.

 

BICYCLE THIEVES
Really one of the great humanistic films of all time. An unemployed man has his essential bike stolen. His desperate attempt to recover it provides de Sica with a simple plot of enormous poignancy. EST.

 

THE BIG HEAT
Classic police action-drama. The investigation of the apparent suicide of a corrupt cop is stopped on orders from above.

 

                                                                                      THE BIG ONE

 USA 1998   86 mins     Michael Moore goes on a book-signing tour for his 1997 bestseller ‘Downsize This’. Targeting rich ‘fat cats’ who downsize their American enterprises to pastures new such as low wage rate Mexico that result in localised deprivation and job role degradation. He comes into conflict with large corporations such as Nike and Proctor & Gamble. He leaves nothing in his way from the human resource rep up to the C.E.O.s of large multi-corporate companies.

 

THE BIG SLEEP (Original version)
Bogart and Bacall. Philip Marlow, private-eye investigating the debts of a young woman. Dir Howard Hawkes.

 

THE BIG SLEEP (Remake 1977)
Robert Mitchum and Sarah Miles. Story as above but now set in London. Dir. Michael Winner.

 

A BIGGER SPLASH
Candid documentary of four years in the life of David Hockney, one of the most newsworthy of contemporary painters.

 

THE BIKO INQUEST
The life and death of Steve Biko one of the martyrs in the struggle against apartheid. Albert Finney as star and director.

 

BILL ON HIS OWN
Mickey Rooney gives an amazing performance as a man released after 47 years in a mental asylum. After a lifetime of institutional life he becomes a source of inspiration to those near him.

 

BILLY BUDD
The English National Opera production of Benjamin Britten's tale of sadism and injustice on a British man-of-war. Script E.M. Forster.

 

BILLY CONNOLLY 'BITES YER BUM!'
Connolly, in his younger days, filmed on stage. Not just a comic but a good mime of the rank of Marcel Marceau.

 

BILLY LIAR
Tom Courteney as the young lad in a humdrum job who escapes into wild fantasies and finally cannot sort them out from real life.

 

THE BIRDS
Hitchcock's thriller about the attack by birds of all shapes and sizes on the residents of Bodega Bay.

 

THE BIRTH OF A NATION
D.W.Griffith's masterpiece about the American Civil War and its aftermath. Silent with titles & music score. Colour tints.

 

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
Pinter's play, a comedy of menace, contemporary man's inability to cope with his fears and guilt. Set in a shabby English seaside boarding house where trivial conversation erupts into the terrifying.

 

BLACKMAIL
The first British 'talking' movie. In this Hitchcock demonstrated use of montage in the famous knife sequence.

 

BLACK NARCISSUS

Nuns in the Himalayas have trouble with climate, morale and the sexual frustrations of one of the nuns. Visually beautiful and emotionally stunning. Dir. Michael Powell. Cast Deborah Carr, David Farrar.

 

BLADE RUNNER
Dir. Ridley Scott. In a gloomy fluorescent-lit city of the future a cop tries to track down and destroy a group of mutinous androids.

 

BLAZING SADDLES
Mel Brooks send-up of the Wild West. A crooked lawyer and his partners are foiled by a black railway worker and a drunken gunman.

 

BLEAK MOMENTS
Mike Leigh story of suburban types living lives of quiet desperation and frequent absurdity. Below the wit is also sympathy.

 

THE BLUE ANGEL
Famous von Sternberg film of the professor who falls in love with Marlene Dietrich as a cabaret star and sinks into degradation.

 

BLONDE VENUS
Dietrich as aspiring young actress who gives up the stage to marry hopeful scientist who becomes afflicted with radium poisoning.

 

BLOW OUT
Suspense drama by Brian de Palma. A filmman films a car crash and gets involved in intrigue in high places involving a leading politician.

 

BLUE COLLAR
Critically acclaimed drama about 3 Detroit car workers. Union politics, corruption and the factory floor are the background to the story.

 

BOB MARLEY and THE WAILERS
When Marley died in 81, popular music lost one of its most creative forces. He took Reggae and made it a household word.

 

BOB MARLEY: LEGEND
Another compilation of some of Marley's best hits.

 

                                                                  BONHOEFFER: AGENT OF GRACE 

 USA     90 mins.   What is a moral person to do in a time of great immorality?  That question was central to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German clergyman of great distinction who actively opposed Hitler and the Nazis at great personal risk. His convictions eventually cost him his life.  Bonhoeffer’s last years are dramatised in this film. More than a biographical portrait, it sheds light on the little-known efforts of the resistance. Starring Ulrich Tukur, Robert Joy and others.

 

BONNIE and CLYDE
The story of the strange young couple who embarked on a furious voyage of crime, killing 18 people before being finally caught.

 

THE BOSTONIANS
Novel by Henry James. A story of women in love and women living in 19th century America. A Merchant Ivory film with Redgrave & Reeve.

 

   BOYS FROM THE BLACK STUFF.

 UK  1989  305 mins.  Dir: Philip Saville  Julie Walters & Bernard Hill star in this angry, funny, despairing, politicised drama written by Alan Bleasdale. A group of men are gradually stripped of their dignity, hope and even in one case, family, by the unending oppression of unemployment. Despite the grim outline, a deeply compassionate and frequently comical drama.   BBC T.V.  Two cassettes.

 

 

BOXCAR BERTHA
A young tough girl grows up in Arkansas in the 1930's. She sees her father die in a work incident and wreaks vengeance on his boss.

 

THE BOYARS' PLOT
Part 2 of IVAN THE TERRIBLE by Sergei Eisenstein. English subtitles. Intrigues at court as the nobles try to reduce Ivan's power. EST.

 

BRAZIL
By the makers of Monty Python. A futuristic fantasy in a world of bureaucracy gone mad. A humble office worker dreams of his ideal woman.

 

BREAD AND ROSES 

Dir. Ken Loach  2000.  Mexican immigrant cleaners who work in Los Angeles earn a pittance and get treated like dogs.  A young activist offers hope when he vows to help them get the justice and dignity that they deserve.  Inspired by the real life ‘Justice for Janitors’ campaign.  110 minutes.

 

BREAKER MORANT
One of the Australian 'new wave' films. At a rigged court-martial in the Boer War Morant is found guilty of shooting prisoners.

 

BREAKING AWAY
A fanatical cyclist in American small town admires Italian bike races so much that he creates the fantasy that he himself is Italian.

 

THE BRIDGE on the RIVER KWAI
Winner of many Academy Awards, this is David Lean's account of British P.O.W.s forced to build a railway bridge.

 

BRIEF ENCOUNTER
Also by David Lean. The famous wartime romance when two happily married strangers meet. Set almost completely on a railway station.

 

BRIGHTON ROCK
A young Richard Attenborough plays Pinkie Brown, leader of a ruthless gang who rule the underworld of Brighton. Story by Graham Greene.

 

BRIMSTONE & TREACLE
A demonic young man forces his way into a household with a bedridden mute protected by her naive but desperate parents. Written by Dennis Potter and originally made for TV but banned. This is a remake.

 

BRITANNIA HOSPITAL
Dir. Lindsay Anderson. Combines anarchic fun and 'Carry On' films' vulgarity with deeper social criticism of society today.

 

BROADCAST NEWS
Does for TV News what WALL ST. did for the stock exchange. Within a fast-moving comedy story is a serious statement about the function, value and direction of television news, at least the American version.

 

BROKEN BLOSSOMS
Long acclaimed DW Griffiths classic set in London's East End. Silent with a memorable music score. The film makes a plea for racial tolerance (unlike Griffith's BIRTH OF A NATION).

 

BUGSY MALONE
A spoof on the world of gangsters, hoodlums, showgirls and dreamers, played entirely by children average age 12.

 

                                                                               THE BURNING SEASON

  USA 1981  117 mins  Dir: John Frankenheimer (Chariots of Fire) The story of Chico Mendes who fought to save the Amazon rain forests from destruction and proved that one individual really can make a difference.   Raul Julia as Chico Mendes.

 

BUS STOP
One of Marilyn Monroe's less well known films. Young and innocent cowboy discovers the girl of his dreams and decides to make her his wife.

 

BUTCH CASSIDY and the SUNDANCE KID
Two train robbers always escape the law until finally caught in Bolivia. Famous film of its time. Humour and poetry.



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