Lists

Picture of a movie: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Picture of a movie: A Woman Under the Influence
Picture of a movie: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Picture of a movie: Two-Lane Blacktop
Picture of a movie: Taxi Driver
Picture of a movie: Sorcerer
Picture of a movie: Serpico
Picture of a movie: Saturday Night Fever
Picture of a movie: Rosemary's Baby
Picture of a movie: Rocky
Picture of a movie: Paper Moon
Picture of a movie: Network
Picture of a movie: Nashville
Picture of a movie: Midnight Cowboy
Picture of a movie: Medium Cool
Picture of a movie: McCabe & Mrs. Miller

48 Movies

New Hollywood Era

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Mid-1960s to 1980s, and possibly several movements depending on what you read. Spaghetti Westerns, Commedia all'italiana, and French New Wave are doing great in American cinemas, and "traditional Hollywood" is on the decline. Studios turn to new writers and directors to try to capture the "European Phenomenon." This is the beginning of the great 1970s revolution of American film: technological advancements, anti-establishment politics, counter culture and liberalization of sexuality, and the later rise of major blockbuster films

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Paper Moon

1973
Set in the midwest of the depression-era, Paper Moon follows Moses Pray and Addie Loggins - one a con artist, the other, the young girl who's the daughter of a woman who's just passed away. The pair meet when 'Mose' stops by the sparsely-attended funeral in Kansas of a woman he once knew (we never see her). In attendance, is the woman's young daughter, Addie, whom Moses agrees to transport to St Joseph, Mo -- for money, of course. Mose - an inveterate hustler, has been working ostensibly as a representative of the Kansas Bible Company - who picks his marks from the obits, and tries to sell - at exorbitant prices - the decedents' spouse the custom bible they'd previously ordered. Wise beyond her years, Addie picks up on Moses' grift, and very quickly, she and Mose become a team. Traveling from town to town, making money in every dishonest way imaginable, and looking for the ultimate score. The colorful characters they meet along the way make the film all the more interesting. One in particular - Miss Trixie Delight - an exotic dancer who Mose rescues from a traveling carnival and the girl who works for her, poor, suffering Imogene. Addie sees Miss Delight as a potential rival, and she concocts a plan with Imogene to free themselves of her. The film's peppered with regional dialogue, one of the most memorable line's uttered when Mose is forced to wrestle a backwoodsman in order to trade his new car for the hillbilly's battered old truck; "make him say calf-rope, Leroy!" one of the observers calls out. Paper Moon, directed by Peter Bogdonovich is adapted from the novel, "Addie Pray" (1971) by Joe David Brown.
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Nashville

1975
Five days in the Nashville country and gospel music scene, filled with stars, wannabe stars, and other hangers-on - individual stories of this small group intertwined - provides a commentary on American society. The stars include: good ol' boy Haven Hamilton, whose patriotic songs leading up to the American bicentennial belie his controlling and ruthless nature; Barbara Jean, the country music darling who is just returning to Nashville and performing following recovery from a fire-related injury which may have taken more of an emotional toll than a physical one; and good looking and charismatic Tom Frank, one-third of the successful group Bill, Mary, and Tom, he who is trying to go solo, which masks his need to not be solo in his personal life as he emotionally abuses woman after woman in love with him, including Mary who is married to Bill. The wannabe stars include: Albuquerque, whose real name is Winifred, who is trying to run away from her husband Star in he not approving of her career choice; and Sueleen Gay, a waitress who will do anything to make it big in music despite being told directly that she has no singing talent. Tying their stories together are: Opal, a supposed reporter for the BBC who is working on a documentary and is searching for whatever angle she can; John Triplette, a Yankee in town to organize political fundraisers, including a country music outdoor concert, for third party (the Replacement Party) presidential candidate, populist Hal Phillip Walker, who has the potential to take just enough votes to affect the election; and Martha, who has renamed herself L.A. Jones, who is in town to visit her hospitalized ailing aunt, but who instead decides to be a groupie to any country music star she can find.

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Picture of a movie: A Streetcar Named Desire
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A Streetcar Named Desire

1951
Blanche DuBois, a high school English teacher with an aristocratic background from Auriol, Mississippi, decides to move to live with her sister and brother-in-law, Stella and Stanley Kowalski, in New Orleans after creditors take over the family property, Belle Reve. Blanche has also decided to take a break from teaching as she states the situation has frayed her nerves. Knowing nothing about Stanley or the Kowalskis' lives, Blanche is shocked to find that they live in a cramped and run down ground floor apartment - which she proceeds to beautify by putting shades over the open light bulbs to soften the lighting - and that Stanley is not the gentleman that she is used to in men. As such, Blanche and Stanley have an antagonistic relationship from the start. Blanche finds that Stanley's hyper-masculinity, which often displays itself in physical outbursts, is common, coarse and vulgar, being common which in turn is what attracted Stella to him. Beyond finding Blanche's delicate hoidy-toidy act as putting on airs, Stanley, a plant worker, believes she may really have sold Belle Reve and is withholding Stella's fair share of the proceeds from them. What further affects the relationship between the three is that Stella is in the early stage of pregnancy with her and Stanley's first child. Soon after her arrival at the Kowalskis, Blanche starts to date Mitch, one of Stanley's friends and coworkers who is a little softer around the edges than most of Stanley's friends. Mitch does not hide the fact that he is looking in general to get married because of a personal issue, he wanting Blanche ultimately to be his wife. Mitch is somewhat unaware that Blanche has somewhat controlled their courtship to put herself in the best possible light, both figuratively and literally. But in Stanley's quest to find out the truth about Belle Reve and Blanche's life in Auriol, the interrelationships between Stanley, Blanche, Stella and Mitch may be irrevocably affected, with any revelation about that life which may further destroy what's left of Blanche's already damaged mental state.
Picture of a movie: The Verdict
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The Verdict

1983
Frank Galvin was once a promising Boston lawyer with a bright future ahead. An incident early in his career in which he was trying to do the right thing led to him being fired from the prestigious law firm with which he was working, almost being disbarred, and his wife leaving him. Continually drowning his sorrows in booze, he is now an ambulance-chasing lawyer, preying on the weak and vulnerable, and bending the truth whenever necessary to make what few dollars he has, as he has only had a few cases in the last few years, losing the last four. His only friend in the profession is his now retired ex-partner, Mickey Morrissey, who gets Frank a case, his fee solely a percentage of what his clients are awarded. The case should net Frank tens of thousands of dollars by settling out of court, that money which would at least get him back on his feet. It is a negligence suit brought on behalf of Deborah Ann Kaye by her sister and brother-in-law, Sally and Kevin Doneghy, against St. Catherine Labouré Hospital, operated by the Archdiocese of Boston, and Drs. Towler and Marks. Kaye was admitted to the hospital for what should have been a routine delivery, but something that happened while Kaye was on the operating room table led to her brain being deprived of oxygen, resulting in permanent brain damage, and Kaye now being in a totally vegetative state requiring hospitalization for the rest of her life. Frank eventually learns that the cause seems to be that Dr. Towler, the anesthesiologist and an expert in the field, used the incorrect anesthetic for the situation. However, all but one person that was in the operating room that day has provided depositions that nothing improper occurred in the operating room. The one holdout is the operating room head nurse, Maureen Rooney, who is not talking, period, to Frank or the other side. Upon seeing the state Kaye is in, Frank unilaterally decides to do what he believes is the right thing by declining the lucrative out-of-court settlement offered by the Archdiocese and take the case to court. In doing so, he hopes the truth that the hospital and the doctors truly were negligent comes to light. Feeling that this case may be a turning point in his life, Frank has a new spring in his step, enough that he attracts the attention of Laura Fischer, the two who begin a relationship. Despite having whatever the truth is on his side, that truth which he does not know, and having an expert witness of his own, Frank has an uphill battle in that the Archdiocese has retained the services of Ed Concannon, a high-priced lawyer who has a large team of associates whose task is to help Concannon and the Archdiocese win at any cost. Concannon's task seems even easier as Judge Hoyle, the presiding judge, is already biased against Frank for taking the case to court.

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