BBC - Troubadours: The Rise of the Singer-Songwriter (2011)
HDTV | 1024x576 | .MKV/AVC @ 1125 Kbps | 1h 22mn | Audio: English AAC 132 kbps, 2 channels | Subs: English | 758 MiB
Genre: Documentary

Morgan Neville's full-length documentary is James Taylor and Carole King's first-hand account of the genesis and blossoming of the 1970s singer-songwriter culture in LA, focusing on the backgrounds and emerging collaboration between Taylor, King and the Troubadour, the famed West Hollywood club that nurtured a community of gifted young artists and singer-songwriters. Taylor and King first performed together at the Troubadour in November 1970, and the film explores their coming together and the growth of a new, personal voice in songwriting pioneered by a small group of fledgling artists around the club. Contributors include Taylor, King, David Crosby, Roger McGuinn, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Kris Kristofferson, JD Souther, Peter Asher, Cheech & Chong, Steve Martin and Elton John.

A meek agent at the Showa Life Insurance company receives a phone call from a customer who says that she's planning to commit suicide and wants to know if her policy will pay out. Concerned about her safety, the agent visits her house only to find that her young son has hanged himself. As he investigates further, more and more people connected with this family start having 'accidents,' and if he's not careful, he might be next.

Best-selling author Michael Crichton wrote and directed this science fiction thriller that combined the influences of Blade Runner (1982), comic books, and Crichton's ongoing fascination with the dangers of high technology. Tom Selleck stars as Sergeant Jack Ramsey, a single father in the near future, when robots have largely replaced humans in performing menial labor. However, the robots occasionally malfunction, threatening human life and requiring a specialist like Jack, who terminates the haywire "runaways." Investigating a particularly nasty series of recent cases, Jack and his new partner Karen Thompson (Cynthia Rhodes) discover a connection between the runaways and Charles Luther (Kiss frontsman Gene Simmons). Luther, a maniacal genius, is masterminding a plot to create an army of killing machines. With time running out, it's up to Jack and Karen to match wits with Luther and save humanity.

Nick and Nora Charles are updated to a touchy-feely couple of the 1990s who take a break from the action to raise their eleven-month-old child. Kathleen Turner and Dennis Quaid star as Jane and Jeff Blue, two CIA super-agents who have abandoned the daily grind to devote quality time to their baby but find trouble on vacation in New Orleans. First a group of muggers try to take advantage of Jeff as he walks down the street with his baby in tow. Jeff teaches the boys a humiliating lesson, but one of the creepy bad guys, Muerte (Stanley Tucci), vows revenge, and he spends the rest of the movie dogging Jeff and Jane and getting kicked in the teeth in the process. But Muerte is small potatoes compared to Novacek (Fiona Shaw), a former Czech agent. Convinced to return to work by their superiors, Jeff and Jane have to catch Novacek red-handed buying illegal explosives from a New Orleans traitor so that the government can send her back to the Czech republic.

"It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily," purrs Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express. She certainly has her well-manicured hands full with more men than she can count in this exotic far-Eastern adventure. Among her fellow passengers on the Shanghai Express are her disillusioned former fiance, stalwart British medical corps officer Clive Brook; overfervent missionary Lawrence Grant; dope smuggler Gustav von Seyffertitz; and mysterious Eurasian businessman Warner Oland. As the train chugs through the more treacherous passages of war-torn China, Oland reveals himself as the leader of a rebel group, who plans to hold the passengers hostage to secure the release of his imprisoned followers. In Boule de Suif fashion, Dietrich, who is a notorious "Chinese coaster" but who has remained sexually aloof throughout the trip, gives herself to Oland to save the life of Brook, the man she truly loves.

The Legacy is a modern family portrait. A description of the '68 generation and their children. A narrative about the sharp traces and consequences left by an intense time of upheaval upon modern family life - whether it takes place in a seemingly liberated and progressive artist's home or in a more traditional community-oriented, provincial and handball-minded environment. The serial plays out at the legendary manor Grønnegaard, southern Funen, where the internationally renowned artist Veronika Grønnegaard has lived an eccentric and colorful life since the wild sixties. The serial follows Veronika's four adult children whose free and chaotic childhood at Grønnegaard has left its mark on them in very different ways. They live scattered to the four winds until Veronika dies and they gather to wind up the estate. Just before she dies, Veronika leaves the manor to her daughter Signe, who was given up for adoption. Signe lives with her partner in a quiet residential area in the local town.

Japan's contributions to the 1957 Venice Film Festival included three earlier-vintage Kenzi Mizoguchi films. Produced in 1951, Musashino Fujin (aka Mrs. Musashino and Lady Musashino) is another of Mizoguchi's pro-feminist efforts. The title character comes to grief when she falls in love with her cousin. In any other culture, this would constitute a betrayal, except that the woman's husband is a flagrant philanderer. In the end, however, Lady Musashino is let down by both the men in her life. Her drastic solution to her problem is treated by the director as an act of courage and defiance.