Larks on a String (1990)
Genre : Drama, Romance, Comedy
Runtime : 1H 34M
Director : Jiří Menzel
Writer : Jiří Menzel, Bohumil Hrabal
Synopsis
In post-WWII Communist Czechoslovakia, several characters considered bourgeois are sentenced to work in a junkyard for rehabilitation. Among them is a young man who pines for a female convict.
In 1800, as Napoleon Bonaparte rises to power in France, a rivalry erupts between Armand and Gabriel, two lieutenants in the French Army, over a perceived insult. For over a decade, they engage in a series of duels amidst larger conflicts, including the failed French invasion of Russia in 1812, and shifts in the political and social systems of Europe.
John Hall is a drifter who wanders into a small town in Maine. He needs a job and decides to seek employment at the community's top business: a large textile mill. He is hired to work the "graveyard shift" -- from around midnight to dawn -- and, along with a few others, he is charged with cleaning out the basement. This task strikes the workers as simple enough, but then, as they proceed deeper underground, they encounter an unspeakable monstrosity intent on devouring them all.
In medieval Japan, a woman and his children journey to find the family's patriarch, who was exiled years before.
It is just another day in the small town of Hamlin until something disastrous happens. Suddenly, news breaks that a series of nuclear warheads has been dropped along the Eastern Seaboard and, more locally, in California. As people begin coping with the devastating aftermath of the attacks — many suffer radiation poisoning — the Wetherly family tries to survive.
A rebellious youth sentenced to a reformatory for robbing a bakery rises through the ranks of the institution through his prowess as a long distance runner. During his solitary runs, reveries of his life and times before his incarceration lead him to re-evaluate his privileged status as a prized athlete.
After a long journey, Philip arrives at the Usher mansion seeking his loved one, Madeline. Upon arriving, however, he discovers that Madeline and her brother Roderick Usher have been afflicted with a mysterious malady: Roderick's senses have become painfully acute, while Madeline has become catatonic. That evening, Roderick tells his guest of an old Usher family curse: any time there has been more than one Usher child, all of the siblings have gone insane and died horrible deaths. As the days wear on, the effects of the curse reach their terrifying climax.
Five O. Henry stories, each separate. The primary one from the critic's acclaim was "The Cop and the Anthem". Soapy tells fellow bum Horace that he is going to get arrested so he can spend the winter in a nice jail cell. He fails. He can't even accost a woman; she turns out to be a streetwalker. The other stories are "The Clarion Call", "The Last Leaf", "The Ransom of Red Chief", and "The Gift of the Magi".
After a road accident in Hungary, the American honeymooners Joan and Peter and the enigmatic Dr. Werdegast find refuge in the house of the famed architect Hjalmar Poelzig, who shares a dark past with the doctor.
Lucky is tricked into missing his own wedding again and has to make $25,000 so her father allows him to marry Margaret. He and business partner Pop go to New York where they run into dancing instructor Penny. She and Lucky form a successful dance partnership, but romance is blighted by his old attachment to Margaret and hers for Ricky Romero.
A man who deals with parcels at an airport cargo company finds that he likes planes more than people.
Things seem pretty bad for a young girl living a "hard-knock life" in an orphanage. Fed up with the dastardly Miss Hannigan, Annie escapes the run-down orphanage determined to find her mom and dad. It's an adventure that takes her from the cold, mean streets of New York to the warm, comforting arms of bighearted billionaire Oliver Warbucks - with plenty of mischief and music in between.
An introspective dentist's suspicions about his wife's infidelity stresses his mental well being and family life to the breaking point.
Trilogy is an anthology film of three adaptations of Truman Capote short stories: Miriam, Among the Paths to Eden and A Christmas Memory. It was listed to compete at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, but the festival was cancelled due to the events of May 1968 in France.
During the Nazi occupation of a Czech city civilians are being rounded up on the slightest of pretexts and shot. One day three high school boys who crack jokes about a recently deceased "hero of the Reich" are pulled out of school by the Gestapo.
Komedianti is a 1954 Czech film directed by Vladimír Vlcek. It was entered into the 1954 Cannes Film Festival.
A newlywed couple attempts to save their marriage by recreating a petty crime.
Impressionistic film based on a Maupassant story about five friends who fall in love with the same beautiful girl one summer.
An elderly, yet young-at-heart man, moves in with his grandson, and both their lives turn upside-down.
Janet recalls the summer during her teenage years when her family moved yet again for her father's job with NASA, including him teaching her to drive and her meeting her first boyfriend.
