简介：Marg Duffield (Lee Remick) is the Maine wife of Al (Joseph Sommer) whose daughter Peg (Marlee Matlin) is deaf. Peg's husband is killed in a car accident on the way to visit the Maine house, and the Duffield's take in Peg's six year old daughter, Lisa, while Peg recovers. Since Lisa is a speaking child, Marg thinks of her the way she wanted Peg to be, and seeks guardian custody.Remick's role is secondary to Matlin's, though she is presented as a tragic figure, particularly as Al refuses to help her plan to gain Lisa. Peg's deafness is said to be from a childhood case of spinal meningitis, and the teleplay by Louisa Burns-Bisogno, with story by Louisa and Tom Bisogno, reduces Remick to a textbook mother who is self-hating from guilt and therefore cannot love her own daughter. In a memorable scene, Peg angrily signs her exit to Marg, since Marg has refused to learn sign language, though Peg has learned to speak for her mother.The treatment uses the Tennesee Williams play, The Glass Menagerie, for therapy, to help Peg overcome her grief and also Marg `lose her unicorn horn' and embrace her daughter. Whilst Peg choosing to act in this play may seem an odd choice for someone grieving, what is more noticable is that Matlin is far too more glamourous to be believable as Laura. The Bisogno's include Michael O'Keefe as Dan, Peg's deceased husband's best friend and director of Actors Theatre for the Deaf, to offer Peg a new romantic interest, and thankfully she rebukes his protestations of love. Although his opinion may be influenced by his `crush', Dan tells Peg that being different is better than being normal, since the normal ones are as `common as weeds'. This philosophy reads as rather Nietzschean, on the level of artists not being restricted to the common moral code.Director Karen Arthur either has those signing also speaking or those signing being translated for the audience, though in one scene the sound of lapping waves drowns out the dialogue between Dan and Peg. She also gives Matlin some good moments, one being her scream of horror when she hears the news of the death of her husband, and another when she chases Remick down a flight of steps, hitting her.
简介：This is an unusual film of exceptional values--75 minutes long in color, with hardly any spoken dialogs. I saw this Iranian film in Farsi without English subtitles at the Early Iranian cinema retrospective on-going International Film Festival of Kerala, India. That I was watching a print without subtitles did not make a difference as there were very few lines of spoken dialogs.This is a very accessible film for any audience to enjoy--its story and values are not merely Iranian, it's universal.The film is set in rural Iran that had not tasted petro-dollar prosperity. The setting is on fringes of desert land, where water is scarce, rainfall scanty and hardly any blade of grass is green. Add to it wind and dust that buffets and whips man and animal and you can imagine plight of the people who live on the fringes of society.The film is moving tale of a young teenager returning to his village with a goat--only to find his family and villagers have moved on to escape natures vagaries and that one old man remains. He gives the goat to him and goes in search of his family. Water is scarce and well water it treated with reverence and never wasted.
简介：Since ancient times, a tribe on the African continent has been prophesying that a white boy will arrive to be their god: the Son of the Moon. David, a 12-year-old orphan who lives in Europe, learns about the prophecy and believes that he is the chosen child and that destiny must be fulfilled at any cost. Before David can fulfill his prophecy he must escape the heavily guarded scientific organization that has adopted him. David's strange behavior and the fact that he possesses extrasensory perception, has attracted the attention of an organization researching so-called "prodigious beings" in the occult tradition. David soon discovers that their goal is to channel the moon's energy into a child yet to be born, robbing him of his rightful place as the Son of the Moon. Two women, Victoria, a member of the center, and Georgina, the future mother of the supposed moonchild, will help David fulfill his destiny. After several attempts David manages to escape the center and undergoes a series of new experiences: love, adventure, supernatural events and even death. David is relentlessly pursued, pushing him further towards his goal, towards Africa where his fate awaits him.
简介：Fraught with over obvious symbolism, Hartley's early feature is nonetheless a joy to watch. Hal here shows us his uncanny ability to cast his characters perfectly came early in his career.Adrienne Shelley is a near perfect foil to herself, equal parts annoying teen burgeoning in her sexuality (though using sex for several years); obsessed with doom and inspired by idealism gone wrong she is deceptively – and simultaneously – complex and simple. Her Audrey inspires so many levels of symbolism it is almost embarrassingly rich (e.g., her modeling career beginning with photos of her foot – culminating her doing nude (but unseen) work; Manhattan move; Europe trip; her stealing, then sleeping with the mechanics wrench, etc.)As Josh, Robert Burke gives an absolutely masterful performance. A reformed prisoner/penitent he returns to his home town to face down past demons, accept his lot and begin a new life. Dressed in black, and repeatedly mistaken for a priest, he corrects everyone ("I'm a mechanic"), yet the symbolism is rich: he abstains from alcohol, he practices celibacy (is, in fact a virgin), and seemingly has taken on vows of poverty, and humility as well. The humility seems hardest to swallow seeming, at times, almost false, a pretense. Yet, as we learn more of Josh we see genuineness in his modesty, that his humility is indeed earnest and believable. What seems ironic is the character is fairly forthright in his simplicity, yet so richly drawn it becomes the viewer who wants to make him out as more than what he actually is. A fascinatingly written character, perfectly played.The scene between Josh and Jane (a wonderful, young Edie Falco . . . "You need a woman not a girl") is hilarious . . . real. But Hartley can't leave it as such and his trick, having the actors repeat the dialogue over-and-over becomes frustratingly "arty" and annoying . . . until again it becomes hilarious. What a terrific sense of bizarre reality this lends the film (like kids in a perpetual "am not"/"are too" argument).Hartley's weaves all of a small neighborhood's idiosyncrasies into a tapestry of seeming stereotypes but which delves far beneath the surface, the catalyst being that everyone believes they know what the "unbelievable truth" of the title is, yet no two people can agree (including our hero) on what exactly that truth is. A wonderful little movie with some big ideas.
简介：丹尼尔（拉尔夫·马奇奥 Ralph Macchio 饰）在一场万众瞩目的比赛中战胜了克瑞斯的徒弟，取得头筹，这让好胜心极强的克瑞斯恼羞成怒，竟然出手痛打徒弟。最终，身败名裂的克瑞斯被迫关闭了道场，在行业内销声匿迹。泰瑞（托马斯·伊安·格里菲斯 Thomas Ian Griffith 饰）是克瑞斯的好友，看到曾经风光一时的友人如今落得老鼠过街人人喊打的境地，愤怒的他决心向丹尼尔寻仇。通过幕后操纵，泰瑞迫使丹尼尔参加了锦标赛，之后雇佣了绝世高手，想要给丹尼尔一个下马威。为了赢得胜利，丹尼尔向自己的师父宫城先生（森田则之 饰）求助，哪知道宫城先生竟然对丹尼尔不管不顾。