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The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
: :Set in northern Italy's Ferrara community at the outbreak of World War II, this classic film by Vittorio De Sica concerns an old, aristocratic Jewish family, the Finzi-Continis, who maintain their isolated, idyllic ways within the stone walls of their lush estate while Mussolini imprisons Jews outside. The story's central figure, young Giorgio (Lino Capolicchio), is a middle-class Jew who has always found perfect sanctuary within the Finzi-Continis' walls and who is in love with his childhood friend from ...
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Red Sorghum
: :Set in northern Italy's Ferrara community at the outbreak of World War II, this classic film by Vittorio De Sica concerns an old, aristocratic Jewish family, the Finzi-Continis, who maintain their isolated, idyllic ways within the stone walls of their lush estate while Mussolini imprisons Jews outside. The story's central figure, young Giorgio (Lino Capolicchio), is a middle-class Jew who has always found perfect sanctuary within the Finzi-Continis' walls and who is in love with his childhood friend from ...
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Les Miserables
: :This brilliant film manages to reinterpret the story of Victor Hugo's classic novel, critique it, and investigate the nature of art and life on top of that--all in three hours that zip past, fueled by the dynamic performance of French icon Jean-Paul Belmondo (Breathless, Le Doulos). In 1900, Henri Fortin (Belmondo) is wrongfully imprisoned for murder; his loyal wife is forced into menial labor and prostitution; then in the beginning of World War II, Fortin's son (Belmondo again) helps ...
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'Ay, Carmela!'
: :This brilliant film manages to reinterpret the story of Victor Hugo's classic novel, critique it, and investigate the nature of art and life on top of that--all in three hours that zip past, fueled by the dynamic performance of French icon Jean-Paul Belmondo (Breathless, Le Doulos). In 1900, Henri Fortin (Belmondo) is wrongfully imprisoned for murder; his loyal wife is forced into menial labor and prostitution; then in the beginning of World War II, Fortin's son (Belmondo again) helps ...
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Les Miserables
: :This brilliant film manages to reinterpret the story of Victor Hugo's classic novel, critique it, and investigate the nature of art and life on top of that--all in three hours that zip past, fueled by the dynamic performance of French icon Jean-Paul Belmondo (Breathless, Le Doulos). In 1900, Henri Fortin (Belmondo) is wrongfully imprisoned for murder; his loyal wife is forced into menial labor and prostitution; then in the beginning of World War II, Fortin's son (Belmondo again) helps ...
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The Assisi Underground
: :This brilliant film manages to reinterpret the story of Victor Hugo's classic novel, critique it, and investigate the nature of art and life on top of that--all in three hours that zip past, fueled by the dynamic performance of French icon Jean-Paul Belmondo (Breathless, Le Doulos). In 1900, Henri Fortin (Belmondo) is wrongfully imprisoned for murder; his loyal wife is forced into menial labor and prostitution; then in the beginning of World War II, Fortin's son (Belmondo again) helps ...
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The Scent of Green Papaya
: :'Watching it is like seeing a poem for the eyes.' That's how Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert described this exquisite, Oscar-nominated, French-Vietnamese film from 1993, which begins in the 1950s and ends more than a decade later during the early years of the Vietnam war. The story is set almost entirely in a Saigon house where a 10-year-old orphan girl named Mui arrives to work as a servant. As she grows into a beautiful young woman, Mui is quietly ...
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Enemy at the Gates (Spec)
: :Like Saving Private Ryan, Enemy at the Gates opens with a pivotal event of World War II--the German invasion of Stalingrad--re-created in epic scale, as ill-trained Russian soldiers face German attack or punitive execution if they flee from the enemy's advance. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud captures this madness with urgent authenticity, creating a massive context for a more intimate battle waged amid the city's ruins. Embellished from its basis in fact, the story shifts to an intense cat-and-mouse game between ...
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The Bunker
:Description:Anthony Hopkins gives an Emmy Award-winning performance as Adolf Hitler over the 105 days of his decline. With the Third Reich crumbling around him, Hitler rages as he faces the final hours before a choice must be made between suicide and surrender.
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Colonel Chabert
: :A left-for-dead soldier tries to regain his fiercely disputed identity after a decade-long disappearance in this slow but engrossing adaptation of Balzac's classic Napoleonic-era novel. In his directorial debut, Yves Angelo (the brilliant cinematographer of, among others, Baxter and Un Coeur en Hiver) compensates for an occasionally plodding narrative with some startlingly lavish compositions and a masterful use of sound--particularly during some stunning combat flashbacks. An uneven, often viscerally compelling film bolstered by a haunting opening sequence and the ...
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