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Pascali's Island
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Condorman
: :A pre-Phantom Michael Crawford plays Woody, a goofy cartoonist-accidentally-turned-spy in this Cold War-era lark. In Paris visiting his friend, a CIA 'file clerk,' Woody is sent on a cloak-and-dagger errand and is mistaken for an operative by his beautiful Russian counterpart. She then contacts the agency with the demand that he, and only he, help her defect. Writer adopts comic book persona and voilà: Condorman! This wide-winged hero thwarts the pesky Soviets at every turn. From the old run-down farmer's truck he's driving emerges a flashy race car that outruns a ...
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M Butterfly
: essential video:Jeremy Irons gives another superb and underrated performance in M Butterfly, an elegant adaptation of the Broadway hit by playwright David Henry Hwang. Irons plays a French diplomat in China in 1964 who falls in love with a star of the Beijing Opera, not realizing that the entrancing performer holds secrets that will ruin his life--that the singer is a spy for the Communist government is only the beginning of the diplomat's troubles. Though M Butterfly may seem like a departure for director David Cronenberg (best known for horror and science ...
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Peter and Paul
: essential video:Jeremy Irons gives another superb and underrated performance in M Butterfly, an elegant adaptation of the Broadway hit by playwright David Henry Hwang. Irons plays a French diplomat in China in 1964 who falls in love with a star of the Beijing Opera, not realizing that the entrancing performer holds secrets that will ruin his life--that the singer is a spy for the Communist government is only the beginning of the diplomat's troubles. Though M Butterfly may seem like a departure for director David Cronenberg (best known for horror and science ...
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Day of the Jackal
: essential video:With its high-intensity plot about an attempt to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle, the bestselling novel by Frederick Forsyth was a prime candidate for screen adaptation. Director Fred Zinnemann brought his veteran skills to bear on what has become a timeless classic of screen suspense. Not to be confused with the later remake The Jackal starring Bruce Willis (which shamelessly embraced all the bombast that Zinnemann so wisely avoided), this 1973 thriller opts for lethal elegance and low-key tenacity in the form of the Jackal, the suave assassin ...
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Deja Vu
: :So romantic and haunting is Déja Vu's premise, it cries out for a director with more magic than Henry Jaglom can muster. Just before a long-engaged woman (Victoria Foyt, Jaglom's collaborator and second wife) slips into a serviceable marriage with a nice, if rather dull, guy (Michael Brandon), a chance encounter with an older Frenchwoman--a ghost?--derails her. After confiding memories of a dead-ended World War II love affair, the mysterious lady disappears, leaving behind a ruby pin that signifies one should never settle for less than the love of one's life. Drawn ...
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Assassination Bureau
: :So romantic and haunting is Déja Vu's premise, it cries out for a director with more magic than Henry Jaglom can muster. Just before a long-engaged woman (Victoria Foyt, Jaglom's collaborator and second wife) slips into a serviceable marriage with a nice, if rather dull, guy (Michael Brandon), a chance encounter with an older Frenchwoman--a ghost?--derails her. After confiding memories of a dead-ended World War II love affair, the mysterious lady disappears, leaving behind a ruby pin that signifies one should never settle for less than the love of one's life. Drawn ...
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Meridian
: :So romantic and haunting is Déja Vu's premise, it cries out for a director with more magic than Henry Jaglom can muster. Just before a long-engaged woman (Victoria Foyt, Jaglom's collaborator and second wife) slips into a serviceable marriage with a nice, if rather dull, guy (Michael Brandon), a chance encounter with an older Frenchwoman--a ghost?--derails her. After confiding memories of a dead-ended World War II love affair, the mysterious lady disappears, leaving behind a ruby pin that signifies one should never settle for less than the love of one's life. Drawn ...
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Poirot - Hercule Poirot's Christmas
: :This feature-length edition of the TV series popularized on PBS and A&E is the British equivalent of 'a very special episode.' The incomparable David Suchet stars as Agatha Christie's impeccable Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, whose simple Christmas 'repast' is disturbed by an invitation to visit the home of Simeon Lee, a repellent curmudgeon who makes Mr. Potter look like George Bailey. 'My life is in danger,' he states. Events snowball as Simeon is indeed killed, and a fortune in uncut diamonds stolen. As Poirot observes, a case can be made against ...
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Hunchback (1997)
:Description:Based on Victor Hugo's classic novel 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' involving a bell ringer who must save a young gypsy woman from an evil minister's obsession.
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