#650 – Barton Fink, 1991, Joel Coen
A renowned New York playwright is enticed to California to write for the movies and discovers the hellish truth of Hollywood.
JUMBO CACTUAR APPROVED FILM
#651: The Hunt
#651 – The Hunt, (Jagten), 2012, Thomas Vinteberg
A teacher lives a lonely life, all the while struggling over his son’s custody. His life slowly gets better as he finds love and receives good news from his son, but his new luck is about to be brutally shattered by an innocent little lie.
#652: The Color of Pomegranates,
#652 – The Color of Pomegranates, (Цвет граната), 1969, Sergei Parajanov
The life of the revered 18th-century Armenian poet and musician Sayat-Nova. Portraying events in the life of the artist from childhood up to his death, the movie addresses in particular his relationships with women, including his muse. The production tells Sayat-Nova’s dramatic story by using both his poems and largely still camerawork, creating a work hailed as revolutionary by Mikhail Vartanov.
#653: The Celebration
#653 – The Celebration, (Festen), 1998, Thomas Vinteberg
A grandiose party to celebrate a sixtieth birthday unleashes a family drama with all the lies that conceal horrendous secrets. The eldest son, Christian, stages a showdown with the popular pater familias; his provocative, moving after-dinner speech dislodges all the masks, which finally fall completely as the father-son conflict intensifies and the bewildered guests look on.
#654: Mouchette
#654 – Mouchette, 1967, Robert Bresson
A young girl living in the French countryside suffers constant indignities at the hand of alcoholism and her fellow man.
#655: Predator
#655 – Predator, 1987, John McTiernan
Dutch and his group of commandos are hired by the CIA to rescue downed airmen from guerillas in a Central American jungle. The mission goes well but as they return they find that something is hunting them. Nearly invisible, it blends in with the forest, taking trophies from the bodies of its victims as it goes along. Occasionally seeing through its eyes, the audience sees it is an intelligent alien hunter, hunting them for sport, killing them off one at a time.
JUMBO CACTUAR APPROVED FILM
#656: Kill Bill: Vol 2
#656 – Kill Bill: Vol 2, 2004, Quentin Tarantino
The Bride unwaveringly continues on her roaring rampage of revenge against the band of assassins who had tried to kill her and her unborn child. She visits each of her former associates one-by-one, checking off the victims on her Death List Five until there’s nothing left to do … but kill Bill.
JUMBO CACTUAR APPROVED FILM
#657: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
#657 – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, 1966, Mike Nichols
A bitter, aging couple, with the help of alcohol, use a young couple to fuel anguish and emotional pain towards each other.
#658: Love Streams
#658 – Love Streams, 1984, John Cassavetes
Two closely-bound, emotionally wounded siblings reunite after years apart.
#659: The Holy Mountain
#659 – The Holy Mountain, (La montaña sagrada), 1973, Alejandro Jodorowsky
A Mexican master leads a Christ figure and other disciples to a mountain of immortal wise men. The scandal of the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, writer/director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s flood of sacrilegious imagery and existential symbolism in The Holy Mountain is a spiritual quest for enlightenment pitting illusion against truth. The Alchemist assembles together a group of people from all walks of life to represent the planets in the solar system. The occult adept’s intention is to put his recruits through strange mystical rites and divest them of their worldly baggage before embarking on a trip to Lotus Island. There they ascend the Holy Mountain to displace the immortal gods who secretly rule the universe.
Jumbo Cactuar Film Index 