Film Reviews · Backpex

Title	Overview		Toggle columns Title Overview
Paisan	Six vignettes follow the Allied invasion from July 1943 to winter 1944, from Sicily north to Venice.
Best Wishes from Missangertrask	Nadja, a single girl living the big city life finds herself stressed out over the wish of having a child of her own as she realizes the biological clock is ticking. She is prepared to do almost anything to fulfill her dreams but finds out that the abortion laws are about to change. To qualify as a mum, within the next 30 days she has to find herself a husband. She already discovered that chances finding a husband willing to do this on such short notice are slim to none in the big city. Maybe it is easier on the countryside?
Princesse Tam Tam	A French novelist passes off a African shepherdess as a princess.
Play It to the Bone	Two aging fighters in LA, friends, get a call from a Vegas promoter because his undercard fighters for a Mike Tyson bout that night are suddenly unavailable. He wants them to box each other. They agree as long as the winner gets a shot at the middleweight title. They enlist Grace, Cesar's current and Vinnie's ex girlfriend, to drive them to Vegas.
I Am Taraneh, I Am Fifteen Years Old	Taraneh is a model 15-year-old Iranian girl, studious and filial, who supports her ailing grandmother with a job at a photo shop and visits her father (who has been imprisoned for reasons never made clear in the film) bearing gifts of cigarettes and magazines. But when Amir, a young man from a well-off family, sets his sights on Taraneh and courts her with an intensity that borders on stalking, her well-ordered life spirals into chaos.
The Whole Town's Talking	Ordinary man-in-the-street Arthur Ferguson Jones leads a very straightforward life. He's never late for work and nothing interesting ever happens to him. One day everything changes: he oversleeps and is fired as an example, he's then mistaken for evil criminal killer Mannion and is arrested. The resemblance is so striking that the police give him a special pass to avoid a similar mistake. The real Mannion sees the opportunity to steal the pass and move around freely and chaos results.
His Private Secretary	Dick Wallace wants to marry a minister's grand-daughter but his father, who wants him to get work on his company's business, is opposed. She takes a job with the company to prove she's okay.
Come September	Robert Talbot, an American millionaire, arrives early for his annual vacation at his luxurious Italian villa. His long-time girlfriend Lisa has given up waiting for him and has decided to marry another man. Meanwhile, his sneaky business associate Maurice secretly misappropriates the villa as a hotel while Talbot is away. The current guests of the "hotel" are a group of young American girls.
A Good Man	After an illustrious special ops career ends in disaster, Alexander goes off the grid and attempts to lead a quiet life as a handyman at an apartment complex. But when one of his tenants and her family fall under the thumb of a Russian gangster, Alexander is dragged into an all-out war between rival Chinese and Russian gangs; forcing him to not only defend the family, but bringing him face to face with an old foe, and giving him one more chance to reconcile his past.
Shame	Ingmar Bergman's psychological study of how humans react in a situation of war. The film takes place on Gotland, where invasion forces arrives.
The Overcoat	The Overcoat is a 1959 Soviet film directed by Aleksey Batalov, based on Nikolai Gogol story "The Overcoat".
Under the Sun of Satan	Satan tempts Father Dossignan, who is trying to save the soul of a young girl who killed one of her lovers.
Death Valley	Four strangers on a drunken wedding dash from LA to Vegas hit a mysterious woman in the desert and must overcome injuries, the elements, and ultimately each other to survive.
El padrecito	The young priest Father Sebastián (played by Cantinflas) is assigned to a parish in San Jeronimo el Alto, where he is not welcomed by the community, particularly the resident priest Father Damián (played by Ángel Garasa). The newcomer gradually earns the trust of the people through humor, but firmly captures their hearts by saving the town fiesta by fighting a bull when the hired torero failed to show.Father Sebastián counsels the townspeople, lecturing them on their duties in a modern society. He used the collection plate to redistribute the town's wealth more evenly. When accused of communism, he quoted the 1891 socially-conscious encyclical Rerum Novarum. He even ventured into politics, with a veiled attack on the municipal president couched into a sermon. Eventually, he brokers a deal with the local political boss for some concessions for the poor of his parish.
Hitchcock	Hitchcock follows the relationship between director Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville during the making of his most famous film "Psycho" - and the trials and tribulations the director faced from Hollywood censors.

Paisan

Six vignettes follow the Allied invasion from July 1943 to winter 1944, from Sicily north to Venice.

Best Wishes from Missangertrask

Nadja, a single girl living the big city life finds herself stressed out over the wish of having a child of her own as she realizes the biological clock is ticking. She is prepared to do almost anything to fulfill her dreams but finds out that the abortion laws are about to change. To qualify as a mum, within the next 30 days she has to find herself a husband. She already discovered that chances finding a husband willing to do this on such short notice are slim to none in the big city. Maybe it is easier on the countryside?

Princesse Tam Tam

A French novelist passes off a African shepherdess as a princess.

Play It to the Bone

Two aging fighters in LA, friends, get a call from a Vegas promoter because his undercard fighters for a Mike Tyson bout that night are suddenly unavailable. He wants them to box each other. They agree as long as the winner gets a shot at the middleweight title. They enlist Grace, Cesar's current and Vinnie's ex girlfriend, to drive them to Vegas.

I Am Taraneh, I Am Fifteen Years Old

Taraneh is a model 15-year-old Iranian girl, studious and filial, who supports her ailing grandmother with a job at a photo shop and visits her father (who has been imprisoned for reasons never made clear in the film) bearing gifts of cigarettes and magazines. But when Amir, a young man from a well-off family, sets his sights on Taraneh and courts her with an intensity that borders on stalking, her well-ordered life spirals into chaos.

The Whole Town's Talking

Ordinary man-in-the-street Arthur Ferguson Jones leads a very straightforward life. He's never late for work and nothing interesting ever happens to him. One day everything changes: he oversleeps and is fired as an example, he's then mistaken for evil criminal killer Mannion and is arrested. The resemblance is so striking that the police give him a special pass to avoid a similar mistake. The real Mannion sees the opportunity to steal the pass and move around freely and chaos results.

His Private Secretary

Dick Wallace wants to marry a minister's grand-daughter but his father, who wants him to get work on his company's business, is opposed. She takes a job with the company to prove she's okay.

Come September

Robert Talbot, an American millionaire, arrives early for his annual vacation at his luxurious Italian villa. His long-time girlfriend Lisa has given up waiting for him and has decided to marry another man. Meanwhile, his sneaky business associate Maurice secretly misappropriates the villa as a hotel while Talbot is away. The current guests of the "hotel" are a group of young American girls.

A Good Man

After an illustrious special ops career ends in disaster, Alexander goes off the grid and attempts to lead a quiet life as a handyman at an apartment complex. But when one of his tenants and her family fall under the thumb of a Russian gangster, Alexander is dragged into an all-out war between rival Chinese and Russian gangs; forcing him to not only defend the family, but bringing him face to face with an old foe, and giving him one more chance to reconcile his past.

Shame

Ingmar Bergman's psychological study of how humans react in a situation of war. The film takes place on Gotland, where invasion forces arrives.

The Overcoat

The Overcoat is a 1959 Soviet film directed by Aleksey Batalov, based on Nikolai Gogol story "The Overcoat".

Under the Sun of Satan

Satan tempts Father Dossignan, who is trying to save the soul of a young girl who killed one of her lovers.

Death Valley

Four strangers on a drunken wedding dash from LA to Vegas hit a mysterious woman in the desert and must overcome injuries, the elements, and ultimately each other to survive.

El padrecito

The young priest Father Sebastián (played by Cantinflas) is assigned to a parish in San Jeronimo el Alto, where he is not welcomed by the community, particularly the resident priest Father Damián (played by Ángel Garasa). The newcomer gradually earns the trust of the people through humor, but firmly captures their hearts by saving the town fiesta by fighting a bull when the hired torero failed to show.Father Sebastián counsels the townspeople, lecturing them on their duties in a modern society. He used the collection plate to redistribute the town's wealth more evenly. When accused of communism, he quoted the 1891 socially-conscious encyclical Rerum Novarum. He even ventured into politics, with a veiled attack on the municipal president couched into a sermon. Eventually, he brokers a deal with the local political boss for some concessions for the poor of his parish.

Hitchcock

Hitchcock follows the relationship between director Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville during the making of his most famous film "Psycho" - and the trials and tribulations the director faced from Hollywood censors.