Psychosexual dramas 2

2006 documentary directed by Sophie Fiennes

Nothing is as it seems when a woman experiencing misgivings about her new boyfriend joins him on a road trip to meet his parents at their remote farm.

Petra von Kant is a successful fashion designer -- arrogant, caustic, and self-satisfied. She mistreats Marlene (her secretary, maid, and co-designer). Enter Karin, a 23-year-old beauty who wants to be a model. Petra falls in love with Karin and invites her to move in.

1994 film by Atom Egoyan

An all-knowing interlocutor guides us through a series of affairs in Vienna, 1900. A soldier meets an eager young lady of the evening. Later he has an affair with a young lady, who becomes a maid and does similarly with the young man of the house. The young man seduces a married woman. On and on, spinning on the gay carousel of life.

1974 film by Luis Buñuel

A formal dinner party starts out normally enough, but after the bourgeois group retire to the host’s music room, they inexplicably find themselves unable to leave.

On the run and in search of help, two wounded gangsters find refuge in the secluded castle of a feeble man and his wife; however, under the point of a gun, nothing is what it seems.

A teen girl in 1970s Berlin becomes addicted to heroin. Everything in her life slowly begins to distort and disappear as she befriends a small crew of junkies and falls in love with a drug-abusing male prostitute.

Scandinavia, 1,000 AD. For years, One Eye, a mute warrior of supernatural strength, has been held prisoner by the Norse chieftain Barde. Aided by Are, a boy slave, One Eye slays his captor and together he and Are escape, beginning a journey into the heart of darkness. On their flight, One Eye and Are board a Viking vessel, but the ship is soon engulfed by an endless fog that clears only as the crew sights an unknown land. As the new world reveals its secrets and the Vikings confront their terrible and bloody fate, One Eye discovers his true self.

2014 film by Safdie Brothers

2014 film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Vincent is an all-too-human man who dares to defy a system obsessed with genetic perfection. He is an "In-Valid" who assumes the identity of a member of the genetic elite to pursue his goal of traveling into space with the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation.

A group of scientists is sent to the planet Arkanar to help the local civilization, which is in the Medieval phase of its own history, to find the right path to progress. Their task is a difficult one: they cannot interfere violently and in no case can they kill. The scientist Rumata tries to save the local intellectuals from their punishment and cannot avoid taking a position.

The Grand Budapest Hotel tells of a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars and his friendship with a young employee who becomes his trusted protégé. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting, the battle for an enormous family fortune and the slow and then sudden upheavals that transformed Europe during the first half of the 20th century.

Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.

Many people criticize a film based on how close it relates and carries over from its novel or written form. However, knowing up front that this film is NOT the book and dares to actually go in different directions than the book, may allow for a viewer to be a bit more open about the point of the story and not necessarily the story itself. I adore the novel. When the film came out I was crass about how much was omitted or changed or embellished. But then, several years later, I watched it again. I was amazed at how many of the unknown actors I'd seen before had become huge Hollywood staples (John Lithgow's amazing performance, Glenn Close, Robin Williams, Hume & Jessica, Mary Beth Hurt, the wonderful Swoosie Kurtz, the godess Amanda Plummer, and even a cameo from John Irving himself!). This film is alive with brilliant talent. And let's not forget the music as well. From the opening score of the Beatles, WHEN I'M 64 to the closing sounds of the helicopter, this films sountrack alone is worth drawing attention - simple, honest, pure. There is magic in this film that makes it a timeless, yet period piece. If the viewer compares it to the novel, there may be disappointment or disapproval. However, allowed to stand alone, this film will surely endear itself to any viewer's heart.

A memory-wiped and defective cyborg sex slave is tossed onto the streets and taken in by a homeless woman while his corporate creators hunt him down.

1968 Swedish film by Ingmar Bergman

1979 film directed by Bob Fosse