A Clockwork Orange

Plot summary

In a futuristic Britain, a gang of teenagers go on the rampage every night, beating and raping helpless victims. After one of the boys quells an uprising in the gang, they knock him out and leave him for the police to find. He agrees to try "aversion therapy" to shorten his jail sentence. When he is eventually let out, he hates violence, but the rest of his gang members are still after him. Written by Colin Tinto {cst@imdb.com}

In the not-too-distant future, a charming young sociopath named Alex, leads a nihilistic lifestyle of 'ultraviolence' which comes to a head when he is jailed for murder and volunteers for an experimental brainwashing treatment to reform criminals in exchange for a shorter prison sentence. Written by Denny Gibbons

Alex, a teenage hooligan in a near-future Britain, gets jailed by the police. There he volunteers as guinea pig for a new aversion therapy proposed by the government to make room in prisons for political prisoners. "Cured" of his hooliganism and released, he is rejected by his friends and relatives. Eventually nearly dying, he becomes a major embarrassment for the government, who arrange to cure him of his cure. A pivotal moment is when he and his gang break into an author's home: the book he is writing (called "A Clockwork Orange") is a plea against the use of aversion therapy, on the grounds that it turns people into Clockwork Oranges (Ourang is Malay for "Man"): they are not being good from choice (sentiments later echoed by the prison chaplain). The film reflects this: many bad scenes in a Clockwork Orange are accompanied by jolly music; if we are to experience them as we should, we have to do it consciously, by realising they are bad, and not because the director tells us so through the use of music and images. Written by Steven Pemberton {Steven.Pemberton@cwi.nl}

Stomping, whomping, stealing, singing, tap-dancing, violating, Derby-topped teddy-boy hooligan Alex (Malcolm McDowell) has his own way of having a good time. He has it at the tragic expense of others. Alex's journey from amoral punk to brainwashed proper citizen forms the dynamic arc of Stanley Kubrick's future-shook vision of Anthony Burgess's novel. Unforgettable images, startling musical counterpoints, the fascinating language used by Alex and his pals - Kubrick shapes them into a shattering whole. Hugely controversial when first released, A Clockwork Orange won the New York Film Critics Best Picture and Director honors and earned four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. The power of its art is such that it still entices, shocks, and holds us in its grasp. Written by Jenna Quaranta

Alex, a violent juvenile in the near future, is caught after a number of brutal rapes and murders. While imprisoned, he submits to a controversial experiment to make criminals ill at the mildest suggestion of violence or conflict. Now Alex's victims want to welcome him back into society with the same enthusiasm Alex had always exhibited when performing his crimes. Written by Tim Kretschmann {Tim.K@VirComm.com}

Cast of A Clockwork Orange

	Malcolm McDowell	...	Alex de Large
	Patrick Magee	...	Mr. Alexander
	Michael Bates	...	Chief Guard
	Warren Clarke	...	Dim
	John Clive	...	Stage Actor
	Adrienne Corri	...	Mrs. Alexander
	Carl Duering	...	Dr. Brodsky
	Paul Farrell	...	Tramp
	Clive Francis	...	Lodger
	Michael Gover	...	Prison Governor
	Miriam Karlin	...	Catlady (Miss Weathers)
	James Marcus	...	Georgie
	Aubrey Morris	...	Mr. P. R. Deltoid
	Godfrey Quigley	...	Prison Chaplain
	Sheila Raynor	...	Mum

Boot, Das

Plot summary

It is 1942 and the German submarine fleet is heavily engaged in the so called "Battle of the Atlantic" to harass and destroy English shipping. With better escorts of the Destroyer Class, however, German U-Boats have begun to take heavy losses. "Das Boot" is the story of one such U-Boat crew, with the film examining how these submariners maintained their professionalism as soldiers, attempted to accomplish impossible missions, while all the time attempting to understand and obey the ideology of the government under which they served. Written by Anthony Hughes {husnock31@hotmail.com}

A detailed look into the claustrophobic and terrifying world of a German U-boat crew hunting ships from undersea. Gritty, realistic, and peppered with black humour, this is one of the few sympathetic portrayals of the war from the German side to be released in western distribution. Written by Keith Loh {loh@sfu.ca}

Cast of Boot, Das

	Jürgen Prochnow	...	Der Alte/Capt.-Lt. Henrich Lehmann-Willenbrock
	Herbert Grönemeyer	...	Lt. Werner/Correspondent
	Klaus Wennemann	...	Der Leitende/Der LI/Chief Engineer/Fritz Grade
	Hubertus Bengsch	...	1st Lieutenant/Number One/1WO
	Martin Semmelrogge	...	2nd Lieutenant/2WO
	Bernd Tauber	...	Kriechbaum/Chief Quartermaster/Navigator
	Erwin Leder	...	Johann
	Martin May	...	Ullman
	Heinz Hoenig	...	Hinrich
	Uwe Ochsenknecht	...	Chief Bosun
	Claude-Oliver Rudolph	...	Ario
	Jan Fedder	...	Pilgrim
	Ralf Richter	...	Frenssen
	Joachim Bernhard	...	Preacher
	Oliver Stritzel	...	Schwalle

Rashômon

Plot summary

In ancient Japan, a woman is raped and her husband killed. The film gives us four viewpoints of the incident - one for each defendant - each revealing a little more detail. Which version, if any, is the real truth about what happened ? Written by Colin Tinto {cst@imdb.com}

In 12th century Japan, a samurai and his wife are attacked by the notorious bandit Tajomaru, and the samurai ends up dead. Tajomaru is captured shortly afterward and is put on trial, but his story and the wife's are so completely different that a psychic is brought in to allow the murdered man to give his own testimony. He tells yet another completely different story. Finally, a woodcutter who found the body reveals that he saw the whole thing, and his version is again completely different from the others. Written by rmlohner

Rashomon (1950) is a Japanese crime drama, that is produced with both philosophical and psychological overtones. An episode (rape and murder) in a forest is reported by four witnesses, each from their own point of view. - Who is telling the truth? What is truth? Written by Frode S. Stringer {fstringe@direct.ca}

Cast of Rashômon

	Toshirô Mifune	...	Tajômaru
	Machiko Kyô	...	Masako Kanazawa
	Masayuki Mori	...	Takehiro Kanazawa
	Takashi Shimura	...	Woodcutter
	Minoru Chiaki	...	Priest
	Kichijiro Ueda	...	Commoner
	Fumiko Honma	...	Medium
	Daisuke Katô	...	Policeman

The Pianist

Plot summary

A brilliant pianist, a Polish Jew, witnesses the restrictions Nazis place on Jews in the Polish capital, from restricted access to the building of the Warsaw ghetto. As his family is rounded up to be shipped off to the Nazi labor camps, he escapes deportation and eludes capture by living in the ruins of Warsaw. Written by Anonymous

The true story of Wladyslaw Szpilman who, in the 1930s, was known as the most accomplished piano player in all of Poland, if not Europe. At the outbreak of the Second World War, however, Szpilman becomes subject to the anti-Jewish laws imposed by the conquering Germans. By the start of the 1940s, Szpilman has seen his world go from piano concert halls to the Jewish Ghetto of Warsaw and then must suffer the tragedy of his family deported to a death camp, while Szpilman is conscripted into a forced German Labor Compound. At last deciding to escape, Szpilman goes into hiding as a Jewish refugee where he is witness to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 and the Warsaw City Revolt in August/October 1944. Written by Anthony Hughes {husnock31@hotmail.com}

Cast of The Pianist

	Adrien Brody	...	Wladyslaw Szpilman
	Thomas Kretschmann	...	Captain Wilm Hosenfeld
	Frank Finlay	...	Father
	Maureen Lipman	...	Mother
	Emilia Fox	...	Dorota
	Ed Stoppard	...	Henryk
	Julia Rayner	...	Regina
	Jessica Kate Meyer	...	Halina
	Michal Zebrowski	...	Jurek
	Wanja Mues	...	SS Slapping Father
	Richard Ridings	...	Mr. Lipa
	Nomi Sharron	...	Feather Woman
	Anthony Milner	...	Man Waiting to Cross
	Lucy Skeaping	...	Street Musician
	Roddy Skeaping	...	Street Musician