Elzbieta Czyzewska Movies
- 2006
After purchasing a box of happiness in a mysterious discount store as she makes her way home from work, Iwona must figure out what to do with her purchase in director Sophie Barthles' entry into the 2006 Sundance Film Festival short film program. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elzbieta Czyzewska
- 1996
- R
Daniil Kharms (Charms in German spelling) was a noted Soviet dadaist author. This intellectually challenging Austrian film from director/screenwriter Michael Kreihsl took some of the poems and prose from the one book Charms wrote before going to his death in a Nazi concentration camp, and fashioned a sort of non-story about the weird adventures of a Russian poet living in Vienna. The resulting episodes are tinged with the surreal, but are actually quite funny once the rhythm and tone of the piece is understood. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1991
This drama is set in 1981, and chronicles the experiences of a 17-year-old Polish immigrant trying to adjust and survive in his new American environment. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Cameron Mitchell, Viveca Lindfors, (more)
This thriller is the second film based on the novel of the same name by Ira Levin. Matt Dillon stars as Jonathan Corliss, a lethal schemer from the wrong side of the tracks. Now a student at the University of Pennsylvania, Jonathan has been obsessed since childhood with the fortunes of a company called Carlsson Copper. Jonathan plans to ingratiate himself with the wealthy family of magnate Thor Carlsson (Max von Sydow) and has begun secretly dating Carlsson's daughter Dorothy (Sean Young). When Dorothy learns that she's pregnant and informs Jonathan that she'll be cut off without her inheritance when her father learns the truth, Jonathan murders her, making it appear to be a suicide, and moves to New York. There, he makes the acquaintance of Ellen Carlsson (also played by Young), the late Dorothy's twin sister, and begins wooing her. This time he meets with success, winning Ellen's hand in marriage and a powerful position in his new father-in-law's company. However, Ellen has long nursed suspicions about her twin's death and as she probes deeper into the alleged suicide, she uncovers alarming facts about some other murders and the identity of her sister's unknown lover. Director James Dearden also wrote Fatal Attraction (1987), which contains similar themes. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matt Dillon, Sean Young, (more)
Robin Williams stars in this oddball comedy about a fast-talking car salesman who is down on his luck and in over his head until an extreme situation forces him to use his sales skills to save lives. Joey O'Brien (Williams) is the stereotypical car salesman: enterprising, aggressive, and desperate to make enough money to spend on his high-maintenance girlfriends. But suddenly the pressure is really on: he owes money to the mob, his ex-wife is nagging him about not spending enough time with their teenage daughter, and if he doesn't sell at least a dozen cars by the time the big sale is over on Saturday, he's going to lose his job. As Joey attempts to placate several potential buyers, his day is interrupted by Larry (Tim Robbins), the insanely jealous husband of dimwitted showroom receptionist Donna (Annabella Sciorra), who's been having an affair with someone who works at the dealership. With the police surrounding the place, his job (and life) on the line, Joey realizes that it's up to him to use his wits to persuade Larry -- who's not even sure what he wants out of the situation -- not to kill anyone. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robin Williams, Tim Robbins, (more)
- 1989
- R
Cheech Marin and Eric Roberts play two draft-dodging hippies who flee to a commune in Central America where they stay for 20 years. When they return in 1989 and seek out some of their old NYC buddies, they find they've turned yuppie and things just aren't what they'd expected. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cheech Marin, Eric Roberts, (more)
Jessica Lange plays an attorney whose affable Hungarian-immigrant father Armin Mueller-Stahl is arrested. He is threatened with deportation for lying about his activities during World War II; part of the charge is that Mueller-Stahl was a Nazi collaborationist, guilty of wartime atrocities. Absolutely convinced that her father is being railroaded by a revenge-seeking Hungarian communist government, Lange handles Mueller-Stahl's defense, expertly blowing huge holes in prosecuting attorney Frederic Forrest's case. But in doing her own research, Lange discovers that her father has spent a lifetime paying off a blackmailer. Why? In contrast to the fervency of his earlier Z, Costa-Gavras refuses to make things easy by proselytizing in The Music Box (nor does screenwriter Joe Esterhas indulge in his usual right-between-the-eyes fervency). Everything in the film is offered on the same calm, collected level, making the ultimate horror of the story all the more effective. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jessica Lange, Armin Mueller-Stahl, (more)
In this family drama from director Sidney Lumet, Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti play Arthur and Annie Pope, a pair of '60s radicals who have eluded the FBI for 16 years after bombing a napalm laboratory as a Vietnam War protest. This lifestyle involves continually moving their base of operations and establishing new identities, which is especially hard on their children, 18-year-old Danny (River Phoenix) and 10-year-old Harry (Jonas Abry), who can never amass a group of friends or an academic record. This last problem comes to the fore when they arrive in a New Jersey town where the high school music teacher (Ed Crowley) takes an interest in Danny's piano playing, encouraging him to apply early admission to Juilliard. Danny yearns to follow this dream, but knows that separating from his parents would be a permanent break -- the aging hippies rarely even see their own parents, and can never inform anyone where they've moved. Arthur can't stand the idea of breaking up the family unit, which has provided the support that's allowed him to tolerate life on the move, but Annie sees her own sacrificed dreams in her son's prodigious musical talents, and begins pressuring Arthur to grant the boy his independence. Complicating factors, Danny has fallen in love with the daughter of his music teacher (Martha Plimpton), but can't allow himself to get too close to her, because he may have to leave again at any moment. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christine Lahti, River Phoenix, (more)
- 1986
- R
Klaus Maria Brandauer stars in this drama as Alek Neuman, a one-time boxing champion in the Soviet Union. While he was one of the top-ranked Russian fighters of his day, he was never allowed to box in the Olympics, because the Soviets would not permit Jews to compete on their national teams. Many years later, an elderly Alek is able to emigrate to the United States; he settles in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, New York, where he makes ends meet as a dishwasher. Alek is depressed and starts sinking into alcoholism until he meets Timmy Boyle (Adrian Pasdar) and Roland Jenkins (Wesley Snipes), two up-and-coming amateur boxers. Alek thinks that the two young fighters have potential, and he offers to coach them. While Timmy and Roland aren't sure at first if they trust Alek (or each other), in time they grow to respect each other, and it looks as if they may make the United States Olympic team -- where they may fight against the Russian team that wouldn't accept Alek years before. Brandauer won critical acclaim for his performance in Streets of Gold, which also featured Wesley Snipes several years before his breakthrough role in Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Klaus Maria Brandauer, Adrian Pasdar, (more)
After Jill Godmilow failed to gain entry into Poland in the early 1980s to make a documentary on the Gdansk strike and the Solidarity movement, she created this docudrama that is meant to tell her story, as well as that of the strikers and the woman who began it all, Anna Walentynowicz (Elzbieta Komorowska). Undoubtedly upset at being rejected, the contrast between Godmilow's problems and the difficulties faced by the down-to-earth Anna is uncomfortably great. Anna has been fired from her job after 30 years of dedicated service at minimal wages, and the workers rally around her -- marking the beginning of the Gdansk strikes. Anna and others of her generation are brought forward in re-enacted interviews in the better segments of this docudrama, while Godmilow's own ruminations and commentaries are somehow less convincing in comparison. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Fitzgerald, Jill Godmilow, (more)
- 1982
Two brothers of German heritage live in the Polish town of Poznan, not that far from the western border with Germany. Michal (Michal Bajor) is the sensitive, artistic brother who likes literature, Andrzej (Piotr Bajor) is the daredevil with no intellectual bent, and between the two of them, they steal the German consul's Daimler-Benz limousine, on a lark. When they are caught by the police, the German consul unexpectedly forgives them their prank -- but in the meantime, the episode has put the brothers in touch with a Nazi underground group who want to prepare the way for the pending German invasion (set to occur within a matter of days). Andrej helps the group kill the German consul and then they blame the death on the Poles -- giving the Germans an excuse to cross the border. Not only the consul, but "artistic" types like Michal are also killed for the same reasons. After these murders, Michal realizes his brother is no better than the group he joined, and decides to set his own course in the face of the rising threat of invasion. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vadim Glowna, Michal Bajor, (more)
- 1973
Once the acknowledged king of the Polish cinema, director Alexander Ford was forced out of his native land by political pressure in 1969. His first non-Polish effort was the Danish/German The First Circle, ostensibly set in Russia but filmed in its entirety in Denmark. Based on a Solzhenitsyn novel, the film stars Gunther Malthasar as a Russian iconoclast. His outspokenness results in his being shipped to Siberia, there to die of starvation. As he awaits his doom, Malthasar takes heart in the fact that his tormentors have not been able to squelch his independent spirit. Alexander Ford chose to film The First Circle in English; so indecipherable were the various accents of the cast that the American distributor was compelled to redub the soundtrack. Despite its budget shortcomings and the fact that everyone is conversing in an unfamiliar language, The First Circle is one of Ford's best and most effective projects. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
After several years working along the margins of the underground film scene in New York, director Robert Downey broke through to wider recognition with the arthouse hit Putney Swope, a wildly irreverent satire of race and advertising in America. Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson) is the token African-American executive at an otherwise all-white advertising agency when the chairman of the board unexpectedly drops dead. Through a fluke in the chain of command, Swope becomes the new head of the firm, and decides its time to do things his way. He fires nearly all the staff (except for his one token white employee), renames the agency Truth and Soul, Inc., and announces they'll no longer accept accounts advertising tobacco, alcohol, or war toys. The ads they do produce -- for acne remedies and breakfast cereal, among other things -- are wildly successful, and the iconoclastic ad agency (which only accepts payment in cash) is targeted by government operatives as a threat to the national security. Antonio Fargas and Allen Garfield lead the supporting cast; Mel Brooks makes a cameo appearance. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stanley Gottlieb, Allen Garfield, (more)
Polish director Andrej Wajda's portrait of life on a movie set, which is disrupted (although not that much) when the leading man is killed in a leap from a moving train. It seems that the temperamental, unreliable star was always late anyway, so the shooting goes on without him, his character's absence being explained away in the script by the irked filmmakers. In the meantime, the performer's wife and mistress join forces to find out what's happened to him, as nobody has bothered to notify them of their lover's demise. Wajda's film was an homage to actor Zbigniew Cybulski, who worked with the director frequently in the 1950s and had been killed in an accident the previous year. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Beata Tyszkiewicz, Andrzej Lapicki, (more)
- 1965
In this drama, a budding ichthyologist studies at a university to try to avoid the draft. At the last moment he then relents and enlists. He has only a few hours to organize his personal life before he must undertake basic training. He goes to his apartment; there he finds his sick dog and has it put to sleep. He then attempts to make love to a housewife, not his own. Finally he goes to the store where his own wife works and discovers that she is really a streetwalker. The young man attempts to prepare himself for spending the next two years in the military as he walks toward the train station. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elzbieta Czyzewska, Jerzy Skolimowski, (more)
Alfons (Zbigniew Cybulski) is a young army captain who meets two women of Moorish ancestry at what appears to be a deserted inn near Madrid. They tell Alfons he is the descendant of a noble family and that he must undergo a series of challenging missions to prove himself. A magician tries to take his soul, and he is visited by ghosts near the mountains of Madrid. Author Jan Poticki committed suicide a year after the symbolic and allusive book this movie was based on was published. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Zbigniew Cybulski, Franciszek Pieczka, (more)
- 1965
An aging boxer makes a scant living as a prizefighter in this drama. A former college buddy helps the fighter get an engineering job. Still the lure of the ring is strong, and when the fellow learns that his factory has a boxing team, he eagerly signs up. During a major fight, he ends up winning when his opponent is a no-show. Later the late fighter arrives and demands half of the prize money as he was paid not to show up. The protagonist refuses to share and the two end up duking it out in the ring. The aging fighter is no match for the opponent and is badly beaten. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jerzy Skolimowski
- 1964
Dauntless resistance member Maria (Elzbieta Czyzweska) finds her life unexpectedly complicated when an Italian deserter invites himself into the apartment she shares with her artist brother (Zbigniew Cybulski) in this comedy set in Nazi-occupied Poland. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 1963
When a priest is blinded from a bomb explosion, a young boy is blamed for the accident. The priest remains silent even though he knows the boy to be innocent. The boy struggles to find work in a town that condemns him for the incident. The priest continues to live the lie because of his martyred status. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elzbieta Czyzewska
- 1963
Aleksandra Slaska portrays a German matron taking a long ocean voyage with her husband. While roaming the deck, she spots a passenger she thinks she recognizes. That she does: The passenger (Anna Ciepielewska) had been an inmate at Auchwitz, where Slaska served as a guard. An alternately realistic and illusory study in guilt and retribution, The Passenger (original title: Pasazerka) was halfway through production in 1961 when its director, Andrzej Munk, was killed in an auto accident. Munk's friends loyally tried to complete the project, bridging a few scenes with still pictures (in the manner of "restored" film classics like the 1937 Lost Horizon and the 1954 A Star is Born). Finally released in Poland in 1963, The Passenger didn't make it to the US until 1970. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Aleksandra Slaska, Anna Ciepielewska, (more)
- 1962
This symbolic drama follows a young man after he leaves his village. Believing he has killed a man in an auto accident, he skips town and takes a job in a power plant where he meets a variety of characters. Old war veterans use their experiences as excuses not to work. Free-spirited dancing girls turn on the charm until a richer man comes along. A dying man befriends the younger man for personally selfish reasons. The young man gets a belly full of the adult world, complete with the lying, pettiness and general distrust of his fellow so-called human beings. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wladyslaw Kowalski, Krzysztof Chamiec, (more)
- 1962
All the ambiance of an old-fashioned circus comes across with great clarity in this otherwise routine psychological tale about a mean-spirited mime and his effects on his colleagues. The small, traveling circus has been sliding downhill for awhile, and unless some new life is infused into its acts, its future does not look very rosy. Into this precarious situation comes a new mime with the uncanny ability to sap the confidence of his fellow performers. If he continues for long in this vein, no one will be able to believe they have any talent left at all. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wieslaw Golas, Danuta Szaflarska, (more)
