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Sometimes a performance is so transfixing, it overtakes a mediocre movie and elevates it, even as everyone else seems to be operating at half speed. Such is the case of Danny Glover and To Sleep with Anger. No one who sees this film will forget Glover’s performance as Harry, the charming drifter who, even when he’s putting on his best, never seems to be at rest. There is something vibrationally wrong with this man, something that can’t be trusted. As one person describes him, he’s the moon, always eager to show his light side, but never forget that the other side lies in darkness.

When Harry arrives on Gideon's (Paul Butler) front porch, he is warmly welcomed by the patriarch and his wife, Suzie (Mary Alice), a hard-working, God-fearing couple who attempt to pass on their traditions to their adult sons. Junior (Carl Lumbly) and his wife share his parents' beliefs, which are thought backward by his buppie brother, Babe (Richard Brooks), and Babe's wife (Sheryl Lee Ralph). And the longer Harry stays, the more volatile the relations between the generations, the brothers, the couples and even the neighbors...

Director: Charles Burnett
Cast: Danny Glover, Paul Butler, DeVaughn Nixon, Mary Alice
Country: USA
Genre: Drama
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"People are in general not candid over sexual matters," Sigmund Freud observed. "They do not show their sexuality freely but to conceal it they wear a heavy overcoat woven of a tissue of lies, as though the weather were bad in the world of sexuality." The weather is overcast in the world of sex for the four main characters in Steven Soderbergh's sex, lies, and videotape, the American film that won the Palme d'Or (Best Film) at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival.

Our story is told largely from the perspective of Ann Mullany (Andie MacDowell), who lives in Baton Rouge with her yuppie husband John (Peter Gallagher). Their marriage is crumbling after just a few years together. Ann seems reserved and almost puritanical; John works long hours, just became junior partner, and is having an affair with Ann's younger sister Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo). It's obvious that the Mullanys are bored with their marriage -- for completely different reasons, of course -- and Cynthia doesn't seem to care about hiding the secret from her uptight, reserved sister. The cracks in their marriage really start to show upon the arrival of John's old college friend, Graham Dalton (James Spader). It's been seven years since they've seen each other and both have changed dramatically, but the introspective Graham immediately becomes a catalyst...especially once Ann discovers a personal project he's been working on.
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The plot follows the Frandsen family, mostly centered around the selfish, ruthless, disagreeable father, Viktor (Johannes Meyer). He is never satisfied with the way his house is run and the way his children behave. His hard-working wife, Ida (Astrid Holm), does everything she can (and in some cases more than she should) to try to keep Viktor happy… to no avail. He berates and chastises her at every turn, and he treats his three children as if they are more like servants then members of his family. Everyone tip-toes around him, except of course, for his childhood nursemaid, Nana (Mathilde Nielsen). She is disappointed with the way he has turned out and isn’t afraid to put him in his place.

After a confrontation between Viktor and Ida, Nana suggests to Ida that she go stay with her mother and seek some medical attention for her deteriorated condition. Nana stays and begins running the household, but not in the way Ida had, and certainly not in the way Viktor would prefer. What is at first a shock to Viktor, quickly becomes a life-lesson that he is not soon to forget.

Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Cast: Johannes Meyer, Astrid Holm, Karin Nellemose
Country: Denmark
Genre: Drama, Silent
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