Before Night Falls 2000  R, 125 min.
Genre: Drama
Director: Julian Schnabel
Cast: Javier Bardem, Olivier Martinez, Andrea Di Stefano, Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, Michael Wincott, Najwa Nimri, Hector Babenco, Jerzy Skolimowski, Vito Maria Schnabel
Noted anti-Castro Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas (Javier Bardem) is the subject of this film about a poor boy who grows up and joins Castro's revolutionary forces. After the revolution, Arenas moves to Havana, publishes his first novel, and participates in the gay underground. His actions are considered dangerous by Castro's political regime, and Arenas is sentenced to concentration camps and later is exiled. Finally free and living in NY, Arenas contracts the AIDs virus and ultimately kills himself. What makes this film extraordinary is not the plot; instead, it is the painstaking blend of the movie's sights and sounds that tugs at viewers' emotions. Bardem was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award.
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 The Phantom of the Opera 1998  R, 103 min.
Genre: Foreign / Drama / Horror / Romance
Director: Dario Argento
Cast: Julian Sands, Asia Argento, Andrea Di Stefano, Nadia Rinaldi, Coralina Cataldi Tassoni, Istvan Bubik, Zoltan Barabas, Lucia Guzzardi, Aldo Massasso, Gianni Franco, David D'Ingeo, Kitty Keri, John Pedeferri, Leonardo Treviglio, Massimo Sarchielli
This "Phantom of the Opera" differs from the classic story. In this version, the Phantom (Julian Sands) is an orphan, raised by rats in the sewer, and will stop at nothing to protect his rats from those who would do them harm–especially the chief exterminator, Ignace (Istvan Bubik).
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Vendetta 1999  R, 117 min.
Genre: Drama
Director: Nicholas Meyer
Cast: Christopher Walken, Clancy Brown, Bruce Davison, Joaquim de Almeida, Edward Herrmann, Kenneth Welsh, Luke Askew, Richard Libertini, Andrea Di Stefano, Joel Gordon, Chris Benson, Wayne Robson, Pierrino Mascarino, Daragh O'Malley, Richard Blackburn
In the 1890s, cotton exporter James Houston (Christopher Walken) masterminds a plot to take over the New Orleans docks. When police chief David Hennessy (Clancy Brown) stands in the way, he is killed. As a result of the homicide, Sicilian immigrants who work on the New Orleans docks are rounded up for questioning. Eventually, nine go on trial, but all are acquitted. However, the populace does not agree with the verdicts, and a series of lynchings result. This made-for-HBO film is based on a true story.
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| 1. Before Night Falls (2000)
2. The Phantom of the Opera (1998)
3. Vendetta (1999)
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