Hollywood cranked out women's pictures (or 'weepies' as they came to be known, or are now known as "chick flicks") with excessive emotional fervor in the 1930s and after. In part because they contained few strong male characters and matinee idols suitable for swooning, they were films created for the female segment of the audience. Producers thought women would be more interested than men in relationships, love, and marriage, thereby escaping from their own problems, and empathizing (and weeping) with the on-screen sufferings of strong female protagonists. Female audiences would be attracted to plot lines that included doomed love affairs, infidelity, unrequited love, various family crises, or marital separation. The protagonists of women's films would often overcome stereotypical gender roles, and the films would examine the strong achievements of these characters.

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Jungle and aviator adventure serials were also popular. Famed animal trainer Clyde Beatty encountered the dangers of the jungles of Africa in Republic's 12-chapter serial The Lost Jungle (1934) and in the 15-episode Darkest Africa (1936). To counter their popularity, Frank (nicknamed 'Bring 'Em Back Alive') Buck starred in Columbia's 15-part The Jungle Menace (1937). One of the best jungle serials was the 15-part Jungle Girl (1941), based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel and starring Frances Gifford (in her sole appearance in a serial). A submarine voyage to the underwater world of Atlantis was featured in the 12-chapter fantasy The Undersea Kingdom (1936).

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Fairbanks, in the silent era, was succeeded by the dashing Australian actor Errol Flynn - the major swashbuckling male star of the 30s and early 40s adventure films in the sound era. His first of many historical, costume adventure films was director Michael Curtiz' Captain Blood (1935) about an Irish surgeon named Dr. Peter Blood who was charged with treason, sold into slavery, and ultimately became a buccaneer in the Caribbean. This was Flynn's first film (of eight features) with a young and lovely 19 year-old Olivia de Havilland, and the film featured the first original film score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Flynn played a 19th century British army officer stationed in India in the military swashbuckler The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and he portrayed Sherwood Forest's 12th century legendary outlaw in the three Oscar-winning The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). The latter was his most popular film and the quintessential adventure-tale swashbuckler about the Robin Hood legend. The Technicolor film was noted for the lengthy swordfight in Nottingham Castle between Flynn and Basil Rathbone (as Sir Guy of Gisbourne), and Flynn's love for leading lady Olivia de Havilland.

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Sultry Jennifer Jones starred as a lustful, spiteful, white-trash hellcat in the passionate melodrama Ruby Gentry (1952), James Dean starred in his first film as a wronged, rebellious brother in Elia Kazan's emotionally brooding East of Eden (1955), and Elizabeth Taylor starred in two literate tales of dysfunctional Southern families: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). Both Taylor and Dean starred in George Stevens' Giant (1956), an epic melodramatic look at the aristocratic-estate life of a Texas cattle rancher over two generations. And at the close of the decade, Taylor won a Best Actress Oscar as a sophisticated, professional New York callgirl in the overripe drama Butterfield 8 (1960).

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# Peter Medak's tense haunted house entry The Changeling (1980), with George C. Scott as a mourning widower who moved into a haunted Seattle historical mansion, which ultimately manifested a murder committed many years earlier in its attic
# Stanley Kubrick's stylish and overlong The Shining (1980), a loose adaptation of Stephen King's novel, with Jack Nicholson as an ex-alcoholic, failed writer who becomes the caretaker of a huge, wintry Colorado resort and turns psychotic toward his family as he resorts to the same behavior as the former caretaker who axe-murdered his family in the past

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The Big Parade (1925) is director/producer King Vidor's most famous, precedent-setting war film from the silent era. It was the first realistic war drama and has served ever since as an archetypal model for all other war films. It was the first big box-office success of the newly-formed MGM Studios - and possibly the most profitable silent film of all time - it helped bring back the popularity of war films in the late 20s. Vidor, often compared to the end of the century's director Steven Spielberg, brought his own epic, sweeping style to his intimate yet massive work about love and war.

Screenwriter Harry Behn based his script on a story by author Laurence Stallings, who based his writing on his own gritty wartime experiences as a Marine serving in N. France. Made only seven years after the Great War's Armistice, the film captures the impact of the conflict on an ordinary GI. It was the first war film of its kind to tell its story from the viewpoint of the GI. Handsome matinee silent screen idol John Gilbert gave his greatest acting performance in a star-making role as one of three Americans who enlisted and was swept into the war in France.

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Director Brian De Palma's earliest, heavily-stylistic films (often with reconstructed scenes from other films) are particularly reminiscent of Hitchcock's tense horror thrillers, with themes of guilt, voyeurism, paranoia and obsession. Similar plot elements include killing off a main character early on, switching points of view, and dream-like sequences, in the following:

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Starring Andy García
Val Kilmer
Richard Coyle
Emmanuelle Chriqui
Rupert Friend
Johnathon Schaech
Dean Cain
Rade Šerbedžija
Antje Traue
Heather Graham

Review:

This is one proof why I don’t understand the objective of wars in the world. I have seen many movies of this kind where war has really no justification. The Platoon, The Pianist, Enemy at the Gates, or Schindler’s List, the lost of civilian lives is just so unspeakable. 5 Days of War (5 Days of August) is no exception.

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Cast
Johnny Depp as Frank Tupelo
Angelina Jolie as Elise Clifton-Ward
Paul Bettany as Inspector John Acheson
Timothy Dalton as Chief Inspector Jones
Steven Berkoff as Reginald Shaw
Rufus Sewell as The Englishman
Christian De Sica as Colonnello Lombardi
Alessio Boni as Sergente Cerato
Daniele Pecci as Tenente Narduzzi
Giovanni Guidelli as Tenente Tommassini
Raoul Bova as Conte Filippo Gaggia
Igor Jijikine as Virginsky
Bruno Wolkowitch as Capitaine Courson
Marc Ruchmann as Brigadier Kaiser
Julien Baumgartner as Brigadier Ricuort
François Vincentelli as Brigadier Marion
Shashidhar as Shz
Nino Frassica as Maresciallo Cecchini
Neri Marcorè as the receiver of the hall

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Cast
Konstantin Lavronenko - Jiří Kajínek
Tatiana Vilhelmová - JUDr. Klára Pokorová
Boguslaw Linda - Mr. Doležal
Michal Dlouhý - Lecko
Werner Daehn - Perner
Vladimír Dlouhý - Novotný
Václav Bárta - Mr. Křížek
Deana Horváthová - Judge
Ken Duken - Bukovský
Hynek Cermak - Prison Officer Pakosta
Jana Krausová - Mrs. Doležalová
Alice Bendová - Mrs. Křížková
Daniel Daden Svoboda - Commander of URNA

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