1971-1980

The second of Nikkatsu’s trilogy of softcore melodramas looking at prostitution in various Japanese cities, this dark look at ritualistic temple sex in Edo from director Noboru Tanaka is quite a departure from the light, comic tone of Chusei Sone’s Maruhi: Joro Ichiba. Resembling nothing so much as an Asian version of all those Roman-set Italian sex films of the 1970s, the film deals with various members of Japanese royalty subjecting women to sadomasochistic sexual practices in the temple for supposedly religious reasons. Rie Nakagawa stars with Yuri Yamashina, Moeko Ezawa, and Hijiri Abe.
~ Robert Firsching, All Movie GuideRead More »

In this long interview done by the TVE (Televisión Española), Julio Cortázar reveals details on the creative process of his tales and which were his writing habits. During the interview (TV program “A fondo”, 1977), the Argentinean writer also talks about his family, his first writings, about Argentina and the exile, among other subjects.Read More »

A biopic by Helma Sanders-Brahm on the life of the poet and dramatist Heinrich von Kleist. The film is based upon his letters, documents and literary works. This film won the Deutscher Filmpreis in 1977 making Sanders-Brahm the first female director to win it.Read More »

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This epic film represents an essential landmark within the political, intellectual and artistic entreprise of the 60’s and 70’s, following the Vietnam War. Milestones cuts back and forth between different story lines and features over fifty different characters, from Vietnam veterans to ex-convicts, parents and kids, native americans…. In 3 hours and 15 minutes, Kramer and Douglas expose the ‘tribe’ where all the alternatives of this generation are experimented. The film questions these experimentations’s success and failures, as well as the directing methods of Newsreel cinema. In 1976, Serge Toubiana wrote in Les Cahiers du Cinema: “If in Milestones one deals with new relationships between human beings and with a new way of life which also integrates the vegetal world as well as the biological world, one also deals primarly with cinema, with a new form of cinema, as if Hollywood would not exist. Kramer and Douglas don’t make Milestones against Hollywood, they shoot as if Hollywood doesn’t exist.”Read More »

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Two whimsical, aimless thugs harass and assault women, steal, murder, and alternately charm, fight, or sprint their way out of trouble. They take whatever the bourgeois characters value: whether it’s cars, peace of mind, or daughters. Marie-Ange, a jaded, passive hairdresser, joins them as lover, cook, and mother confessor. She’s on her own search for seemingly unattainable sexual pleasure.Read More »

“Faustine (Muriel Catala) suffers the wounds of first love in this gentle French film. During a summer when she is staying with her grandmother, she comes to know the nearby neighbors. Two brothers live in the large house. One is divorced and one has recently remarried, both of them live there with their teenaged and adult children. Though the boys of the household are drawn to Faustine, she grows ever more smitten with the divorced older man. During one visit she has to hide in his room to avoid the unwelcome attentions of his sons. As the summer draws to a close she has her first amorous kiss. “
by Clarke FountainRead More »

Written by Terrence Malick, Deadhead Miles was hailed when its screenplay was first picked up by Paramount; one of its producers declared that “this script is so good that when Deadhead Miles is released Malick will be the most sought after young writer in the country.” The final film, directed by Vernon Zimmerman in his feature debut, did not live up to these expectations, and was shelved by Paramount until they began screening it infrequently after Badlands. It is also said that Malick is displeased with the outcome, and he has since chosen to direct his own screenplays.Read More »

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Given Joe D’Amato’s prodigious work-rate and his willingness to engage with just about any filone, it comes as little surprise that he should have made a mondo film, Follie di Notte.

The closest points of comparison are probably the two Jimmy Matheus / Bruno Mattei entries hosted by Laura Gemser and released about the same time, Le Notti porno nel mondo and the self-explanatory Emanuelle e le porno notti nel mondo n. 2, the latter co-scripted by Mattei and D’Amato.Read More »

After a long day’s shoot, Carlos Tobalina invites his friends over for a champagne party, only to find them engaged in the most extensive orgy ever photographed.Read More »