1971-1980

Synopsis
Marcello Mastroianni stars in this French farce, an absurd “western” set in Paris, with Mastroianni as the incurably vain General George Armstrong Custer. Richard Nixon is the American president, but everyone is costumed appropriately for the previous century. Buffalo Bill (Michel Piccoli), the famous scout, is here portrayed as a limp-wristed bungler. Ugo Tognazzi plays one of Custer’s Native American opponents; he runs a curio shop selling Native artifacts made in sweatshops by white women. The climactic battle is held in a large construction excavation where Les Halles market used to be. The language the two sides use to justify their conflict is lifted from that used in the then-current Vietnam War.
~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie GuideRead More »

From Almodovarlandia.com:

As Almodóvar had already tried out different durations in Super 8, he decided to shoot a film in a greater format, in 16 mm. In Salomé the origin of veil is being dealt with.

Abraham is walking across the countryside together with his son Isaac and meets Salomé, who is fully covered with combs and veils. Though Abraham was an upright and merciful person, he becomes crazy for her and asks her to dance for him. She starts to dance »The Wildcat«, while she takes off all her veils. Once Abraham has become absolutely crazy for her, Salomé asks him for the head of his son. Abraham who has promised to give her whatever she wants has no other choice but to agree. Hearing this Isaac decides to flee. But Salomé who has supersensory forces, appears in front of Isaac, hypnotizes him and brings him back to his father. Abraham lights a campfire, and when he prepares to kill his son he hears the voice of god telling him that everything was just a proof, that Salomé is only one of Gods representations, that Salomé was God, which sometimes appears in this form just for seducing men. And that he has done all this just for leading Abraham into temptation who was human and could sin. Because God has been a little bit disgruntled when he saw that Abraham did not sin ever. And that all the generations to come will remember this day and will celebrate it, Abraham should take all the veils that Salomé has taken off, that from that moment on all the women of his people should cover to signal their respect for the church.Read More »

Synopsis
This effective drama about crisis and change in an unorthodox family is directed by Franco Brusati, best known for his earlier Bread and Chocolate. Marta (Hella Petri) lives in a large country estate after retiring from her career as an opera singer. She is not alone. Two women live with her, Claudia (Eleonora Giorgi) and Anna (Mariangela Melato), of uncertain familial ties, though perhaps nieces. Claudia and Anna are established in a lesbian affair and both depend on Marta like daughters would depend on a mother. Marta’s brother Nicky (Erland Josephson) and his lover Picchio (David Pontremoli) arrive one day because Marta wants to take the two couples for a brief trip to Venice. Circumstances conspire to change those plans as one crisis after another, as well as a tragedy, make Claudia, Anna, and Nicky rethink their dependent behavior.
Eleanor Mannikka, RoviRead More »

Quote:
The 1001 transformations of a woman into a witch and vice versa.

Boris Lehman wrote:
When Roland Lethem says, referring to Le Vampire de la Cinémathèque (1971), a tribute to Joseph Plateau, the brilliant inventor of the phenakistoscope, that ‘you have to let yourself be sucked dry by the film’, most viewers immediately close their eyes, shout their disapproval, break their seats and leave the theatre furious and frustrated. They cannot see because they are not free, and as Philippe Bordier said, ‘because they have shit in their eyes’.Read More »

Quote:
Though recently in the Mexican movies we see basically the same kind of things like crossed stories or extremely “realistic” ones, or both, there are some things in the old ones that the new ones are forgetting: beauty. This movie is based in a true story where a man that is afraid to contaminate his family with the evils of the world (and actually he is already “contaminated”, and very), decides to lock them inside their house for years, avoiding them any kind of contact with the world, even throw the windows. Not happy just with this, he makes the kids work in the family business that is making poison to kill rats. The characters are confocal created, ambiguous and confused, such as anybody is, and themes like loneliness or sexual curiosity in the kids while they are growing up is very well managed. However, even it is a sad story, it is so well treated, that it is beautiful. This is a movie that I would certainly recommend, specially because Mexican movies has not good fame. [imdb]Read More »

A seemingly pleasant fellow, Arthur goes berserk and rapes any woman in front of him wearing gold earrings. One woman tells the investigating detective (who is Arthur’s uncle) she was raped, and flashes back to an erotic love making scene. Another one, a lesbian, relates a story that has to be seen to be believed. Other women flashback to their encounters with Arthur. We find out from a doctor, in another flashback, that Arthur underwent a penis transplant with a just-dead friend, unknowing his friend was a serial rapist who preyed on golden earring-ed women.Read More »

Very intriguing film from whom many consider the Hitchcock of Japan, Yoshitaro Nomura.

“Two detectives, Imanishi and Yoshimura, are assigned to the murder of a 60-year-old man whose body was found dumped in a railroad yard. It turns to be that of a former policeman, Miki; the murder now seems even more mysterious, as Miki was well liked by all and had been on holiday when he was killed. The detectives visit all the places to which Miki has traveled, with little luck, but then they read an account buried in a lengthy report of how Miki years before had befriended a destitute, leprous man and his young son. Amazingly, that boy had grown up to become Eiryo Waga, a rising star in the music world. Could such an eminent figure have anything to do with the murder? Read More »

IMDB User Comments (Frank from Iceland):

The Goalie s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick is the first collaboration of
Wim Wenders and Peter Handke, a collaboration which produced Wings of
Desire in 1987. In The Goalie, Handke and Wenders explore patterns of
thought and their relation to reality.

The main action of the film occurs in the first minute, where we get
one view of how the Goalie misses blocking a penalty kick and loses
the game for his team.

Later, we get to hear him describe the action and we also get a view
of the way it really happened, the videotaped highlights on the tv
news. They are three wonderfully different plausible representations
which each explain the result just as well. While only one explains
the goalie’s anxiety before the penalty kick, all three allow for his
anxiety afterwards.Read More »

Quote:
A loose contemporary adaptation of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, the middle installment of Wim Wenders’ “road movie trilogy” opens with a scene that’s pure Wenders — a young man gazes out his window while American rock rollicks out of the LP player, until he suddenly puts both fists through the glass, quietly sobbing. That’s Wilhelm (Rudiger Vogler), who grudgingly accepts that, if he’s ever to become the writer he wants to be, he has to overcome his dislike for people and venture out to accumulate experiences. In place of inspiration, the journey hooks him up with a group of fellow loners, the “dead souls of Germany”: an apathetic actress (Hanna Schygulla), an aged ex-Nazi whose nose bleeds from “remembering” (Hans Christian Blech), his mute street-performer travelling companion (a teenage, almost tomboyish Nastassja Kinski), a pudgy poet (Peter Kern), and a suicidally bereft industrialist (Ivan Desny). Read More »