Synopsis A French aristocrat, fleeing the lawsuit that has just been brought against him in Marseille for dissolute morals, takes refuge in Venice accompanied by his mistress, his wife’s own sister, whom he passes off as his legitimate wife. Frequenting the city’s brothels, he soon finds himself confronted with the reproaches of his mistress and the investigations of Venetian spies.
Between eroticism and comical situations, this film is a striking and surprising picture of the libertine mores of the eighteenth century.Read More »
Dr. Jimmy Kildare is back at work at Blair General hospital, though several people admit that he is not himself since suffering his loss. He’s taken a liking to a young intern, Don Winthrop, and tries to help him out when he transports an accident victim, socialite Cynthia “Cookie” Charles, to Blair General from outside the hospital’s agreed territory. When the other hospital complains, Winthrop is fired. Soon after, his girlfriend, Nurse Anabelle Kirke, is also let go when she too misapplies hospital policy. Kildare pleads their case with the hospital Board but with little luck. He then gets the well-connected Cookie, who has a thing for him, to help to sort it outRead More »
Quote: Set in the 17th century, Le voci bianche tells the story of a young Roman youth, Meo (Paolo Ferrari), who embarks on a career as “castrato,” although he manages to escape the mandatory castration. As a “castrati” he comes into contact with the upper classes of his time, and becomes a kind of casanova with the often bored and sex starved wives of the rich and wealthy. For an early directorial effort, this is a very handsome production with an impressive cast.Read More »
While looking for the cast for another unfinished project, a director discovers his ideal actor, a boy at a baker’s shop. By the time he goes to hire the young boy for his film, the shopkeeper has fired him. What ensues is a search for the homeless child and, along the way, the discovery of his solitude, his survival techniques, and the mental and physical state of surrounding adults and children. When the director finally finds his actor, the young adolescent seems to need serious medical care.The film gives the public a view of the Iranian medical system; once again the inadequacies of the social system and its contradictions are highlighted. Jalili also elaborates on generosity, once a sacred notion, individual responsibility and human limitations. Seen as criticism of the current medical system, the film was withheld for three years and only released in 1998.A True Story has found its moving actor and a life story worth discovering, but the film unintentionally dragged Jalili towards the realm of melodrama. Of this film, Godard said ‘A True Story may turn out to be a film that is not made very well, but it will always be ahead of the art.’Read More »
Well into middle-age, but still grasping at the reckless pleasures of his youth, Roque is locked in a pattern of self-destruction. His parents cast him out from their home in Caracas and Roque returns to the Amazon and the derelict tourist lodge he built and ran in a previous life. His aim is to rebuild both the lodge and himself, quitting alcohol for good in the process. But temptations are strong in the jungle. A feverish voyage of discovery through the hinterland between madness and salvation, La Fortaleza is a superb second feature from Venezuelan director Jorge Thielen Armand. What makes it all the more fascinating is the fact that Roque is played by Armand’s own father, Jorge Roque Thielen, and that the screenplay is inspired by his stories of building the lodge and battling alcoholism against a tinderbox backdrop of sparking violence and unrest. Wendy IdeRead More »
Set in the early ’40s, a San Francisco prostitute is run out of town just as the second World War has begun to intensify. Mamie settles down in Hawaii, hoping to start a new life. Though her prospects look good when she falls in love with a science-fiction writer who treats her with the respect she deserves, the dawning war and the fallacies of her previous lifestyle complicate their budding romance. Mamie cannot fully remove herself from her former profession, and provides some of her old services to the sailors stationed in town. Searching for another means of financial security, Mamie invests in several pieces of real estate and becomes quite wealthy, though her bad reputation has not been forgotten by the locals.Read More »
Quote: Charles is a Salt Lake City civil servant who loves (*LOVES*) Laura, a lovely housewife with a lovely step-daughter and an A-frame-selling, ex-quarterback husband named Ox. His roommate is “an unemployed jacket salesman,” his mother is a spacey, laxative overdosing, overly eccentric basket-case, his perpetually happy sister finds love in the dorkiest of guys, his step-father has a jones for Turtle Wax and his boss asks him for advice about his Ivy League son’s sexual problems. He listens to Janis Joplin and dreams of getting Laura back once and for all. He does everything in his power to win her back from Ox, and the lengths he goes to provide the structure of the film in this bittersweet romantic comedy…a film that explores what happened to the Woodstock generation when they transcended their idealism (i.e. it was expected that they fall in love and face the music of routine). Charles is perhaps the quintessential saint of this ideology.Read More »
