Italy

In 1945, Benito Mussolini goes to Milan to talk with Archbishop Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster to request his help in escaping from Italy. The Republic of Salò, the last bastion of fascism, is decaying, and the Americans, along with the partisans are about to win control of Milan. Mussolini flees, pursued by his lover Claretta Petacci, and manages to get to the northern village of Dongo. There he clashes with the Germans, who order him to disguise himself as an officer of Germany rather than be captured by the partisans. Mussolini accepts without objection, always hoping for a revolt of his loyal fascists, but they are in jeopardy. When Mussolini is recognised, Walter Audisio, the leader of the partisans, initially wants to hand him over to the Americans, so that Mussolini undergoes due process. But the war crimes of the Duce are too great, so Audisio makes the decision to shoot him in front of the Villa Belmonte in the village of Giulino, along with his female companion.Read More »

The son of Torren learns of his heritage, goes to avenge the deaths of his fellow villagers, and rescue his sister/love interest from the evil Dakkar and his spider cult. Ator battles giant spiders, swordsmen cloaked in shadow, re-animated dead warriors, and horribly hideous witches.Read More »

For three years Rossellini and his son worked on a twelve-part series for Italian television about man’s search for food and the subsequent development of civilization.

sense of cinema wrote:
In 1963 Roberto Rossellini called a press conference and announced: “Il cinema è morto.” “Cinema is dead.”

Rossellini had lost confidence. For four years he refused to direct. He was through with art. Civilisation was collapsing from infantilism; film’s urgent task was to show the masses the map of human achievement. He marketed himself as a purveyor of educational materials. Cynics laughed as Rossellini begged funds from a steel company, Italsider, so that his son Renzo could direct the 4.5-hour The Iron Age (1964), and then convinced Jean Riboud and John de Menil to come up with $500,000 from Schlumberger, IBM, Gulf, and UpJohn so that Renzo could direct the 12-hour Italian-French-Egyptian-Roumanian Man’s Struggle for Survival celebrating the conquest of nature.Read More »

A disturbed young taxidermist exhumes his recently deceased girlfriend, brings her body to his family villa and proceeds to embalm her corpse, with help from his strange housekeeper. But his bouts of insanity are just beginning.Read More »

Photojournalist Emanuelle accompanies an anthropologist, two female missionary workers and a treacherous hunter’s party in a trek through the Amazon to find a cannibalistic tribe long thought extinct.Read More »

From RaiPlay:
“L’uomo dal Fiore in Bocca”, a single act by Luigi Pirandello staged for the first time in 1922, is one of the most intense plays by the great Nobel prize-winning playwright. It’s a dialogue at a coffee station between a man with a tumor and a dull and indifferent customer. The director of this difficult television adaptation of 1993 of the play by Pirandello is Marco Bellocchio, while the protagonist is Michele Placido, flanked by Antonino Bellomo.Read More »

A man discovers an ancient Incan formula for raising the dead, and uses it for a series of revenge murders.

Letterboxd review
★★★½ Watched by Lou (rhymes with wow!) 22 Jun 2021

Deliciously gothic and weirdly erotic, Death Smiles on a Murder is a wonderful slice of Joe D’Amato bizarreness. The movie has an almost dream-like quality to it, which had me clueless as to what exactly was unfolding on screen. All I know for certain is that when you give Klaus Kinski some beakers you’ll end up with magic. Also, there is no such thing as too many cat jump scares.

I got to search out some more Ewa Aulin movies.Read More »

Eva comes to Hong Kong. Seeing Eva perform with a snake, Judas gets interested in her. He showers her with gifts. She moves in with him and his snakes. Things get grim.Read More »

“Because of a violation of traffic regulations an architect is put in prison. There he witnesses the grim reality of life behind bars: corrupt staff, corrupt inmates, an inhuman judicial system and the power of the Mafia.

“L´istruttoria e chiusa: dimentichi” – which translates into “The investigation is closed: forget about it” is one in a series of political thrillers Damiano Damiani (when he was good, he could to some extent rival Francesco Rosi, when he became pretentious and preachy he was intolerable) specialized in in the late 60´s through the 70´s. Its overall target is the corrupt Italian state of that day and age. Its means is classic melodrama of the wrongful accused who has to live through purgatory. Because he is wrongful accused, an intellectual and played by the then handsome Franco Nero we pity him for that (there is ample space for the suspicion that we would perceive his private hell in public custody as appropriate were he a criminal).To prove his case Damiani this time took the easy way out and that´s why his film is – judged by Damiani´s own best abilities – bordering on the mediocre side – and still worth watching; which is an achievement in itself.”
by Georgios Tsapanos ( IMDB)Read More »