Twelve never-told-before vignettes from the life of Hercules which at once dismantle and condense the underlying myth: performances of bodies and machines, inspired by sword-and-sandal films, as a playful analysis of legends and their structures.Read More »
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Germano is a young man who, having been accidentally discovered by his father in intimacy with the servant girl, is sent on an unwanted vacation with his mother, Madame Amour, who runs a hotel-resort by the seaside. Since Germano is sexually gifted and doesn’t mind “engaging” with the hotel’s female guests, the clientele multiplies dramatically, attracted by the young phenomenon. Germano’s willing efforts lead him to impotence from which, however, Lucy will cure him by giving herself to him on the beach.Read More »
The Price of Power (Italian: Il prezzo del potere, 1969) is a Spaghetti Western directed by Tonino Valerii. The film stars Giuliano Gemma as the hero Bill Willer who tries to get revenge against the killers of his father while at the same time trying to prevent an assassination plot against president James Garfield (played by Van Johnson, with José Suárez playing Vice President Chester A. Arthur) in 1881.Read More »
A 1994 biographical film about the life and career of the Italian opera singer Farinelli, considered one of the greatest castrato singers of all time. It stars Stefano Dionisi as Farinelli and was directed by the Belgian director Gérard Corbiau.
Although Dionisi provided the speaking voice, Farinelli’s singing voice was provided by the Polish soprano, Ewa Malas-Godlewska and a countertenor, Derek Lee Ragin, who were recorded separately then digitally merged to recreate the sound of a castrato.Read More »
Can someone be hopelessly naïve and a cynic? Can someone be chronically depressed and positive? Can a hopeful young man ignore all his advantages and concentrate on his life’s drawbacks? These sorts of contradictions define young Piero (nickname “Ovosodo” or “Hardboiled Egg”, also the slang term for the slum area he inhabits). His mother is dead; his father spends years in jail for, in effect, incredible stupidity; his older brother is severely challenged; and he knows nothing at all about his best friend. At the end, he is thrilled that all his disadvantages provide him with a dead-end job in the factory owned by his best friend’s father, despite having the real advantage of four years of top-quality education at the best private school in the region as a scholarship boy.
This is an utterly frantic yet very droll, ironic black comedy.Read More »
This is a compilation film consisting exclusivley of archive footage. Rather not the usual sort of film you get from Tinto Brass.
Trivia from IMDB:
“This film was scheduled for the second New York Film Festival (1964), but was withheld by authorities in Italy and thus deprived of a showing. In 1971, the film was re-titled and released in the USA as “Thermidor” (after the 11th month of the French Revolutionary calendar), with a new English narration, and with some attempt at updating made by its American distributor.”Read More »
Commissioner Bonavia has hygiene-obsessed mafioso Lipuma release from the insane asylum where he has been incarcerated for the past six years knowing fullwell that Lipuma’s first action once released will be to make an attempt on his former rival Dubrosio’s life.
Indeed this is what Bonavia, who is pursuing his own personal vendetta against Dubrosio is counting on; he knows that there is no point in pursuing legal channels when just about the entirety of the Palmero administration and judiciary is in league with Dubrosio.Read More »
As his first assignment, lieutenant Drogo is sent to an isolated fortress on the borders of a desert and of a range of high mountains. The mission of the garrison is to prevent a possible incursion by the fearsome Tartars, coming from beyond the desert. Some fellow officers are eagerly awaiting an attack; some no longer want to believe in it; others take advantage of the vague threat to further their career. All of them are sacrificing everything — health, youth, friends, family — for a distant military ideal: leading the defence against the onslaught of the enemy. But in the vast emptiness surrounding the fortress, nobody has ever sighted the Tartars…Read More »
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Their Trilogia della guerra (War Trilogy) consists of Prigionieri della guerra (War prisoners), Su tutte le vette è pace (All’s Quiet on the Mountain Peaks), and Oh! Uomo (Oh! Man). The trilogy explores armed conflict from a variety of perspectives: from the relationship oppressor/oppressed and psychological warfare to the meticulous preparations undertaken by soldiers before battle, the plight of the wounded, and the realities of the battlefield. In their unusual and deeply individual method, Gianikian and Lucchi take old archival footage as the basis for their creations. They then set about reworking and transforming in ways that recontextualize and call our attention to the old film—marked, quite literally, by the passage of time—as a visual, historical document. Their work has been presented in many of the world’s most prestigious international festivals including Cannes, Berlin, Rotterdam, Paris and New York.Read More »