España 68 (El hoy es malo pero el mañana es mío) aka Spain 68
A documentary about the 1968 student demonstrations and university occupations in Spain.
Spagna ’68, entirely financed by Pier Paolo Pasolini;
the first film in history to be made under and in opposition to a totalitarian regime.Read More »
A softcore cult classic that was instrumental in helping establish the legend of Skinemax while playing a significant role in the depletion of many a pubescent teenage boy’s tube sock supply back in the day, 1987’s ELEVEN DAYS, ELEVEN NIGHTS is a gender-swapped Italian ripoff of 9 1/2 WEEKS from notorious Eurocult journeyman Joe D’Amato. Written by Claudio Fragasso and Rossella Drudi–the husband-and-wife masters of erotica who would later gift us with TROLL 2–ELEVEN DAYS, ELEVEN NIGHTS pretty much follows the template of D’Amato’s “Black Emanuelle” films of the late ’70s, right down to the presence of Laura Gemser, this time as the editor to nympho journalist Sarah Asproon (Jessica Moore), who’s writing a scintillating memoir of her sexual exploits entitled My One Hundred Men (Drudi uses the pseudonym “Sarah Asproon” for her writing credit, giving the film a bogus autobiographical ruse in the tradition of “Emmanuelle Arsan”). Read More »
A psychoanalyst, who is a fervent supporter of the sexological theories by Wilhelm Reich, induces a group of seven couples to retire to a hotel in order to practise partner-swapping with no restraint. Something gets out of hand though and the experiment has no happy end. A boring erotic movie which is mainly interesting for the dramatic evolution of the plot, maybe due to Dario Argento’s contribution to the script. Laura Antonelli, in her full personal appeal, who is already “naked” enough, is worthy of a special mentionRead More »
Review:
The filmmaking team of Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel concoct fictional narratives around the real lives and professions of the nonactors with whom they work. This is an unusual formula but not an entirely novel one. While other examples of this method, or some variant of it, have yielded films that come off as condescending or creepily exploitative, Ms. Covi and Mr. Frimmel’s “Mister Universo” is a disarming and humane picture, an unexpected delight.Read More »
Synopsis
The Tavianis’ adaptation of Goethe’s novel may seem strangely restrained compared to their other fables, but it’s still a work of exquisite elegance and precision. Set in Tuscany during the Napoleonic era, it charts the forces of attraction and repulsion that shape the complex relationships between a happily married baron and his wife (Anglade, Huppert), the baron’s architect friend (Bentivoglio) and the wife’s goddaughter (Gillain). If the story itself (engrossing enough) never seems very much more than an unusually formal period romance, the immaculate performances and the Tavianis’ masterly control of colour, composition and music (a poignant but unexpectedly modernist score from Carlo Crivelli) make for absorbing viewing.Read More »
Synopsis:
Gerardo, an aspiring actor, trying unsuccessfully to cross over from comedy to tragedy, is involved, due to his ability to mimic dialects of Italy, in a scam concocted by Lallo against a rich cloth-merchant.Read More »
Spoiler
“Il mio corpo con rabbia” by Roberto Natale has been credited an uncertain and indefinite status between an art and an exploitation movie. Silvia (Antonia Santilli) is a daddy’s girl who has wanted to have a drug experience only once, but this was enough for her parents to batten down the hatches, on the advice of a doctor, isolating the girl into a luxurious hotel in Sardinia and being vigilant on her “healing”. It’s out of season, there’re almost no people in the compound. Read More »
Five people, all united by the fact of being on a train to Monte Carlo, will find themselves being involved in the murder of an elderly millionaire of Dutch origin, a regular guest of the glamorous Riviera location….Read More »
Quote:
Shot in 1972, first shown in 1975, and newly restored by the Cineteca di Bologna, Alberto Grifi and massimo Sarchielli’s ANNA is an astonishing nearly four-hour documentary about a 16-year-old homeless junkie, eight months pregnant, whom the filmmakers discovered in Rome’s Piazza Navona. Mainly shot on then-newfangled video (which at times gives the black-and-white images a ghostly translucence), it documents the interactions between the beautiful, clearly damaged, often dazed teenager and the directors, who take her in partly out of compassion and partly because she’s a fascinating subject for a film. Read More »