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Experimental film mixes genres, styles and even XXX vs. soft-core
Paul Vecchiali’s work is an acquired taste, as he is a filmmaker who marches to the beat of his own drum, never fashionable or popular. Produced by a famous pornographer of the day (Jean-Francois Davy of “Exhibition” fame) it’s a rare mainstream (sort of) movie that carefully integrates explicit hardcore sex content into a strong story.Read More »
Synopsis:
When Miami, Florida became national headquarters for a ten billion dollar crime syndicate ruled by crime-czar Tomy Brill (Luther Adler), whose chief henchman is Ted Delacorte (John Baer), a citizen’s committee enlists the aid of a reformed gangster Mick Flakk (Barry Sullivan), a widower with a ten-year-old son, pretends to move in on Brill’s rackets. Brill’s henchmen beat up a woman,Holly Abbott (Beverly Garland), whom Flagg has befriended to get the dope on Flagg’s plans, he orders the police to raid the syndicate’s gambling-club. Brill counters by having Flagg’s son, Gil Flagg (David Kasday), kidnapped.Read More »
German review by Spiegel Online wrote:
Der Autorenfilmstar Christian Petzold, der schon die ‘Kreise’-Episode geschrieben und gedreht hat, hat diesen ‘Polizeiruf’ als so kunst- wie lustvollen Assoziationsstrom in Szene gesetzt. […] Mit romantischem Grimm und grimmscher Romantik zielt […] Petzold aufs kollektive Unterbewusstsein der Zuschauer und arbeitet sich durch alle Facetten des Wolfs-Topos – inklusive einer Ermittlerin, die mit rotem Mantel, vernebeltem Blick und naivem Interesse doch sehr an eine der größten Heldinnen der Gebrüder Grimm erinnert. Dabei bewahrt sich Christian Petzold seinen von aller Gefühlsrhetorik befreiten Stil. In lakonischen Dialogen holt er Angstbilder hoch, die in uns allen schlummern.Read More »
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Post WWII yarn about a young GI abducted by the Soviets in West Berlin and hauled off to the East. His recovery gets complicated as Colonel Steve Van Dyke (Peck) tries to sort out the usefulness of informants, spies, bureaucrats, and the abductee’s influential father (Crawford)!Read More »
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Theodore Honey is an aeronautical engineer being sent to Labrador from London to examine the wreckage of a new passenger plane designed by his company. His theory is that the planes are susceptible to metal fatigue after a specific amount of time in the air. The absent minded Honey boards the Reindeer class plane and only realizes that this plane is due to fail in the next few hours after the plane is airborne. He decides to warn the crew and creates an incident regardless of whether he is right or wrong.Read More »
Beverly Hills shrink Dr. Jonathan Brooks (Nick Cassavetes) seemingly has everything; wealth, a successful practice and a beautiful lawyer fiancée, Jennifer (Diana Barton). Brooks is helping his cop friend Harry Reams (Richard Roundtree) compile a psychological profile of a serial killer on the loose in L.A. Meantime, he starts treating an interesting new patient, Laura (Shannon Whirry), a shy woman who transforms under hypnosis into a completely different persona; the seductive Lana. A torrid affair takes place between the irresistible Lana and Brooks, but he gets more than he bargained for. Lana steals videotapes of ‘sessions’ the doctor has had with other patients and blackmails him with the damning evidence, while at the same time Harry Reams is getting closer and closer to identifying the serial killer.Read More »
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To his Victorian London friends, Stephen Lowry is a heartbroken widower. Only his housemaid Lily knows that far from dying of gastroenteritis his wife was slowly poisoned by her husband – information she is happy to use to improve her position in the household and to make sure she stays close to Stephen. As his own prospects improve with a business partnership and a romance more of his own class, Stephen decides that Lily must go. Unfortunately for him, his first attempt gives her even more of a hold over him.Read More »
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First off: Fatih Akin’s “The Cut” was an aberration, as we all suspected. The director celebrated for his edgy takes on intriguing characters more or less returns with “In the Fade,” a well-constructed, at times moving story of a Hamburg woman seeking justice after the murder of her Kurdish husband and son by a couple of Neo-Nazis. “More or less” because the excellent first quarter gives way to a relatively standard-issue though handsomely produced legal drama with several stock characters and a script that feels too guided by the presumed requirements of mainstream cinema. Diane Kruger’s powerhouse performance in her first German-language production goes a long way toward compensating for the narrative’s dip into overly crystalline waters, and international sales have been unsurprisingly brisk given the film’s incontrovertible general appeal.Read More »
When a wealthy man dies, his avaricious relatives look forward to inheriting all his money. However, he leaves a provision in his will that they all must spend a week together in his castle before they will be able to inherit anything. At the castle (which is cut off from the outside world), the relatives soon begin to be killed off one by one, each strangled with an Indian scarf. The estate’s executor, a lawyer, sets out to find the killer before everyone–including himself–is murdered.Read More »