After three short films, Roland Klick finally wanted to shoot a real feature-length film in 1966. It almost worked out with that. But then the production company Atlas Film went bankrupt during the shooting of Jimmy Orpheus. That’s why this 50-minute film isn’t Klick’s originally planned film, but only his torso. Jimmy Orpheus also clearly shows this. And it does the film astonishingly good! This is a similarly successful creative accident as Jean-Luc Godard’s feature film debut Breathless, which came to the cinemas six years earlier. It was finished, as planned by Godard, but should be shortened afterwards at the instigation of the producer. Thus Godard radically snipped away everything that was not absolutely necessary to understand the plot – and invented the jump cut in this way.Read More »
-
Roland Klick – Jimmy Orpheus (1966)
1961-1970DramaGermanyRoland Klick -
Aleksandr Kajdanovsky – Gost (1987)
1981-1990Aleksandr KajdanovskyArthouseDramaUSSR -
Otto Preminger – The Moon Is Blue (1953)
1951-1960ComedyOtto PremingerRomanceUSATwo aging playboys make a play to sway young Patty from her vow to remain a virgin until her wedding night. Yet while she remains oblivious to David and Donald’s ulterior motives for wooing her, Patty’s goodness tames the Lotharios instead. The Moon Is Blue was based on a stage play produced by Preminger, and he filmed English and German versions simultaneously using the same sets and different actors. The German version, Die Jungfrau auf dem Dach, was released the same year, starring Hardy Krüger and Joahnna Matz.Read More »
-
Otto Preminger – The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
1951-1960DramaFilm NoirOtto PremingerUSAQuote:
Frankie Machine returns to his down-and-out neighborhood after a stint in rehab for heroin addiction. His wheelchair-bound wife, Zosh, doesn’t support Frankie’s dream to become a professional drummer now that he’s clean; old habits are hard to break when your support system wants you to keep feeding the monkey on your back. Graphic and unsettling, Elmer Bernstein’s jazz score is truly evocative.Read More » -
Abel Ferrara – Napoli, Napoli, Napoli (2009)
2001-2010Abel FerraraDocumentaryDramaItaly
Quote:
Napoli, Napoli, Napoli, Abel Ferrara’s new project, is not only a portrait of the city itself, but a deep sight into its humanity, vital and brutal, passionate and cruel at the same time. While interviewing a group of female convicts in Pozzuoli State Prison, Ferrara was deeply impressed by their statements, so harsh and fatalistic. He then decided to base on their life experiences three different screenplays, written by Peppe Lanzetta, Maurizio Braucci and Gaetano Di Vaio. Di Vaio’s episode is inspired by his actual experience as a convict; Braucci’s depicts a sad and brutal adolescence; Lanzetta’s a family melodrama of violence, expectations and vengeance. By interweaving reality and fiction, this innovative docu-drama is a complex and compelling mosaic; like the city of Naples, so fascinating and indecipherable at the same time.Read More » -
Jean Cazenave – Apostrophes: Charles Bukowski (1978)
1971-1980FranceJean CazenaveTValmost 35 years ago (sept 22 1978) bukowski made this notorious ill fated appearance on french tv. no subs and mostly in french (chuck speaks english but a french translator does his best to drown him out, as does everyone else). he initially seems okay with with suffering through it all via the proverbial bottle of wine and indian cigs but it isnt long before the self important pseudo intellectual bloody frogs begin to wear him down. after awhile he decides to remove his earpiece and wing it. soon he cant get a word in edgewise (douchebag host bernie pivot even shushes him numerous times as things get increasingly ugly. chuck says finally “i’m sorry i said anything”):)Read More »
-
Ian Olney & Antonio Lázaro-Reboll – The Films of Jess Franco (2018)
2011-2020BooksIan Olney and Antonio Lázaro-RebollUSAThe Films of Jess Franco
Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media Series
Edited by Ian Olney, Antonio Lázaro-Reboll
Paperback: 338 pages
Publisher: Wayne State University Press (June 4, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0814343163
ISBN-13: 978-0814343166Read More » -
Claude Mulot – Suprêmes jouissances AKA Supreme Delights (1976)
1971-1980ClassicsClaude MulotEroticaFranceThree young women leave their chauvinist boyfriends, set up their own living situation in a luxurious apartment and revel in their sexual freedom.
This film is also known as Suprêmes jouissances. The director Claude Mulot is credited as Frédéric Lansac.Read More »
-
Clifford Odets – None But the Lonely Heart (1944)
1941-1950ClassicsClifford OdetsDramaUSAPlot Synopsis by Hal Erickson
Cary Grant delivered Oscar-calibre performances all his life, but only when he played against type in None But the Lonely Heart did the Academy Awards people break down and give him a nomination. Grant plays a restless, irresponsible cockney who seeks a better life but doesn’t seem to have the emotional wherewithal to work for such a life. The hero’s shiftlessness extends to his love life; musician Jane Wyatt genuinely cares for him, but he prefers the company of fickle gangster’s ex-wife June Duprez. June’s former husband George Coulouris convinces Grant that the quickest means to wealth is a life of crime, but Grant drops this aspect of his life to take care of his terminally ill mother Ethel Barrymore. While Cary Grant did not win the Oscar he so richly deserved for None But the Lonely Heart, Ethel Barrymore did cop the gold statuette. Written and directed by Clifford Odets, None But the Lonely Heart unfortunately lost money for RKO, which could have used a little extra cash after paying the expenses of temporarily closing Ms. Barrymore’s Broadway play The Corn is Green.Read More »








