Italian

  • Emilio Miraglia – La Dama rossa uccide sette volte AKA The Red Queen Kills 7 Times (1972)

    1971-1980Emilio MiragliaGialloItalyThriller

    Synopsis:
    A long time ago there were two sisters, a red queen and a black queen. They grew up hating each other. Finally the black queen killed the red queen by stabbing her seven times. The red queen came back from the dead and killed six people then killed the black queen. This cycle repeats it self every 100 years. But its only a legend…right?
    Now in present time it would seem that the red queen is back and bodies are piling up left and right.Read More »

  • Sergio Martino – La Coda dello scorpione AKA The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail (1971)

    1971-1980GialloItalySergio MartinoThriller

    Synopsis:
    Lisa Baumer’s husband dies in a dramatic airplane crash and the widow soon collects on his million-dollar insurance policy. As a suspicious insurance agent investigates the case, the inevitable corpses start piling up. Then, when the widow Baumer herself is found murdered, her million dollars mysteriously disappears! Smelling a hot scoop, an ambitious journalist begins to put together the pieces of an increasingly bloody puzzle.Read More »

  • Goffredo Alessandrini – Noi vivi aka We the Living (1942)

    1941-1950DramaGoffredo AlessandriniItalian Cinema under FascismItaly

    The time is the Russian Revolution. The place is a country burdened with fear – the midnight knock at the door, the bread hidden against famine, the haunted eyes of the fleeing, the grublike fat of the appeasers and oppressors. In a bitter struggle of the individual against the collective, three people stand forth with the mark of the unconquered in their bearing: Kira, who wants to be a builder, and the two men who love her – Leo, an aristocrat, and Andrei, a Communist. In their tensely dramatic story, Ayn Rand shows what the theories of Communism mean in practice. We the Living is not a story of politics but of the men and women who have to struggle for existence behind the Red banners and slogans.Read More »

  • Ferzan Ozpetek – Saturno contro AKA Saturn in Opposition (2007)

    2001-2010ComedyDramaFerzan ÖzpetekItalyQueer Cinema(s)

    The sympathetically drawn, unthreatening gay characters here are practically an advertisement for this hot political topic. Abroad, the film’s biggest selling point, as with “Steam: The Turkish Bath” and “Ignorant Fairies,” is its relaxed, modern approach to gay characters and lifestyle, unusual for an Italian film. The mix of straight and gay stories, though, should broaden its appeal to a slightly wider niche.Read More »

  • Rino Di Silvestro – Baby Love (1979)

    1971-1980ComedyExploitationItalyRino Di Silvestro

    Baby Love is a stepdaughter of an queen of the castle of Balsorano.The queen wants to sell Baby Love during the auction to the highest bidder.There are four bidders:a Chinese,an American,a Russian and a Sicilian.They want virginal Baby Love,but after successful auction the girl decides to lose her virginity with the queen’s lover Read More »

  • Sergio Martino – Tutti i colori del buio AKA All the Colors of the Dark (1972)

    1971-1980GialloItalySergio MartinoThriller

    Synopsis:
    Jane lives in London with Richard, her boyfriend. When she was five, her mother was murdered, and she recently lost a baby in a car crash. She’s plagued by nightmares of a knife-wielding, blue-eyed man. Richard, a pharmaceutical salesman, thinks the cure is vitamins; Jane’s sister Barbara, who works for a psychiatrist, recommends analysis; a neighbor Jane’s just met promises that if Jane participates in a Black Mass, all her fears will disappear. Jane tries the Mass, but it seems to bring her nightmares to life. Is there any way out for her short of death or a living Hell?Read More »

  • Marco Bellocchio – Bella addormentata AKA Dormant Beauty (2012)

    2011-2020DramaItalyMarco Bellocchio

    Synopsis:
    A mosaic of several intertwined stories questioning the meaning of life, love and hope, set during the last six days in the life of Eluana Englaro, a young woman who spent 17 years in a vegetative state.

    Review:
    Following a car accident, Eluana Englaro lay in a coma for 17 years. Doctors who assessed her described her as being in a persistent vegetative state, doomed never to awaken, but of course there were many who campaigned to keep her alive, whether in hope of a miracle or simply because they felt that what life she had left must be preserved. In February 2009, the decision was made to remove her feeding tube and allow her to die naturally. A court battle ensued, with the matter going all the way to parliament, exposing a deeply divided nation.Read More »

  • Luigi Comencini – Incompreso (Vita col figlio) AKA Misunderstood (1967)

    1961-1970DramaItalyLuigi Comencini

    Duncombe is the UK Consul General in Florence, Italy. He becomes a widower when his two sons, Andrew and Miles, are still young kids. Andrew, the eldest, apparently reacts with adult maturity to the loss of his mother, looking after little Miles, an attempt to find a way out of such premature heart-crushing loss. Andrew gets constantly blamed for Miles’ mischievous behavior, but he valiantly takes said blame as his personality is that of a grown up, or at least that is what he tries to be. The father, given his mandate, is often absent, both physically and emotionally, especially toward Andrew. It will be at the end that Duncombe will acknowledge his mistakes, finding himself at a father’s point of no return.Read More »

  • Joseph Losey – Don Giovanni (1979)

    1971-1980ArthouseFranceJoseph LoseyMusical

    From IMDB:
    Screen adapatation of Mozart’s greatest opera. Don Giovanni, the infamous womanizer, makes one conquest after another until the ghost of Donna Anna’s father, the Commendatore, (whom Giovanni killed) makes his appearance. He offers Giovanni one last chance to repent for his multitudinious improprieties. He will not change his ways So, he is sucked down into hell by evil spirits. High drama, hysterical comedy, magnificent music! Written by frankpatRead More »

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