Tag Archives: Italy

Il tempo si è fermato / Time Stood Still (1959) Ermanno Olmi, Natale Rossi, Roberto Seveso, Paolo Guadrubbi, Drama

Il tempo si e fermato (Ermanno Olmi, 1959)
Two middle-aged men work as caretakers on an isolated dam construction site high in the snow-capped Italian Alps. When one of them leaves for the valley to spend Christmas vacation with his family he is temporarily replaced with an adolescent boy. The other man is both annoyed and intrigued by the boy and his habits: he listens to loud music, sleeps too long in the mornings and doesn’t drink any alcohol. They barely speak to one another in the first couple of days. But when an avalanche cuts their small hut from electricity they slowly start growing more fond of each other.
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Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina / Slap the Monster on Page One (1972) Marco Bellocchio, Gian Maria Volontè, Fabio Garriba, Carla Tatò, Drama, Thriller

Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina (Marco Bellocchio, 1972)
1972, Milano. We are just a few days before the general elections. The daughter of a well-known professor is found dead. Mr Bizanti editor in chief of newspaper “Il Giornale”, in agreement with its owner Mr. Montelli, decides to charge of following the story the junior Roveda and the senior Lauri. At one point, some elements indicates senator Boni as a possible murderer. All the “old guard” within “Il Giornale” drives articles in order to underline responsibilities of senator Boni. But young Roveda doesn’t surrender and continues to search for the truth.
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L’aveu / The Confession (1970) Costa-Gavras, Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Gabriele Ferzetti, Drama, Thriller

L'aveu (1970)
Anton Ludvik, aka Gerard, is vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia. He realizes he is watched and followed. One day, he is arrested and put into jail, in solitary confinement. Will be shown the mental tortures during the investigations and how a faithful top-ranking civil servant is made to confess to treason. Based on the true story of Czechoslovakian communist Artur London.
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Trash (1970) Paul Morrissey, Joe Dallesandro, Holly Woodlawn, Geri Miller, Drama

Trash (Paul Morrissey, 1970)
The movie follows Joe (Dallesandro), a heroin addict, throughout his quest to score more drugs. The episodic plot occurs over a single day and centers around Joe’s problematic relationship with his on-off, sexually frustrated girlfriend (Woodlawn). During the course of the day, Joe overdoses in front of an upper-class couple, attempts to fool Welfare into approving his methadone treatment by having Holly fake a pregnancy, and frustrates the women in his life with his drug-induced impotence.
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Caligula II: The Untold Story (1982) Joe D’Amato, David Brandon, Laura Gemser, Luciano Bartoli, Adult, Drama, History, Erotic

caligula_ii
The deranged Roman emperor Gainus ‘Caligula’ (Little Boots) Caesar (12-41 A.D.) rules Rome with an iron fist and has anyone tortured and exectued for even the slightest insubordination. Mostly set during his last year of his reign, as Caligula loses support due to his brutal and crazed excess, a young Moor woman, named Miriam, becomes his lover while ploting to kill him to avenge the murder of a friend which Caligula was responsible for. But Miriam is torn between her personal vandeda against Caligula and her own personal feelings towards him despite his madness and debauched lifestyle of orgies and bloody torture murders.
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The Spy I Love / Coplan prend des risques (1964) Maurice Labro, Dominique Paturel, Virna Lisi, Jacques Balutin, Action, Drama

The Spy I Love (1964)
This is a low-to-the-ground espionage story shot in the style before James Bond made the splash heard ’round the world in Dr. No, even though it was made two years later. The simple story, about a stolen nuclear rocket propellant called the SR 712, is told in a nuts-and-bolts manner and the low key hero will barely register on those brought up on the larger than life Bond.
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Man, Woman and Beast / L’uomo, la donna e la bestia – Spell (Dolce mattatoio) (1977) Alberto Cavallone, Maria Pia Luzi, Martial Boschero, Angela Doria, Drama, Erotic

Man, Woman and Beast (1977)
The film takes place in a humble Italian Catholic village where everyone is acquainted with each other but no one truly knows about the secret lives that they all live. The entire community is preparing for the annual religious festival. There’s the local butcher who covets the town’s young teenagers and then goes into the freezer and makes love to hanging beef carcasses. The teenage daughter who has sex with her father and becomes pregnant at her grandfather’s funeral. The communist drunkard who beats and rapes his wife. She lives through her dreams and fantasies or she’ll go crazy. The Christ-like stranger who does not have a name. The women fantasize about him. The children all adore him but he does not belong to the village. He always seems to be at the right place at the right time. And there’s a bizarre artist who clips out pictures of internal organs from medical journals and pastes them on magazine models with a completely insane wife who never speaks.
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Una ragazza piuttosto complicata / A Rather Complicated Girl (1969) Damiano Damiani, Catherine Spaak, Jean Sorel, Florinda Bolkan, Thriller, Erotic

Una ragazza piuttosto complicata (1969)
This erotic sexploitation feature concerns a couple and their pursuit of sexual fulfillment with each other – and their mutually agreed upon third bed guests. Lesbian love angles includes the woman’s step-daughter. Alberto (Jean Sorel) is soon left alone when the women decides his services are no longer required. After acting on his erotic fantasies, he is left alone and driven to madness when his girlfriend marries another after leaving with her lesbian lover.
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