Monthly Archives: April 2016

Nana (1983) Dan Wolman, Katya Berger, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Yehuda Efroni, Comedy, Drama, Erotic

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In Zola’s Paris, an ingenue arrives at a tony bordello: she’s Nana, guileless, but quickly learning to use her erotic innocence to get what she wants. She’s an actress for a soft-core filmmaker and soon is the most popular courtesan in Paris, parlaying this into a house, bought for her by a wealthy banker. She tosses him and takes up with her neighbor, a count of impeccable rectitude, and with the count’s impressionable son. The count is soon fetching sticks like a dog and mortgaging his lands to satisfy her whims. She bankrupts him, arranges the debauching of his wife, and seduces his son on his wedding day. What else can she accomplish before she leaves Paris airborne?
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Malevolent (2002) John Terlesky, Lou Diamond Phillips, Edoardo Ballerini, Kari Wuhrer, Crime, Drama, Thriller

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Detective Jack Lucas is racing to clear his name, when he’s framed for a series of murders. A maverick cop under routine investigation for a job-related shooting, Jack finds himself being set up as the prime suspect in an escalating killing spree. Sliding deeper into trouble and with few clues to go on, Jack desperately teams with exotic dancer Jessica, who may hold the key to the motive behind the mystery. With time running out, he must do whatever it takes to put all the pieces together and prove his innocence before the real killer pulls off the perfect crime.
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Radio Arrow (1998) Luciano Ligabue, Stefano Accorsi, Luciano Federico, Alessio Modica, Drama

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Popular Italian rock star Luciano Ligabue made his directorial debut with this Italian drama based on Fuori e dentro il borgo, his collection of autobiographical short stories about growing up in small-town Italy of the ’70s. DJ Bruno reflects on the past, a small circle of friends, and the hopes of their generation. At the group’s core is Freccia, a heroin user until Marzia steps in to help him kick the habit. As expected, Iena marries and settles down, while unhappy Boris is a victim of his own cynicism, and Tito is driven to violence by his dysfunctional family. An older bartender listens to the group’s woes and dreams. Along with a guitar score and a closing-credits song by Ligabue, tunes of the time include ones by Iggy Pop, Roxy Music, and David Bowie. Shown at the 1998 Venice Film Festival.
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Il solco di pesca (1975) Maurizio Liverani, Martine Brochard, Gloria Guida, Alberto Terracina, Comedy, Drama, Erotic

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This movie centers around a group of people that are both very Italian-Catholic and the same time oversexed and jaded European bourgeosis from the late “dolce vita” era. The main protagonist is a former priest who has become bored to the point of impotence by the easy availability of beautiful women. He misses the shame of the priesthood which made sex somehow more enjoyable, and this somehow leads to his strange fascination with photographing asses . He gets involved with a sexy married woman (Martine Brochard), but he is more interested in her virginal maid (Gloria Guida)–or, to be more specific, in the maid’s ass. The woman’s husband meanwhile, a hilariously pretentious actor, discovers the affair. Strangely, he is not angry at his wife’s infidelity but depressed that she was so indiscreet, and he too takes solace in his maid’s ass.
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The Devil-Doll (1936) Tod Browning, Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O’Sullivan, Frank Lawton, Sci-Fi, Horror

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Paul Lavond was a respected banker in Paris when he was framed for robbery and murder by crooked associates and sent to Devil’s Island. Years later, he escapes with a friend, a scientist who was working on a method to reduce humans to a height of mere inches (all for the good of humanity, of course). Lavond however is consumed with hatred for the men who betrayed him, and takes the scientist’s methods back to Paris to exact painful revenge.
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Night of 1,000 Sexes / Mil sexos tiene la noche (1984) Jesus Franco, Lina Romay, Daniel Katz, Carmen Carrión, Horror, Thriller, Erotic

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Franco at his finest – somebody get this film on DVD now! This obscure Golden Films production got to pop the Franco-cherry on my new movie projector. It was just the right choice! Lina Romay, chubby like she just walked out of an Anders Zorn-painting, plays Irena (Female Vampire flashbacks, anybody?) who’s part of a kind of hypnosis nightclub act with the magician Fábian. He’s not a very nice guy and uses his hypnotic powers to use poor Irena as an instrument of vengeance, sleeping with and killing off his enemies. Or is the whole set up just part of her nightmares? An unusually good, hypnotic (in both meanings of the word) sleaze flick that really shows what Franco can achieve with extremely limited resources – some hotel rooms, a handful of actors (the same old faces that’s in all films from this period), a film camera and some re-used Daniel White music. Man, I really love this stripped down Golden Films stuff when it’s done right and this films is much closer in spirit to, say, Macumba Sexual than Mansion of the Living Dead. Parts of the film are almost delirious. There’s a thick, intimate atmosphere and interesting experimental photography. Some scenes are almost bordering on the poetic, for example we have a beautifully shot long kiss filmed through a glass door, bathing in sunlight. Say what you want about Lina’s acting capacity but here she gives all she’s got, somewhat reprising her roles in Female Vampire and Doriana Gray. Even though the story itself is more similar to Nightmares Come at Night. Highly recommended!
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