
Like in many other Monicelli movies, the main theme of Amici miei is friendship, seen from a rather bitter point of view. It tells the story of four middle-aged friends in Florence who organize together idle pranks (called zingarate, “gypsy shenanigans”) in a continuous attempt to prolong childhood during their adult life…
Read More »
Comedy
Hitori Musuko / Le Fils Unique (1936) Yasujirô Ozu, Chôko Iida, Shin’ichi Himori, Masao Hayama, Comedy, Drama

The film starts in the rural town of Shinshu in 1923. A widow, Tsune (O-Tsune) Nonomiya (Choko Iida), works hard at a silk production factory to provide for her only son, Ryosuke. When Ryosuke’s teacher Okubo (Chishu Ryu) persuades her to let her son continue to study beyond elementary school, she decides to support her son’s education even until college. Her son promises to become a great man…
Read More »
La macchina ammazzacattivi / The Machine That Kills Bad People (1952) Roberto Rossellini, Gennaro Pisano, Marilyn Buferd, William Tubbs, Comedy, Fantasy

A demon bestows on a self-righteous working photographer’s camera the power to smite from the Earth “evil-doers”. Naturally, the indignant photographer turns his new weapon on, one by one, his entire village, beginning with the wealthy or illustrious. Soon, the poor he is so supposedly so enamored of become his victims too, so rife with impatience and contempt is he, that the slightest flaw is cause for smiting. Inevitably, he embarks on a task to destroy everyone.
Read More »
The End (1978) Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Dom DeLuise

Wendell Lawson has only 6 months to live. Not wanting to live his last few months of life waiting Read More »
A Cara que Mereces / The Face You Deserve (2004) Miguel Gomes, José Airosa, Gracinda Nave, Sara Graça, Comedy, Fantasy

Until you turn 30, you have the face God gave you. After that, you have the face you deserve.” The estranged musical comedy that is Gomes’ first feature film seeks to convince its protagonist, Francisco, of that saying/dogma; precisely, during his thirtieth birthday. Or maybe it’s the complete opposite, and that Francisco who dresses up as a cowboy for the school play at the school where he teaches the children he detests, seeks to convince A cara que mereces of the fatality of the little phrase. But Francisco is a trick: he knows he deserves his face and his body because of him being intolerable. And A cara que mereces, hunted hunter, becomes a claustrophobic film that seeks to run away from Francisco using cinephilia as a way of escape; boarding, as Mark Peranson has observed, to the heart of Rivette, to the train (of dreams) of the recent Godard and, finally, to an impossible (but well-deserved) version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
Read More »
Spider Baby (1967) Jack Hill, Lon Chaney Jr., Carol Ohmart, Quinn K. Redeker, Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi

In a dilapidated rural mansion, the last generation of the degenerate, inbred Merrye family lives with the inherited curse of a disease that causes them to mentally regress from the age of 10 or so on as they physically develop. The family chauffeur looks out for them and covers up their indiscretions. Trouble comes when greedy distant relatives and their lawyer arrive to dispossess the family of its home…
Read More »
Robokon / Robot Contest (2003) Tomoyuki Furumaya, Masami Nagasawa, Shun Oguri, Atsushi Itô, Comedy, Drama

Lazy girl Satomi is assigned a stint, against her wishes, to her school’s Robot Club. However, it’s not the premiere club that she got assigned to, but the “B” team where the team members are hardly cooperative, made up of a motley bunch of losers.
Read More »
Cheut ai kup gei / Exodus (2007) Ho-Cheung Pang, Simon Yam

A low-ranking cop often relegated to desk duty, middle-aged Tsim Kin Yip (Simon Yam) Read More »
Bariera / Barrier (1966) Jerzy Skolimowski, Joanna Szczerbic, Jan Nowicki, Tadeusz Lomnicki, Drama, Comedy

A rebellious student wants to get total independence and overcome all the barriers in his life: of money, age, status, cults and conventions. However, he meets a girl with completely different ideals.
Read More »
Zelig (1983) Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Patrick Horgan, Comedy

Fictional documentary about the life of human chameleon Leonard Zelig, a man who becomes a celebrity in the 1920s due to his ability to look and act like whoever is around him. Clever editing places Zelig in real newsreel footage of Woodrow Wilson, Babe Ruth, and others.
Read More »