
Like modern times’ Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Sam and Jonathan, two travelling salesmen peddling novelty items, take us on a kaleidoscopic wandering through human destinies. A trip that shows us the beauty of single moments, the pettiness of others, the humor and tragedy that is in us, life’s grandeur as well as frailty of humanity.
Read More »
Comedy
Man Alive (1945) Ray Enright, Pat O’Brien, Adolphe Menjou, Ellen Drew, Comedy

Man Alive is an inventive and consistently amusing farce dominated by stars Pat O’Brien and Adolphe Menjou. The former plays Speed, a moderately successful garage owner. Suspecting that his wife Connie (Ellen Drew) has fallen in love with old college buddy Gordon (Rudy Vallee), Speed goes off on a bender. During a long and drunken night, he gives his clothes and his car to an old tramp named Willie the Wino (Jack Norton). With Speed as his passenger, Willie piles the car into a river. Willie drowns, but Speed is rescued by showboat entrepreneur Kismet (Menjou). When the car is recovered, it is assumed that the body inside is Speed’s. Speed wakes up thinking he’s dead because Kismet is wearing a devil’s costume (for a stage show) while stoking coal into the ship’s furnace! When he tries to get back to his wife, O’Brien is urged by kibitzer Menjou to act as a ghost to find out if her love for him is real or if she’s actually in love with Gordy, leading to a series of increasingly zany consequences.
Read More »
Sirens (1993) John Duigan, Hugh Grant, Tara Fitzgerald, Sam Neill, Comedy, Drama, Romance

A young reverend and his wife are on the way from England to Australia to minister to their flock. The bishop asks him to visit an eccentric artist prone to sexual depictions and requests that he voluntarily withdraw a controversial work call “Crucified Venus” from his show. The minister, who considers himself a progressive, is shocked at the amoral atmosphere surrounding the painter, his wife, and the three models living at his estate. The minister’s wife is troubled also, and has to deal with latent sexual urges while trying to remain loyal to her husband.
Read More »
The Stunt Man (1980) Richard Rush, Peter O’Toole, Steve Railsback, Barbara Hershey, Action, Comedy, Drama, Romance, Thriller

While on the run from the police, Steve Railsback hides in a group of moviemakers where he pretends to be a stunt man. Both aided and endangered by the director (Peter O’Toole) he avoids both the police and sudden death as a stuntman. The mixture of real danger and fantasy of the movie is an interesting twist for the viewer as the two blend in individual scenes.
Read More »
Topsy-Turvy (1999) Mike Leigh, Jim Broadbent, Allan Corduner, Dexter Fletcher, Biography, Comedy, Drama, Musical

After their production “Princess Ida” meets with less-than-stunning reviews, the relationship between Gilbert and Sullivan is strained to breaking. Their friends and associates attempt to get the two to work together again, which opens the way to “The Mikado,” one of the duo’s greatest successes.
Read More »
Emanuelle In The Country / Messo comunale praticamente spione (1978) Mario Bianchi, Laura Gemser, Gabriele Tinti, Cándida López, Comedy, Erotic

When Emanuelle (Gemser) arrives in the small Italian village heads start turning and eyes start popping. All males in the town are falling all over themselves trying to get a look (or a feel) of the new doctor. One in particular is the fiancee of the mayor’s daughter. A kind of “Hatfield’s and McCoy’s” feud with a political twist has been going on and the young lovers’ families are, unfortunately, on opposite sides. Emanuelle’s shower becomes the target of a gang of voyeurs, including the pillars of the community. She uses it as a stage to taunt the watchers to charge into her apartment on the notion that she is showering with the mayor’s daughter’s fiancee. Instead of what they expected, they find the two young lovers in bed. Can Emanuelle shame them into allowing the marriage that they had been preventing?
Read More »
Bankers Also Have Souls / Le cadeau (1982) Michel Lang, Pierre Mondy, Claudia Cardinale, Clio Goldsmith, Comedy

Gregoire is retiring after many years with the same bank, and his collegues surprise him with the gift of a beautiful call girl, Barbara. Thinking she is a conquest, he impersonates the bank president, leading to a comedy of mistaken identities.
Read More »
Dressage (1986) Pierre B. Reinhard, Véronique Catanzaro, Patrick Guillemin, Marc Henry, Comedy, Erotic

At a decadent 1930’s party, two very sexy and utterly shameless young women, Nathalie (Veronique Catansaro) and Eiliane (Cornelia Wilms) make a bet with a rich and handsome young Baron to corrupt two innocent teenagers in order to ruin their families’ reputations. The prize on offer is marriage to the wealthy Baron.
Read More »
Otto; or Up with Dead People (2008) Bruce La Bruce, Jey Crisfar, Marcel Schlutt, Nicholas Fox Ricciardi, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

A modern fable about loneliness, emptiness, alienation, and the demonization of minorities. A young zombie, Otto, crawls out of his grave and unlives on the Berlin streets. There he meets an avante-garde film-maker who gives him a part in her political-porno-zombie movie. Otto discovers information about his past life that allows him to move on. Is it the living or the dead who are the zombies?
Read More »
Grimm’s Fairy Tales for Adults / Grimms Märchen von lüsternen Pärchen (1969) Rolf Thiele, Marie Liljedahl, Eva Reuber-Staier, Ingrid van Bergen, Comedy, Fantasy, Horror

The characters from the classic Grimm’s Fairy Tales engaged in activities the Grimm Brothers probably wouldn’t approve of. Imagine the classic fairy tales Cindarella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty. Now imagine these stories set to a bad knock-off of the soundtrack to Hair. Now imagine that they’re set in a magical kingdom where the women are typically unencumbered by clothing. Now imagine that this magical kingdom is populated by mushrooms that turn into dwarves, men in bear suits with tiny golden crowns, and witches with neon-blue hair.
Read More »