Category Archives: Foreign Films

Alucarda (1977)

Posted on January 1, 2014 | 1 comment

alucarda 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Another Exorcist rip-off

Justine (Susana Kamini) arrives at a convent after the death of her parents. She meets up with a strange young woman named Alucarda (Tina Romero) who almost immediately professes her true love for Justine and the two make a weird pact. Alucarda then seems to become possessed and it rubs off on Justine sending the nuns and priest at the convent into a panicked frenzy to rid both girls and the place from the evil presence.

This bizarre, cheap Mexican production comes off like someone’s drug induced acid trip. Yet it has still managed to acquire a small cult following and even has one reviewer at IMDB calling it ‘brilliant’ even though I found it to be anything but and only reconfirms that there is somebody out there that will like anything. Juan Lopez Moctezuma’s direction is unfocused and undisciplined. The story borders on being almost incoherent with wild twists and story arches that occur at a breakneck pace. The special effects are tacky and there isn’t a single scare in the whole thing.

This supposedly takes place in the 18th century, but the priest wears a wardrobe that looks like he is from China even though the setting is Mexico and the outfits worn by the nuns defy any era and appear to be made by a costume designer who was drunk. The pounding rock-like score has a resemblance to music from Tangerine Dream, but a much weaker version and doesn’t connect with the time period that the story is in. It has elements that will remind you of Suspira and Ken Russell’s The Devils, but both of those films are far superior to this one and only make you wish you were watching those instead.

The acting is amateurish and over-the-top, but star Romero has an interesting look in her eyes and reminded me a bit of a young Genevieve Bujold. There is an abundance of nudity and low-grade eroticism that may make it appealing to some. I did get a kick out of the way the nuns and priest overact and wilt at simply the mention of the devil and Satanism, which I found to be unintentionally funny.

This is just another attempt to cash in on the success of The Exorcist and like the rest of them fails miserably. This isn’t entertaining even on a camp level and I would suggest avoiding it completely.

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My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: March 10, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 14Minutes

Rated R

Director: Juan Lopez Moctezuma

Studio: Yuma Films

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cult, Erotica, Foreign Films, Gay/Lesbian, Horror, Low Budget, Moody/Stylish, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity

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Charlie Bubbles (1968)

Posted on December 22, 2013 | 2 comments

charlie bubbles 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: He’s detached from life.

Charlie Bubbles (Albert Finney) is a successful English writer who finds that he is no longer connected to the world around him. He sits in his office and views life from the television monitors around him. He has an affair with his secretary Eliza (Liza Minnelli in her film debut), but it means little. He travels to the countryside to visit his estranged wife Lottie (Billie Whitelaw) and his son Jack (Timothy Garland), but finds the effects of his detachment have worn off on them. No matter how hard he tries he cannot get his son to emotionally connect with him, which he finds troubling.

This is to date Finney’s only cinematic foray behind the camera and on a visual level it proves interesting. Most actors who turn to directing lack the needed cinematic eye, but Finney is just the opposite. The scene, which gets protracted, showing all the action inside Charlie’s sprawling home from within the television monitors that he has set-up is really cool. It’s like in the film Network where you see several monitors on top of each other and two per row. Each monitor shows a different room in the mansion as well as the garage. As the action moves from each room it also moves to a different monitor, which becomes fascinating to follow. The scene inside a hotel hallway with milk bottles and newspapers lined up at each door has an interesting design to it and the part where Charlie and Eliza come upon a lonely marching band in a desolate rundown part of the city has a unique visceral appeal. The massive food fight between Finney and actor Colin Blakely near the beginning of the film deserves a few points as well.

The downside to the direction is that the film is slow and almost as aloof as the character. The scenes become too extended and the dialogue has little to say. The segment inside a roadside diner has the sound of cars passing by it during the character’s conversation, which becomes distracting and unnecessary.

The Charlie character seems almost like he is sleepwalking and barely responds to anything. I realize this is to show his detachment, but it goes overboard. It’s like viewing a corpse who has no screen presence or energy and absolutely no connection with the viewer nor any ability to wrap them in to his quandary.

Minnelli makes for an odd choice to represent the film’s sexual tensions. She was never considered attractive and her constant and incessant chattering while the two ride in a car would be enough to make most men want to throw her out let alone make love to her. The sex scene itself is about as mechanical as you can get and lacks eroticism. It also becomes like a throwaway scene that doesn’t end up having that much to do with the story as a whole.

The viewer needs more of a background to this character in order to make him real and interesting. Simply showing someone who is detached doesn’t mean much unless we know why and if he was at any time any way else. The ponderous ending leaves a lot to be desired and watching this movie is similar to viewing a program on C-Span as it comes-off like a nonevent.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: February 11, 1968

Runtime: 1Hour 29Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Albert Finney

Studio: Universal

Available: None at this time.

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Posted in 60's Movies, British Movies, Drama, Foreign Films, Obscure Movies

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Our Mother’s House (1967)

Posted on December 8, 2013 | Leave a comment

our mothers house 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Life after mother dies.

Seven children live with their mother inside a large English house. She is sickly and when she dies they decide to keep it a secret by burying her body in the back garden and then continuing on as normal as they fear they will otherwise be sent off to an orphanage. Things go surprisingly well for the most part, but then their alcoholic father Charlie (Dirk Bogarde) reappears after a long absence, which sends everything spiraling out of control.

Director Jack Clayton lends an amazing amount of control and freedom to the child performers and the result is fantastic. The kids give solid performances and really carry the movie. Margaret Brooks as Elsa is a standout and shows great maturity especially with the way she stands up to the Bogarde character. Phoebe Nicholls is also terrific and looks like a young Sandy Dennis. Mark Lester did this just before doing his star turn in Oliver and he is cute, but his stuttering is annoying.

Although the character is obnoxious, one-dimensional and predictable Bogarde does a fine job as always in his part in what was a bit of an offbeat turn for him as he doesn’t appear until about forty-five minutes in. Yootha Joyce is entertaining with her bit as the children’s callous nanny. She has interesting facial expressions and voice tones, which makes the most of her otherwise small role. She is probably most famous for playing the equivalent of the Mrs. Roper character in the British version of ‘Three’s a Company’, which was ‘Man about the House’ and it is a shame that alcoholism cut both her career and life short.

The film weaves an interesting atmosphere and this is the type of story where you have no idea where it is going. I also liked some of the side diversions that Clayton incorporates including having the children take a boat ride around the famous Dinosaur Court in the Crystal Palace Park. Erected in 1854 these were the very first dinosaur sculptures ever made in the world.

I also found it interesting that there are scenes showing the children praying and even reading Bible verses. This is not a spiritual film in any way and I personally have no stand on the issue, but it brought to mind how mainstream films today never show anyone ever praying even though a lot of regular people still do it and by putting it into the story it makes it more realistic instead of less.

The only real issue that I had with the movie that otherwise has some very intriguing elements is the ending, which comes pretty close to being a copout and leaves way too many loose ends open.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: October 9, 1967

Runtime: 1Hour 44Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Jack Clayton

Studio: MGM

Available: YouTube

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Posted in 60's Movies, British Movies, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Novels, Obscure Movies, Thrillers/Suspense

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Ginger and Fred (1986)

Posted on December 5, 2013 | 1 comment

ginger and fred

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Aging dance partners reunite.

Amelia (Giulietta Masina) and Pippo (Marcello Mastroianni) are two aging dance partners who haven’t worked together for years. They are asked to reunite for a TV-show special and do a famous Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers routine, but things have changed in their many years apart and the situation becomes more awkward than they imagined.

This is a genuinely amusing satire on television and celebrity status with Mastroisanni being absolutely engaging in every scene that he is in. Masina, who was director Federico Fellini’s wife in real-life, also gives a good performance and together they make a real fun team. The final dance sequence is terrific and the film manages to really come together at that point. The film is also sprinkled with some funny satirical snippets with the best ones including goofy billboards and a woman wearing edible panties.

On the negative end I found the techno music score to be overplayed and it becomes irritating especially at the beginning.  The film is also about a half-hour too long and it takes almost thirty minutes for Mastroianni’s character to even appear.

Overall I found the film to be enjoyable and mainly because the two leads are old pros who know how to work their magic although this is definitely not one of Fellini’s best films and at times it seems like he is just coasting.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: January 13, 1986

Runtime: 2Hours 5Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Frederico Fellini

Studio: MGM

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, Foreign Films, Italian Films, Satire

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La Grande Bouffe (1973)

Posted on November 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

la grande bouffe 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: They stuff their faces.

This film will start an annual Thanksgiving Day theme of reviewing movies that have something to do with food and eating. This one may be the most notorious of them all and despite its offbeat plot and crude scenes won the Cannes Film Festival’s International Critics award as well as attaining a large cult following and be one of the highest grossing movies in the history of Italian cinema.

The story deals with four middle-aged men (Marcello Mastroianni, Ugo Tognazzi, Philippe Noiret, Michel Piccoli) who despite attaining affluence and wealth are bored with life and decide their only recourse is to get together for a weekend and commit group suicide by eating themselves to death.

At first the movie will make you hungry.  After an initial set-up the characters can be seen eating in just about every shot. The variety of foods and menu that is served is almost mouth-watering and features a wide array of exquisite dishes seen only in the most fanciest of restaurants. However, after visually seeing these people overeat I felt myself feeling as bloated as the characters and almost sick. The film also gets quite gross with several segments featuring loud sounds of flatulence and a scene where the toilet bursts and covers the men and room with feces that even drips down and gets into the kitchen.

Some may find this ‘hilarious’ while others will think it’s disgusting. For me despite the moments of over-the-top crudeness the strongest scene may actually be when the characters start dying and their dead bodies are carried into a freezer while the rest of them continue to make food and stuff their mouths like it is a compulsion.

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The four leads are old pros who couldn’t give a bad performance if they tried. I started to wonder though how they could eat so much and whether the scenes were all done in one take with no retake as eventually I think they would all start puking. Mastroianni’s death scene is a stand-out simply because it manages to keep his expression completely frozen and does not manage to blink for several minutes, which I found impressive. Tognazzi’s death moment is also fun although it’s Andrea Ferreol who starts out as a proper school teacher, but ends up becoming as decadent and hedonistic as all the men combined that steals it.

The film makes a strong if not impactful statement about gluttony and how a life of prestige and luxury may actually be more of a trap and curse. The more some people get of it the more they want until it is never enough and death may end up being their only true source of salvation and escape.

The idea is outrageous and clever and I loved the concept, but the execution is lacking. The direction is too loose with scenes going on longer than they should. Some tighter editing would have helped the pace and momentum.  I also don’t think it is possible for a person to stuff themselves with food and then die as I think instead they would just vomit it all out.

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My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: May 17, 1973

Runtime: 2Hours 4Minutes

Rated NC-17

Director: Marco Ferreri

Studio: Films 66

Available: VHS, DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Crude Comedy, Cult, Erotica, Foreign Films, French Films, Movies with Nudity, Offbeat

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Man on the Roof (1976)

Posted on November 20, 2013 | 3 comments

man on the roof 3

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Sniper shoots at police.

Police officer Stefan Nyman (Harald Hamrell) is shot and killed by an unknown gunman. During the investigation police detective Martin Beck (Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt) finds that Nyman was an officer who used brutal and sometimes unethical conduct in his dealings with suspects. Beck begins to consider this as a possible motive, but before he can decide on that the sniper climbs on top of a high rise building in downtown Stockholm and begins shooting and killing all uniformed officers.

The first hour of this Swedish production is different from just about any other police drama you’ve seen. The investigation is slow and meticulous and the identity of the killer is kept a complete mystery.  There is no heart pounding soundtrack and all the scenes are handled in a nicely subdued fashion.  The tension mounts slowly, but deliberately until it finally wraps you into it and becomes riveting.

By contrast the second hour is handled completely differently to the point that it almost seems like two movies in one. The second half becomes this high adrenaline action pic that includes an exciting helicopter crash, but it all proves jarring when compared to the first hour.

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The story is also too reminiscent of the real-life Charles Whitman incident that occurred in Austin, Texas in 1966.  The ending is much too abrupt and leaves open too many loose ends and a more composite portrait of the killer would have also helped.

This film definitely has its moments both in action, drama and dialogue and is considered highly influential to the modern police dramas that we see today, but the way it comes together is a mishmash. Director Bo Widerberg was known for his poor planning and constantly rewriting scenes and dialogue sometimes while he was sitting on the toilet. The behind-the-scenes atmosphere of his productions was filled with chaos and confusion and the results can be easily detected here. Viewers that enjoy the first half may not like the second one and vice versa.

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My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: October 1, 1976

Runtime: 1Hour 50Minutes

Rated R

Director: Bo Widerberg

Studio: Svensk Filmindustri

Available: DVD (Region 2)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Novels, Mystery, Obscure Movies, Police Drama

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Eat the Rich (1988)

Posted on November 7, 2013 | Leave a comment

eat the rich

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Rich feed the poor.

This is an extremely garish mixture of loud music, ugly visuals, and shock comedy. The story is about a waiter, a gay man with a real fun bitchy attitude, who gets fired when he refuses to suck up to the arrogant clientele. He gets revenge by banding together other misfits who return and kill everybody and then feed the dead bodies to new unsuspecting patrons.

Sounds gross and tasteless, but it really isn’t. There’s no nudity or sex and no graphic violence or gore. A little bit more of these things would have actually helped. At least it would have solidified it as the underground shock comedy it seems to be striving to be. Instead it’s cluttered with no real objective or foundation. At times it plays like biting social commentary and at other times nothing more than a silly gross out teen flick

By the time you get to the way off-base ending it becomes obvious that the filmmakers were trying to be outrageous simply as a way to get noticed. There is no real insight to the have and have-nots of society. They simply came upon the idea because they felt it would appeal to the type of audience they were looking for.

This is too bad because had it been a little more polished it might have been a stronger film. Believe it or not there are some clever bits. The jabs at the Queen are a riot. The scene involving terrorism and the Middle East crisis is a true original. The rich characters are so over-the-top obnoxious you have to laugh-out-loud.

The true scene stealer though is Nosher Powell. He is a former stunt man/ stunt coordinator who worked on many of the stunts in the early James Bond movies. Here he plays a sort of Teddy Roosevelt times ten a ‘working class’ politician who bullies everyone and everything. The actor has a rather rough, amateurish delivery which only adds to the saltiness of the character.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: April 22, 1988

Runtime: 1Hour 30Minutes

Rated R

Director: Peter Richardson

Studio: Recorded Releasing

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, British Movies, Cult, Foreign Films, Gay/Lesbian, Offbeat, Satire

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The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979)

Posted on November 5, 2013 | Leave a comment

the marriage of maria braun

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Maria gets her way.

Maria’s (Hanna Schygulla) husband a soldier in World War II is presumed dead. She decides to make her mark by getting a job and a new lover in the form of a black man named Bill (George Eagles), but complications ensue when her husband Hermann (Klaus Lowitsch) shows up very much alive. Maria enjoys her new found independence and isn’t interested in falling back into her old role, which causes friction with her husband as well as her interactions with others.

Director Rainer Werner Fassbinder creates a unique vision and manages to walk the balance between the gritty and surreal. The lighting is evocative and shadowy and nicely reflects his stage background. The sets are colorful and varied and one becomes almost hypnotically entranced with the visuals. The abandoned buildings and rundown locales especially at the beginning make a strong impression and become like a third character. Fassbinder echoes the desperation of the characters through visual means only without ever having to resort to melodramatics, which alone makes this a classic and far better than some other similar films about the period.

Equally great use is made of sound with two to three layers of it within each scene. Whether it is the noise of a radio, traffic, or someone whistling there is always some noise coming from the background much like in reality, which helps in a subtle way to make the scenes more vivid. I loved the dolly shots constantly moving the camera around in every scene throughout the rooms that the characters are in giving the viewer a full sense of their dimensions and helping breakdown the fourth wall.

Some memorable scenes include the moment when Maria’s husband comes back from the war and catches Maria in a compromising position with her new found lover. There are at least four minutes here where there is no talking from any of the characters and one becomes riveted with the silent reactions of the three, which proves powerful. Even the erotic overtones work. Normally I find that area to be rather clichéd and mechanical, but here the sweat glistening off the naked bodies seems genuinely evocative and enticing.

Many people feel this is a movie about budding feminism and applaud the strong female character. I really wouldn’t argue with that and in many ways it is fun seeing this woman forge her way ahead while remaining poised and stalwart throughout. Her relationship with rich businessman Karl (Ivan Desny) and the way she turns him into a subservient to her every whim while also explaining to him that ‘he isn’t having an affair with her, but instead SHE is having one with him’ is classic, but I also felt it seemed a bit artificial. Having a strong central character is one thing, but this woman seems inhuman. She never shows any vulnerability at any time and appears almost completely removed from the environment around her. Never once does she flinch, compromise, or back down from anything or anyone, which just isn’t possible and makes Maria one-dimensional in the process. A character is more interesting when their flaws are exposed and then they must work hard to overcome them, but this one doesn’t have any, which is my biggest issue with this otherwise excellent production.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: February 20, 1979

Runtime: 1Hour 58Minutes

Rated R

Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Studio: United Artists

Available: VHS, DVD (The Criterion Collection)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Classic, Drama, Foreign Films, Historical Drama, Moody/Stylish, Movies with Nudity, War Movies

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High and Low (1963)

Posted on November 3, 2013 | 6 comments

high and low

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Pay ransom go bankrupt.

Kingo (Toshiro Mifune) is an executive of a shoe company who finds out that his chauffeur’s son has been kidnapped and comes under tremendous pressure to pay the ransom even it will make him bankrupt.

As with all of Akira Kurosawa’s films the production values are solid and the story is well paced. The very methodical police work and investigation is interesting and enlightening. It’s certainly nothing like today’s CSI shows, but well done for its period. The ending scene where Mifune faces the kidnapper leaves a strong and memorable impression.

However, on the negative side the set-up to the kidnapping happens too quickly without any type of buildup or tension. Almost the entire first hour takes place inside the living room of Kingo’s hilltop house and it would’ve helped to have some cutaways to other locales.  Mifune, who is billed as the star and gives a great performance disappears during the second hour only to finally reappear at the very end and I felt it would’ve been stronger had he been involved more in the investigation. Also, the revealing of the kidnapper is unexciting and a big letdown.  I had a hard time understanding why a guy who was so very crafty and sophisticated in every facet of his planning of the kidnapping would suddenly get so conveniently dumb and sloppy at the very end.

This is a decent Kurosawa entry, but in my opinion not one of his best. Yet it is still good enough to keep you captivated from beginning to end.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: March 1, 1963

Runtime: 2Hours 23Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Studio: The Toho Company

Available: DVD, Blu-ray (The Criterion Collection)

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Posted in 60's Movies, Black & White, Classic, Drama, Foreign Films, Kidnapping Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies from Japan, Mystery, Thrillers/Suspense

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The House of Exorcism (1976)

Posted on October 26, 2013 | Leave a comment

house of exorcism

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Possessed by the devil.

When Mario Bava’s Lisa and the Devil, which was reviewed yesterday, failed to generate any business at the box office the film was reedited using footage cut from the first film as well as adding some new scenes. In this version Lisa (Elke Sommer) is a tourist in Spain who becomes possessed by the devil right out in broad daylight on the cobbled streets and in front of her fellow tourists. She is taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital and accompanied by Father Michael (Robert Alda). The doctors are unable to explain her condition medically and as she gets worse and more violent it is up to the Father to excise the demon.

This version is an improvement over the Bava one in fact Bava’s name doesn’t appear anywhere on the credits and instead the film’s producer Alfredo Leone is listed as the director under the pseudonym Mickey Lion. Obviously it’s a huge rip-off of The Exorcist and in some ways gets unintentionally funny particularly when the Priest has a conversation with the demon during the exorcism. However, it is still fun and more flamboyant than the original and at least has a coherent plot that helps propel the movie along. The only problem is that the exorcism scenes are intercut with scenes from the original film showing Lisa visiting the mansion and meeting up with the strange characters. Supposedly this is the alternative reality that she is in while the demon possesses her body, but it adds little and bogs down the pace.

Sommer comes off much better here than she did in the first one. The way she contorts her face during the possession sequence is entertaining and she does well under the difficult demands. Telly Savalas as the devil disguised as a butler is still wasted. He doesn’t even seem to be taking the part seriously and seems to give it a tongue-and-cheek approach, which doesn’t work.

Alda’s presence is rather bland, but Carmen Silva who plays Anna his wife before he entered into the priesthood is a stunner. She appears nude in a rather gratuitous flashback segment that should more than appease any self-respecting voyeur.

The ending has a little more pizazz than the original as well where the Father goes into an empty mansion and tries to fight off the demon while having snakes thrown right at him. It’s not the best, but not the worse either.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: July 9, 1976

Runtime: 1Hour 32Minutes

Rated R

Directors: Mario Bava, Alfredo Leone

Studio: Peppercorn-Wormser Film Enterprises

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Netflix streaming

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Posted in 70's Movies, Foreign Films, Horror, Italian Films, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity, Slasher/Gore

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