- Alexandre Dumas' THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO follows the adventures of Edmond Dant s (G rard Depardieu), a 19th-century French version of James Bond or Batman, a rich, ruthless, and suave purveyor of homemade justice. This French production goes all out, having the destinction of being the first filmed version of the newly restored unabridged version of Dumas'ic, which runs about 800 pages.
Charles Serking, loosely based on the infamous poet Charles Bukowski, rejects a conventional lifestyle to journey through the underbelly of Los Angeles in "Tales of Ordinary Madness." He indulges an insatiable appetite for sex and booze in what the Hollywood Reporter calls "a cinematic walk on the wild side." Directed by Marco Ferreri, this 1981 film won four Italian Academy Awards and the San Sebastian Film Festival Grand Prize. Compelling, sometimes shocking, and explicit."Style is the answer to everything! ," intones skid row poet Charles Serking, played by the suitably grizzled and worn Ben Gazarra, to his somnambulistic audience. Serking is, of course, a not-at-all veiled stand-in for beat legend Charles Bukowksi, whose autobiographical short stories were the basis for this film. But Serking, in many ways, comes off more like a gin-soaked fantasy of a skid row Hemingway whose sports of choice are alcohol, women, and sex. Behind the salt-and-pepper beard and rummy eyes lies an actor too poised to allow himself to fully sink into the alcoholic sloppiness that Mickey Rourke so easily brought to the screen in the less pretentious and more concise
Barfly, which Bukowski himself scripted. But if Italian-born director Marco Ferreri stumbles over the self-conscious dialogue, he's right at home capturing the seedy atmosphere of dim, run-down apartments and underlit bars in the real Hollywood Serking calls home. When Serking's fling with the stunning, self-mutilating Italian h! ooker Cass (Ornella Muti, who puts her oversized safety pin to! some ra ther startling uses) becomes too emotional, he takes the anonymous safety of the streets--crashing in a flophouse, passing around a bottle with a listless knot of derelicts. Serking melds right in with the littered streets and lost souls, a real man of the people. Suddenly you see it: he's got style.
--Sean AxmakerA billionaire auto magnate's virginal teenage daughter falls in love with an older, free-spirited drifter. Their romance is one that her parents vehemently want to prevent. Lisa (Ornella Muti) is very curious to explore her new-found feelings of desire,From internationally acclaimed director Volker Schlöndorff (
The Tin Drum) and starring Academy Award® winner Jeremy Irons(
Reversal of Fortune, Dead Ringers) comes
Swann In Love, a tale of obsessive love set against the colorful backdrop of Paris in the 1890s. Swann (Irons) falls in love with a young courtesan, and soon finds himself tormented by his unrelenting sexual desire. Based on ! the novel by Marcel
Proust,
Swann in Love is a visually stunning film, bursting with life, love, and passion.
Everybody talks about reading Proust's
Remembrance of Things Past, but do you know anyone who actually has? Here's a way to fake it: this film from Volker Schlöndorff dramatizes one section of the ponderous novel, casting Jeremy Irons as a French aristocrat who makes himself something of a laughingstock with his obsessive pursuit of a faithless courtesan (or is that redundant) played by Ornella Muti. Some may find it slow going, but the film moves a lot faster than the book. And there is a certain hypnotic appeal to it, enhanced by Sven Nykvist's lush cinematography. Besides, is there an actor in movies today who can convey more emotional agony in a single longing look than Irons?
--Marshall Fine Oscar was Sylvester Stallone's agreeable, 1991 effort at broad comedy, a fast-talking, suspender-snapping gangster farce featuring the
Rambo star as a 1930s Chicago mob boss, Snaps Provolone, ! trying t o go straight during overlapping personal crises. No, this isn't Billy Wilder, but director John Landis (Coming to America) has crackling fun with Oscar's fruit salad of traditional comic themes and tools, including mistaken identities, a powerful man's weakness for his children, and a nonstop parade of outre secondary characters. The cast includes Kirk Douglas as Stallone's father, whose deathbed wish compels Snaps to go into legitimate banking at the exact moment the latter's daughter (Marisa Tomei) announces her love for a chauffeur. Meanwhile, another woman claiming to be Snaps's offspring is engaged to a fellow (Vincent Spano) who has stolen $50,000 of the big man's money. Wackiness ensues. The winning cast includes Peter Riegert, Don Ameche, Chazz Palminteri, Eddie Bracken, Harry Shearer, Yvonne DeCarlo, and Bruce Davison. --Tom KeoghWhat's your idea of justice... have you ever thought about it? Spurning the advances of a Mafia don's cr! uel nephew, a beautiful peasant girl is punished for upholding her family's honor by being abducted and robbed of her virginity. Rebuked by her own parents and incurring the wrath of her village, the girl reports her rape to the local police, shattering centuries-old traditions in her unyielding quest for justice.
Damiano Damiani's THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WIFE marked the film debut of gorgeous Italian actress Ornella Muti (THE NUNS OF ST. ARCHANGEL, FLASH GORDON) and also features a strong performance by Alessio Orano (LISA AND THE DEVIL, THE KILLER MUST KILL AGAIN). Filmed on location in Sicily, this adult drama anticipates both THE GODFATHER and PRIZZI'S HONOR, and is based on a true police case that changed the course of Italian law during the 1960s. Shot by giallo specialist Franco Di Giacomo (FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET, WHO SAW HER DIE?), this gritty and hard-hitting film also benefits from one of the great, unheralded Euro-Cult scores of Ennio Morricone.Holl! ywood superstar Sylvester Stallone teams up with comedy direct! or John Landis (ANIMAL HOUSE, TRADING PLACES, COMING TO AMERICA), and the results are hilarious! Stallone plays Chicago's #1 gangster, "Snaps" Provolone. After promising his father that he'll quit his life of crime, Snaps realizes it's an offer he should have refused! As the mobster tries to quit the rackets, everybody gets into the act -- friends, family -- even the Feds! Snaps soon discovers going straight is the toughest job he's ever pulled! Critics coast-to-coast praised this fun-filled big-screen treat -- you'll find it packed with laughs from beginning to end!Oscar was Sylvester Stallone's agreeable, 1991 effort at broad comedy, a fast-talking, suspender-snapping gangster farce featuring the Rambo star as a 1930s Chicago mob boss, Snaps Provolone, trying to go straight during overlapping personal crises. No, this isn't Billy Wilder, but director John Landis (Coming to America) has crackling fun with Oscar's fruit salad of traditional comic themes a! nd tools, including mistaken identities, a powerful man's weakness for his children, and a nonstop parade of outre secondary characters. The cast includes Kirk Douglas as Stallone's father, whose deathbed wish compels Snaps to go into legitimate banking at the exact moment the latter's daughter (Marisa Tomei) announces her love for a chauffeur. Meanwhile, another woman claiming to be Snaps's offspring is engaged to a fellow (Vincent Spano) who has stolen $50,000 of the big man's money. Wackiness ensues. The winning cast includes Peter Riegert, Don Ameche, Chazz Palminteri, Eddie Bracken, Harry Shearer, Yvonne DeCarlo, and Bruce Davison. --Tom KeoghAcclaimed actor Gérard Depardieu stars in the adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ classic tale of love, intrigue and revenge.
The Count of Monte Cristo tells the dramatic story of Edmond Dantès, a young French sailor who is falsely denounced as a traitor and unjustly imprisoned for eighteen years without a trial. After ! a daring escape, Dantès secures a treasure hidden on the isla! nd of Mo nte Cristo bequeathed to him by a dying inmate. Using these riches, he assumes a new identity and devises a plan to seek vengeance against all those who betrayed him.
