Marquis de Sade's Philosophy : Eugenie de sade 1970

                
Look–we’ve all got them. Call them “chick flicks” or the male equivalent thereof, there are films of a nature that make them utterly unappetizing to our domestic partners but which sing their siren song to us, beckoning us to view their forbidden excellence when disapproving eyes are out of range. My own brand of “chick flick” is the kind of hazy, languorous, nudity-packed kink-tragedy produced Continentally during the 1970s. I know that for many, the long shots of Significant Glances and the injection of La Philosophie dans le boudoir adds up to boredom of the most excruciating sort, but for me, it’s pure bliss. A master of the form, director Jess Franco delivers the titillating goods once again in 1970′s “Eugenie de Sade.”

One of five adaptations of the Marquis de Sade's Philosophy in the Boudoir directed by cult filmmaker Jesus Franco, this version was perhaps the most subdued, although it was still explicit enough to encounter censorship problems. Maria Rohm stars as Mme. de St. Ange, who reads the Marquis' book and fantasizes about its excessive content. St. Ange has sex with a man named Mistival (Paul Muller) in exchange for permission to take his lovely daughter Eugenie (Marie Liljedahl) to her vacation island. When they arrive, St. Ange and her lover Mirvel (Jack Taylor) seduce Eugenie into joining their bizarre sexual role-playing. A party follows, during which Eugenie is drugged and forced to submit to sadomasochistic games directed by Dolmance (Christopher Lee) and his oddly-dressed followers. When she awakens from her stupor, however, Eugenie finds that the games have turned to murder. Nino Korda and Herbert Fuchs co-star in this provocative exploitation film. Christopher Lee's role as the narrator Dolmance was originally accepted by George Sanders, whose personal crises forced him to withdraw prior to production. Franco returned to the same source material for Eugenie de Sade (1970), Plaisir a Trois (1973), Cocktail Special (1978), and Eugenie, Historia de Una Perversion (1980).

Funny Movie from 1977: Il ginecologo della mutua

              
The story starts from the events of the Dr. Guido Lo Bianco, a gynecologist very famous. Because of speculation unorthodox, is covered by debt and to avoid trouble decide to go abroad for a few months. When they could not close the private clinic, she decides to contact Dr. Franco Giovanardi ( Renzo Montagnani ), a good and honest mutual gynecologist, very libertine for having married a wife lesbian. Dr. Franco Giovanardi environmental immediately in the new study, asserting itself both as a doctor and as a lover. After a short time in fact all of his customers are queuing up to have its particular services. 

Recommended by the clever and cunning secretary Pamela ( Paola Senatore ), Dr. Franco Giovanardi from his utmost towards its customers, especially to Tina ( Daniela Doria ), the wife of Arlotti, a wealthy businessman, who wants to all costs a son by his young wife. In love with the wife of Arlotti, who becomes pregnant, Dr. Franco Giovanardi manages to get finance the construction of a new clinic with the help of Tina and her husband, who ignores it is not the natural father of the child. Made from the clinic, Dr. Franco Giovanardi will you install once, and it is a real success. Cede the old studio to a young colleague, perennial with white women. Dr. Lo Bianco, however, will remain abroad to do the gynecologist on the tropical island where he fled.

Classic Horror: The Mephisto Waltz (1971)

              
The title of the purportedly most difficult piece every written for piano, by Franz Liszt. You get to hear parts of that piece quite a bit in this horror film. The aging grandest piano player alive, Duncan Eli (played magnificently by German master actor Curd Juergens), is quite obsessed with this piano solo. While giving a young music journalist Myles Clarkson (Alan Alda) an interview, he recognizes Myles' large hands, and starts to invite him and his beautiful wife (Jacqueline Bisset) into his circle of friends. Of course, he has ulterior motives to do that ...
It is amazing how this film from 1971 can still conjure up a good deal of chills. A demonic soundtrack and moody camera settings together with great acting are all that it takes. No gore is required, and when in one of the most dramatic scenes the devil himself appears, actually showing him would only have detracted from the suspense already built up, and no image of him would have been able to scare you more than the look on the face of Bisset summoning the Master.
Great acting from Juergens, two even in today's world stunning actresses (Bisset and Barbara Parkins as Duncan's daughter and then some), fantastic music and soundtrack, a great story with a few unexpected twists: a classic but still relevant after all these years!

In another words adapted from a Fred Mustard Stewart novel, this offbeat occult thriller stars Alan Alda (just prior to his eleven-year stint on M*A*S*H) as journalist and burgeoning musician Myles Clarkson, whose long-sought interview with ailing concert pianist (and closet Satanist) Duncan Ely (Curt Jurgens) leads to a mysterious ritual in which Ely's soul is transferred into Clarkson's body at the moment of the elder man's death. Further complications ensue when Myles' wife Paula (Jacqueline Bisset) discovers the none-too-subtle change in her husband's behavior, and she is pulled deeper into Ely's twisted circle. The plot thickens as further soul-swapping, dark family secrets, and demonic possession come into play. A heavy sense of doom pervades this bizarre film, thanks to some offbeat cinematography and eerie music, as well as some truly shocking setpieces courtesy of prolific TV director Paul Wendkos, who helmed the excellent Legend of Lizzie Borden. The prosaic Alda lacks the dangerous edge his character demands, but Bisset's performance is chillingly effective.

Complicated Movie: La petite Lili

Mado, a famous actress, spends his summer at his home in Britain holiday with his brother Simon, his son Julian, who wants to become a filmmaker, and Brice, her current lover, director of her latest film. Between mother and son relationships are tumultuous. Julien is madly in love with Lili, a young local girl who aspires to be an actress. This is more fascinated by Brice, a renowned stage director who does not seem indifferent to its charm. He takes her to Paris soon. Five years later, Lili was successful and became a famous actress. She left Brice. By chance, she learns that Julian will make his first feature film and it speaks for itself.In another words The plot is based on the 1896 stage play The Seagull by Anton Chekhov.

A group of cinematics spend a holiday in the French countryside. The film provides insight in their relationships, including that between a young man and a local girl, Lili. She uses the opportunity to work her way into the cinematic world, and for which she swaps her young friend for his mother's lover. This settled filmmaker takes Lili on a trip to Paris.A few years later the young man has become a filmmaker himself. His first film is inspired by the mentioned holiday. Lili, by now an actress, learns about it and works herself in a refined way into its cast. Ending up as the star of this production. No more than that, for the young filmmaker remains faithful to his wife and young daughter.Happiness cinema, is to see films like THE LITTLE LILI ... with a wonderful cast, a simple story, stunning scenery, dialogue that hit ... This is all that the cinema géantissime CLAUDE MILLER ... one of our greatest filmmakers. Robinson Stévenin is nice to see in this role while LUDIVINE SAGNIER confirms its status as a great actress. A side of them, NICOLE GARCIA, JULIE Depardieu and JEAN-PIERRE MARIELLE we feast. That is what a great French film, a tasty blend of ingredients to the delight of moviegoers.

Dramatic Drama: My Life Without Me (2003)

My Life Without Me is a 2003 Spanish/Canadian drama film directed by Isabel Coixet and starring Sarah Polley, Mark Ruffalo, Scott Speedman, and Leonor Watling. Based on the book Pretending the Bed Is a Raft by Nanci Kincaid, it tells a story of a 23-year-old woman, with a husband and two daughters, who finds out she is going to die soon. The film was produced by Pedro Almodóvar's production company, El Deseo.

Isabel Coixet's Mi vida sin mi (My Life Without Me) is a tale of a woman dying before her time. Sarah Polley plays Ann, a 24-year-old mother of two. Ann is married to Don (Scott Speedman), and they live near Ann's mother (Deborah Harry), who is bitter about the fact that Ann's father is serving a ten-year prison sentence. Ann learns that she has only a few months to live.

She makes a series of goals to complete before her time on Earth comes to an end. Among her accomplishments are taking a lover (Mark Ruffalo), finding someone to care for Don, and recording birthday greetings for her two daughters. My Life Without Me was screened in competition at the Berlin Film Festival. My Life Without Me received generally positive reviews from film critics.The film won many international and festival awards, including the Genie Award for Best Actress (Polley) and the Goya Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (Coixet) and Best Song ("Humans Like You" by Chop Suey). The film was released on September 26, 2003 and ran for 12 weeks. It grossed $400,948 domestically and $9,326,006 from the foreign markets for a worldwide total of $9,726,954.

Laura Antonelli again : Casta e pura 1981

Antonio is the husband of a rich heiress who shortly before the death of his wife, including the risk of being ousted from the capital, he convinces the dying to ask a vow of chastity to young daughter Rosa, so that this had not been able to marry up to father's death.Twenty years later, Rose is now a beautiful girl, the whole house and church, who lives in accordance with the oath he swore on his deathbed of his mother. Soon, however, Rosa began first to have strange dreams and then to have the alluring nightly visits by the cousin Fernando. Extremely upset by these events, Rose confided to his confessor priest and nun of wanting to give to charity all his possessions. As soon as his father Antonio is aware of this idea, rather than lose the heritage that is usufructuary, is organizing a group of sexual initiation for their daughter.Laura Antonelli plays a chaste young woman who has difficulty understanding--and reining--her blossoming sexual desires.

Salvatore Samperi may have been bitter when he shot this "sexy comedy", because apart from the lovely virgin Rosa - played by the still bombastic Laura Antonelli - no one is likeable here !The movie is about a rich girl that everybody's interested in only to get a hand on the loads of cash she inherited. Between her tyranic father (Fernando Rey, getting old and less picky with scripts, it would seem) and some pimpin' playboy (Massimo Ranieri, looking sleazy and dubious), her doctor wants her to get laid, and apparently so does the village priest !But daddy doesn't want Rosa to get married, because this would mean the end of his reign on the girl's money...Conventionally shot, with a humor that the french dubbing probably obliterates, this one's fine but it's not highly entertaining or innovative. There are a few glimpses of flesh here and there, lots of suggested incest, a collective rape during a medieval party which is very confusingly shot, and a small role given to the lovely Gabrielle Lazure.If this is an attempt to mock the modern bourgeois family, it is half obtained, everybody being so morally corrupt that it is almost banalised ! We've seen it all before; the father being more interested in money than family, the wild virgin looking to burst out of her shell... It would have appeared daring during the 70's but in 1984, I will have to say that this is average filmmaking and that it's sadly forgottable.

Nice Brazilian Movie : Casa de Areia aka House of Sand 2005

                 

Three generations of women struggle to make lives for themselves and their families in the desert wastes of Northern Brazil in a drama from filmmaker Andrucha Waddington. In 1910, Vasco de Sá (Ruy Guerra) leads his wife, Áurea (Fernanda Torres), and her mother, Dona Maria (Fernanda Montenegro), to their new home -- a ramshackle cabin in Maranhão, a tiny village in the middle of a barren sand dune. Vasco and Áurea's new neighbors are hardly welcoming of the new arrivals, especially Massu (Seu Jorge), and when Vasco unexpectedly dies, Áurea and Dona Maria are left to fend for themselves, an especially vexing challenge as Áurea is with child. Nine years later, Áurea and Dona Maria have turned their cottage into a home, but life in Maranhão remains a constant uphill battle, and Áurea dreams of moving away with her daughter, Maria (Camilla Facundes).

Áurea becomes infatuated with Luiz (Enrique Diaz), who works with a group of astronomers who have come to Maranhão to observe an eclipse, but their romance comes to a crashing halt when Dona Maria is killed. By 1942, Maria (now played by Fernanda Torres) is a promiscuous alcoholic who brings shame to Áurea (now played by Fernanda Montenegro). After the body of an Air Force pilot is found near Maranhão, a military officer is sent to investigate -- Luiz (now played by Stenio Garcia). When Luiz meets Maria, he sees the image of the woman he longed for years before, and while she doesn't have the same feelings for him, Maria realizes that Luiz represents her best hope of finally escaping the village she's come to hate. The House of Sand received its North American premiere at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival.