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Review:From rainy, dreary late winter England of early 1920s...

---where there is still sadness and many young widows and disabled vets from the great slaughter of men and killer of their womens' dreams--- known now as World War I...

Four women share this lovely small sunny Italian castle on a hill; one a young widow who is drowning her sorrow in frantic partying, two women who will rediscover their own husbands, and a fourth woman who is tired of her famous dead friends...

...These four women will come together with two husbands and a former soldier - almost blind - to get a spiritual "makeover" for one great April vacation in early 1920's Italy.

NOTE to would-be filmmakers. Study this film for how mood and beauty can tell a story. (Probably not a film to please many men...)

NOTE: Stock up on coffee & hot chocolate and invite the girls over on some dreary late winter day...Spring is coming...Enchanted April promises you!
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A: positive

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Review:Here is one of those educational short films made to learn the unknown people out there about facts of life. This time the target audience is preteen girls, the fact of life is menstruation. This animated film, created by Walt Disney Pictures, apparently with some sponsoring from Kotex.

It starts with explaining how hormones make you grow and develop. With the help of animation and a female narrator it shows us how the body, especially the ovaries, uterus and vagina, work and why this all leads to menstruation. It is almost amazing, becoming the comic note here, how the subject of sex is avoided. Even the word is never mentioned although "furtilized" will pass once. I don't really know why I saw this, but since it is one of those rare short films that could give an impression of an innocent time, you might want to give it a try.
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A: negative

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Review:When people ask me why do I like movies so much, I usually respond, "have you seen the art-gallery sequence in De Palma's Dressed to Kill?" That scene alone, pretty much represents everything I want to see in a film. If I was a film director, that would be the kind of thing I'd like to do. "Pure cinema" is one way of describing that sequence, and it is truly amazing to see how director De Palma's entire movie works at the same high artistic frequency of that scene. It is a dream-like movie, clever as hell, and with more zest and intelligence than a dozen films put together. I think the movie raises an important point that will always be a topic of heated discussion: could a movie rely solely on technique and still be considered an artistic success? The film has no message to speak of, acting is great but it is at the service of the style, and the script is short on logic. De Palma's movie makes a really good case that style, when handled properly, can sustain a feature length film. Sure, Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen and Keith Gordon give superlative performances, but this is a director's movie all the way to the fadeout. It is a sensational demonstration of the possibilities of the film medium. I won't tell you what Hitchcock movie the film pays homage to (I don't want to spoil any surprises), but I think De Palma transcends the story's arc, and he manages to create a film that pretty much summarizes his entire career. Not for the faint of heart!
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A: positive

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Review:A very early Oliver Stone (associate-)produced film, and one of the first films in the impressive career of Lloyd Kaufman (co-founder and president of the world's only real independent film studio Troma, creator of the Toxic Avenger and, at the prestigious Amsterdam Fantastic Filmfestival, lifetime-achievement awarded filmmaker for over 30 years). Having raised the money for this film on his own, Lloyd wrote this script together with Theodore Gershuni in 1970 and in hindsight regrets having listened to advice to have Gershuni else direct the film instead of doing it himself. But back then he was still inexperienced in the business and it is probably because of decisions like these that he takes no nonsense from anyone anymore. Indeed it would have been interesting to see Lloyd's version of his own script - as one of the world's most original, daring, experimental and non-compromising directors he probably would have given it even more edge than it already has. But as it is we have the Gershuni-directed film. And weather it is due to the strong script, or the fact that he too is indeed quite a director of his own, SUGAR COOKIES is a very intelligent, highly suspenseful and well-crafted motion picture that deserves a lot more attention than it receives. The shoestring budget the small studio (this was even before Kaufman and his friend and partner for over 30 years now, Michael Herz, formed Troma) had to work with is so well handled that the film looks a lot more expensive, indeed does not have a "low budget" look at all. The story revolves around lesbian Camilla Stone (played by enigmatic Mary Woronow) and her lover who winds up dead through circumstances I won't reveal not to spoil a delightful story. This leads to a succession of plot-twists, mind games and personality reform that is loosely inspired by Hitchcock's Vertigo and at least as inventive. The atmosphere is a lot grimmer, though, and some comparisons to Nicholas Roeg's and Donald Cammell's PERFORMANCE come to mind. In this mix is a very original and inventive erotic laden thriller that keeps it quite unclear as to how it is all going to end, which, along with a splendidly interwoven sub-plot with a nod to Kaufman's earlier and unfortunately unavailable BIG GUSS WHAT'S THE FUSS, makes for a very exciting one-and-a-half-hour. Certainly one of the best films in Troma's library, and yet again one of those films that defy the curious fantasy that their catalog is one of bad taste. The DVD includes some recent interviews Kaufman conducts with Woronov and the other leading lady Lynn Lowry (later seen in George Romero's THE CRAZIES), thus giving some interesting insight in what went on during the making of this cult-favorite and a few hints of what would be different had Lloyd directed it himself. Highly recommended.
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A:
positive