Italian Horror Blogathon: The Perfume of the Lady in Black (aka Il profumo della signora in nero)

Here is a capsule review on the VASTLY underrated film The Perfume of the Lady in Black that I wrote for Wonders in the Dark for their top 100 Horror Films countdown last year. The full list of films can be found here. Enjoy...and make sure to watch that trailer!

[Originally posted 9/13/10 at Wonders in the Dark]

When I was approached by Jamie to participate in this countdown I knew I wanted to make sure Italian horror got its due. And when Jamie told me his intentions for the countdown – a numerical listing of films with the intent to raise awareness rather than rank one better than another – I knew I wanted to shed some light onto some Italian horror movies that weren’t as well known as the staples (read: Argento, Bava, and Fulci) of the subgenre. These are films like The Short Night of the Glass Dolls (Aldo Lado) or The House with Laughing Windows (Pupi Avati); films that have a cult following within a cult subgenre. One of the real joys about this particular sungenre is the hope that the more you watch the same old gialli over and over that just maybe this time you’ll un-mine some hidden gem. Case in point: Francesco Barilli’s The Perfume of the Lady in Black, a fantastic addition into the most hallowed halls of Italian horror.

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In Defense of Miami Vice

Head on over to Wonders in the Dark where they've been kind of enough to let me ramble on about why I think Miami Vice is one of the best film's of the decade (in their recent poll on the subject I placed it number two). Here's a sample:

There’s nothing more cliché than an action film about two cops who go undercover and infiltrate a drug cartel; and that, while undercover, one of the cops will no doubt get in too deep while the other cop can only question his partner’s commitment to the case. Such clichés are evident in almost all of Michael Mann’s films; however, he always sidesteps the banal inevitability of said clichés by taking a fresh look at the men who lead such lives through an introspective and microscopic lens. 2006 brought Miami Vice, a film popping with beautifully filmed colors, meticulously framed skylines, and, most importantly, the type of scrupulous itemization Mann loves to display for his audiences (just watch the way his characters create sing-songy dialogue with insider jargon). For Mann, it isn’t so much about the action, but about the duty, the inner turmoil (which is always aided by beautifully shot and framed visual correlatives); they’re about why these people are driven by what they’re driven by, and how they function in the world they live in. A lot of people find Mann’s brand of “action” film boring – too much ethereal wandering that result in long, lingering takes on unnecessary close-ups or establishing shots – with not enough shoot ‘em up; I find them misunderstood, refreshing takes on tired genre tropes; existential tone poems of the crime genre that are narratively akin to the French master Jean-Pierre Melville in how the filmmaker is more concerned with the inner dilemma than the external action. If Mann’s crime films are narratively akin to Melville then surely they are visually akin to his American contemporary visual poet Terence Malick in how the film has an ease about its tone; it’s almost as if it wafts from scene to scene as if in a dream.   Miami Vice is a masterpiece of the crime genre that isn’t just the most misunderstood film of Mann’s oeuvre, but also the most misunderstood masterpiece of the last decade.

Read the rest of the entry with comments at Wonders in the Dark

 

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Wondering About the Top FIlms of the 1980's?

Yep -- It's that time again. Head on over to the wonderful Wonders in the Dark and submit your top 25 films of the 80's. The lists are sure to be eclectic and full of great DVD ideas. I always walk away from the wonderful lists submitted there in awe of how much there is out there I still have to see. My list comes after jump...

My top ten consists of some of the best films to come out of American cinema in the 80's, one of the best films by a cinematic god (Bergman), a documentary, and a flashy French thriller that has one of the best action scenes I have ever seen. However, after those ten films I struggled to fill out the rest of my list. Oh, the films are all great movies -- I hate quantifying years of cinema, after all any year that gets me to talk about the movies is a good year for me -- but my secondary 25 show that as an era the 80's were maybe the worst in cinematic history. There are a lot of films from around the world that I have to see from the 80's (evidenced by the sheer amount of action and horror films to round out the list), but I don't think that necessarily cheapens the skill that went into action films like The Road Warrior or Aliens...for their respective genres, they are masterfully executed films.

Anyway...here's my list:

1.) Raging Bull (Scorsese)
2.) Fanny and Alexander (Bergman)
3.) Blade Runner (Scott)
4.) Crimes and Misdemeanors (Allen)
5.) Blue Velvet (Lynch)
6.) Ran (Kurosawa)
7.) Thief (Mann)
8.) The Thin Blue Line (Morris)
9.) The Right Stuff (Kaufman)
10.) Diva (Beineix)
11.) Kagemusha (Kurosawa)
12.) Lost in America (A. Brooks)
13.) The Fly (Cronenberg)
14.) Witness (Weir)
15.) Stranger Than Paradise (Jarmusch)
16.) Dekalog (Kieslowski)
17.) Raising Arizona (Coen)
18.) Robocop (Verhoeven)
19.) Manhunter (Mann)
20.) Fitzcarraldo (Herzog)
21.) This is Spinal Tap (Reiner)
22.) House of Games (Mamet)
23.) Broadcast News (J. Brooks)
24.) The Killer (Woo)
25.) Once Upon a Time in America (Leone)

Here's the second 25:

26.) Hannah and Her Sisters (Allen)
27.) Body Heat (Kasdan)
28.) The Dead Zone (Cronenberg)
29.) Under the Volcano (Huston)
30.) The Last Temptation of Christ (Scorsese)
31.) Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg)
32.) Another Woman (Allen)
33.) Au revoir les enfants (Malle)
34.) Wings of Desire (Wenders)
35.) The Dead (Huston)
36.) Blood Simple (Coen)
37.) Stage Fright (Soavi)
38.) The King of Comedy (Scorsese)
39.) Matewan (Sayles)
40.) Opera (Argento)
41.) Do the Right Thing (Lee)
42.) American Gigolo (Schrader)
43.) Das Boot (Peterson)
44.) The Beyond (Fulci)
45.) Aliens (Cameron)
46.) A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven)
47.) Bull Durham (Shelton)
48.) The Company of Wolves (Jordan)
49.) The Terminator (Cameron)
50.) The Road Warrior (Miller)

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My list for the best films of the 70's

Well...I knew I forget at least one filmmaker, and sure enough I did: the great Bernardo Bertolucci. His The Conformist is a masterpiece and would have certainly placed in the top 50 somewhere...perhaps I thought it came out in the late 60's, I don't know, but I'm sorry I omitted it. So, there, that's me rectifying the problem. This list was a lot of fun to construct, but just like any kind of comprehensive list, it's all pretty arbitrary, because I could easily justify any film in my top 5 being in the number one slot. Although, the more I think about it the more I feel good about the choice I went with (my all time favorite film from my all time favorite filmmaker). Construct your own lists or if you want discuss my list, here in the comments if you'd like, but I would prefer you head over to Wonders in the Dark, who is hosting this big 'ol shindig. My list comes after the jump...


Supplementary list:
50.) Play it Again, Sam (Allen)
49.) The Outlaw Josey Wales (Eastwood)
48.) The Conversation (Coppola)
47.) Mean Streets (Scorsese)
46.) Star Wars (Lucas)
45.) Night Moves (Penn)
44.) Monty Python’s The Life of Brian (Jones)
43.) Five Easy Pieces (Raffelson)
42.) Small Change (Truffaut)
41.) A Woman Under the Influence (Cassavettes)
40.) The Exorcist (Friedkin)
39.) The Last Waltz (Scorsese)
38.) The Last Detail (Ashby)
37.) Animal House (Landis)
36.) Claire’s Knee (Rohmer)
35.) Day for Night (Truffaut)
34.) Walkabout (Roeg)
33.) Three Days of the Condor (Pollack)
32.) Fellini Satyricon (Fellini)
31.) Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (Grau)
30.) Aguirre, The Wrath of God (Herzog)
29.) Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (Van Peebles)
28.) Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (Fulci)
27.) Autumn Sonata (Bergman)
26.) Black Christmas (Clark)

Now the top 25:

25.) McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Altman)
24.) Picnic at Hanging Rock (Weir)
23.) The Ballad of Cable Hogue (Peckinpah)
22.) Amarcord (Fellini)
21.) Bay of Blood (Bava)
20.) Dirty Harry (Siegel)
19.) Suspiria (Argento)
18.) Interiors (Allen)
17.) Halloween (Carpenter)
16.) 3 Women (Altman)
15.) Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (Herzog)
14.) Don’t Look Now (Roeg)
13.) Deep Red (Argento)
12.) Nashville (Altman)
11.) Scenes from a Marriage (Bergman)
10.) Alien (Scott)
9.) Taxi Driver (Scorsese)
8.) The Last Picture Show (Bogdanovich)
7.) Days of Heaven (Malick)
6.) Chinatown (Polanski)
5.) Le Cercle Rouge (Melville)
4.) The Godfather Saga (Parts 1 and 2) (Coppola) (Yes I view these two as a whole)
3.) Barry Lyndon (Kubrick)
2.) Apocalypse Now (Coppola)
1.) Cries and Whispers (Bergman)

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Wondering About the Top FIlms of the 1970's?

Hey everyone (okay, the four of you that read this blog) head on over to one of the best film blogs in the whole 'sphere, Wonders in the Dark, for their always brilliant polling of what the best films of each decade are. This month they're onto the 1970's, an era that is known for the onslaught of upstart American filmmakers who were able to do whatever they wanted with the studios money. The slew of brilliant Art House fair from other countries was slowing down, and American films started to take their place as the films young, hip cinephiles raved about. My own list will be somewhat unorthodox, what with all the Italian Horror sure to be on the list, but that's what makes Sam Juliano and co. endeavor so much fun: you get to see what other films buffs hold in high regard. So head on over to Wonders in the Dark and participate in their always-fun polling process. Make sure you subscribe to the comments, because discussion will continue throughout the month, and their comments section is always an interesting read. I will unveil my list at their site, so head on over and participate.

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