The resident priest at the religious-led school that Vita attends asks that she pose for an artist as the Virgin Mary. Only thing is that the artist is well creepy, in a borderline demonic way, and his paintings come alive and Vita's increasingly prone to powerful fantasies of her own, which isn't a great mix.
This is mostly excellent - 'mostly' and not completely only because the second half on the island could do with a trim. There are some…
D'Arcy Drollinger writes, directs, produces and stars in this crime comedy set - I found out later - in the 1970s. The story centers on D'Arcy's stage character Champagne White who gets mixed up with a drug ring with supositories that make the addicted shit themselves. I know that is transgressive, or perhaps a pleasing callback to the universe of Divine and Jon Waters, but it's difficult to warm to shit. That aside, this is fluffy fun with some brilliant…
A hybrid of B-movie westerns of the 50's and Leone's spaghetti reboots; it never quite gels. There are some brilliant set pieces, but there is plenty that doesn't make sense, eg, every attempted shot kills someone, even if made by people who've supposedly never handled a gun before. So it remains a reasonably good B-movie western, but there are plenty better.
Round-eyed, plump-cheeked urchin Allesandro - think Cinema Paradiso's Salvatore - narrates the story of how his father, his hero, slowly tears himself and his family apart.
Who is Pietro Germi? Alongside The Facts of Murder, the other Germi t released by Radiance, The Railroad Man provides further evidence of his exceptional work as actor, director, and co-writer of gripping drama. It might go a little long, but again, as with The Facts of Murder, the characters are so expertly defined and performed, and the narrative so briliantly manipulative, that a few more minutes than necessary is really no bother.
