Julian Jenkins Movies
- 1988
- R
Despite the tendency of the Curse films to bear absolutely no relation to each other, this is perhaps the only film in that series to involve an actual curse. It's also one of the better installments. The curse in question is leveled upon the 16th-century monks of San Pietro by a demonically-possessed man, just prior to his being sealed alive in the catacombs beneath the Abbey. His curse plagues the monks' embittered modern-day descendants, who toil under the strict guidance of Father Marinus (Jeremy West). When an American schoolteacher (Laura Schaefer) comes into their midst to explore the sealed catacombs, Marinus fears the worst: not only does the woman represent a powerful temptation to the repressed brothers, but her tamperings with the 400-year-old seal threaten to unleash the horror lurking behind it. His fears are, of course, well-founded, and the demonic attacks begin. Frequent Charles Band collaborator David Schmoeller directs this demon-possession opus with surprising subtlety, eschewing gore effects and Exorcist-style weirdness in favor of a pervading atmosphere of dread, weighed down only slightly by a rather talky script. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi
- Starring:
- Timothy Van Patten, Laura Schaefer, (more)
American architect Stourley Kracklite (Brian Dennehy) comes with his young wife Louisa (Chloe Webb) to Rome to supervise an exhibition devoted to Etienne-Louis Boullée, a French architect of the 18th century. Suffering from severe abdominal pains, Stourley doesn't pay much attention to his pregnant wife, and she finds consolation in the arms of suave Caspasian Speckler (Lambert Wilson). Built from rigidly symmetrical images, the film has quite an unusual subject: the belly -- both the sick one of the architect and the pregnant one of his wife, the rounded forms alluding to the spherical constructions designed by Boullée, the architect whose visionary projects seldom materialized. Beautifully shot on location in Rome, this ironic fable wittily examines the issues of artistic creativity. ~ Yuri German, Rovi
- Starring:
- Brian Dennehy, Chloe Webb, (more)
Luciano Odorisio's Italian-made exploitation film La Monaca di Monza travels into the deepest and darkest recesses of a Catholic convent, where a nobleman (Alessandro Gassman) and a nun (Myriem Roussel) engage in a passionate love affair. Little can they foresee the dangerous and calamitous consequences that this will yield -- consequences involving betrayal, vengeance, and homicide. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Myriem Roussel, Alessandro Gassman, (more)
- 1971
- R
David Niven is Alex, a scholar who has won the Nobel Prize for developing a universal language. The U.S. State Department has decided to honor him with a statue, to be displayed in London's Grosvenor Square. The commission for the project went to Alex's wife Rhonda (Virna Lisi), who has designed a statue that is completely nude, without even a fig leaf. Husband Alex sees that is it a perfect replica of himself, except for the part usually covered by fig leaves. He accuses his wife of using one of her lovers as a model and begins a hilarious search for the original. Robert Vaughn has some good lines as the American Ambassador, discussing the couple's controversy with the President. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
