Jean Badin Movies

Based on the novel The Pork Butcher by David Hughes, this melodrama was directed by literary adaptation specialist Geoffrey Reeve, producer of The Shooting Party (1984), Half Moon Street (1986), and The Whistle Blower (1987). Christopher Plummer stars as Ernst Kestner, a German Army veteran who relocated to New York, where he has lived for 43 years, since the end of WWII. Upon the death of his wife and the takeover of his deli business by a chain store, Ernst embarks on a nostalgic journey to France, the site of a 1944 love affair he had with a beautiful young woman in the small, occupied town of Lascaud. In Paris, Ernst reunites with his estranged daughter Tina (Catherine Hicks), who is having marital problems and agrees to accompany her father on his sentimental journey. In Lascaud, however, Ernst discovers both the fate of his long-lost love and horrifying evidence of his complicity in a wartime atrocity he never knew occurred. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

With this 410-minute epic, Prolific Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira adapts the 7-hour stage play of Catholic playwright Paul Claudel. Two people -- Dona Prouheze (Anne Consigny) and Don Rodigue (Luis Miguel Cintra) have fallen in love but are honor-bound to renounce their passion for a greater love of God. Dona Prouheze is particularly devout and has offered her satin slipper to the Virgin Mary in exchange for the Virgin's protection against sin. She dies as virginal as when she was born, while Don Rodrigue conquers Asian lands for king and country. As his life progresses, he becomes more and more devoted to painting religious subjects on his ship, rebuffing the royal attempts to get him back into active duty. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this adolescent adventure-comedy, an angry nerd tires of being teased by cruel surfers who play a dirty trick upon him and spike his soda pop with enough female hormones to make him grow miniature breasts. Menlo Schwartzer gets his revenge by spiking their favorite drink, Buzz Cola, with a drink that turns them into zombies with a taste for garbage who will obey his every command. He makes about six of these zombie surfers and uses them to win a big competition. The title is supposed to be a joke. There is no Surf 1. Get it? ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

On Top of the Whale, one of the best-known films by acclaimed director Raul Ruiz, is an allegorical exploration of language and the conflicts between cultures. The setting is the world of the near future; the film begins in Holland, which, like several other European nations, has become a communist republic. An anthropologist, specializing in the study of primitive tribes, is introduced by his wife to the powerful millionaire Narcisso Cambos. Narcisso invites them to stay at his estate in Patagonia, which he claims is also home to the last two surviving members of an ancient Indian tribe, generally thought extinct. The anthropologist accepts and begins to study the tribesmen -- an inseparable pair named Adam and Eden. He becomes consumed by the mysteries of their culture, their behavior, and especially their language, which appears to consist of only 60 words. Meanwhile, the possible revival of a former relationship between his wife and Narcisso threatens his marriage. Though occasionally punctuated by monochrome cinematography and surrealistic imagery, On Top of the Whale is more linear than much of Ruiz's later work, relying on a sparse directness that gives the film a provocative, fable-like ambiguity. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

A young woman trained as an historian is intrigued by the diary of Flora Tristan, active in feminist causes in 19th century France. The quest to find more information about Tristan takes the historian on a trip to Lyons, where she begins to discover more about herself in the process of research. She accomplishes these discoveries somewhat enigmatically, however, through recording sounds like her own footsteps, for example. For feminists and other viewers, Flora Tristan seems to have been short-circuited by this latter-day admirer. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide