Kitty Courbois Movies

"El Rancho," a sort of punk rock Animal House, is the setting for this college drama. Five roommates live in this group house on the cusp of college graduation. Jack (a mohawk-wearing Ben Affleck) is an art major pining over his ex-girlfriend, while Rob (Sam Rockwell) fears domestication after graduation. The artist of a popular campus comic strip, Mickey (Vinnie DeRamus), is still too shy to talk to girls. Slosh (Vien Hong) is an A-student who gave up his education in favor of drinking and partying. The elder of the crew is Dennis (French Stewart), who, despite the wisdom and advice he offers to his younger housemates, is unaware of the less-than-academic attentions of his professor (John Rhys-Davies). The five consider whether they can postpone their lives to stay for one more year. The film missed the trend in Generation X films (Reality Bites, Singles, Kicking and Screaming) by a few years; as a result, the punk characters and soundtrack of this latecomer probably provide a more authentic atmosphere. The rowdy debauchery distinguishes itself through genuine honesty -- drinking and destroying furniture may not be the healthiest way to deal with youthful angst, but it is certainly popular. Spalding Gray, Matt Damon, and Matthew McConaughey make interesting cameo appearances. ~ Jonathan E. Laxamana, All Movie Guide

The daughter of a Jewish couple who survived the Holocaust is soon to marry a doctor, which is an occasion for celebrating. Thus, the girl's parents have decided to have a prenuptial feast at their country estate. Among the invited guests is a woman who fostered their child during the Nazi era. Instead of being grateful, the girl's mother is mostly jealous. Despite the fact that this is a celebration, memories of the past threaten to overpower the proceedings. This affectionately told story is based on the Dutch stage play Leedvermaak by Judith Herzberg). ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This unfortunate interpretation of the life of a Jewish girl in Holland -- who escapes being sent to German death camps in 1942 while the rest of her family is deported -- is loosely based on the autobiographical novel by Marga Minco. The author sued to insert a disclaimer before the title that a fictional Nazi family introduced in this film and the young Jewish girl could never have had the relationship shown, a relationship contrary to her book and her experience. Screenwriter Maurice Noel adds the Nazi family whose father is a VIP in the Nazi youth, whose son is a Nazi soldier, and whose daughter makes friends with the Jewish Sara (Ester Spitz) while the two are in the hospital. Later, viewers are to believe that Sara visits the Nazi family often and is welcomed -- wearing her yellow star -- in complete safety. That assumption is certainly an affront to the truth: the real "Sara" was hidden for three years by friends in the Dutch Resistance and miraculously escaped deportation and death only because of their own risk in hiding her. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Loosely based on some political events in the 1960s, this film about the rise and fall of a Dutch public relations man is well-acted, but may be abstruse to outsiders not familiar with the allusions to real people and places (real names are not used). The story centers on Ben Mertens (Gerard Thoolen) who goes to a doctor for help with his alcohol problem. The physician prescribes very controlled doses of morphine to get him through the rough patches - which is fine until an unscrupulous doctor bribes Mertens with unlimited doses of morphine so Mertens can get him a top position in a government organization. Mertens complies, but while under the influence of alcohol and drugs, he talks too much to the press about who and what he knows. That mistake turns out to be unaccountably fatal, and Mertens' unexplained demise in a hospital remains a mystery. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Hugo Claus rewrote and directed Friday as the cinematic version of his original 1969 play of the same name. Just as in the play, the story begins with the theme of incest, as the father Georges (Frank Aendenboom) returns from serving his jail sentence for that crime. Unlike the earlier play, however, the film does not emphasize that aspect of the story. When Georges gets home he finds out that his wife Jeanne (Kitty Courbois) has had an illegitimate child by a younger man, Erik (Herbert Flack), and now both of them must somehow try to return to a normal life, given their only too obvious lapses in moral judgment. As the husband and wife try hard to accommodate each other's failings and start to get to know each other again, Erik comes back into the picture. Now the three of them must resolve the deep-seated conflicts that brought them to this emotionally-wrought juncture of love and betrayal. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Spetters further elaborates on the themes of sexual obsession previously probed in director Paul Verhoeven's Turkish Delight (1973). Hans Van Tongeren, Toon Agterberg and Maarten Spanjer play, respectively, Reen, Eve and Hans, a closely-knit group of teenage motorcycle lovers who idolize local cycling champion Witkamp (played by Rutger Hauer, the star of Delight). Unfortunately, the adolescents' attempts to rebel take a dark and brutal turn when Van Tongeren is permanently injured in a road accident and Agterberg is gang raped by a group of homosexuals. While the other two young men lust after Fientje (Renee Soutendjik), a promiscuous hashhouse waitress, Agterberg responds to the rape by coming out and taking Fientje's gay brother as a lover. Verhoeven is artistically and sexually graphic in juxtaposing "cycle love" with the friends' carnal interrelations. The title of Spetters is an indigenous triple-entendre -- it refers to the Dutch vernacular for "grease spatterings" (both the oily renderings left behind by the motorcycles commandeered by the film's central characters and the grease slung by Soutendjik), is a slang term for male ejaculate, and was frequently used in the seventies and eighties to refer to people who are sexually appealing ("That girl is a spetter.")

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The title of this dark satire from the Netherlands has nothing to do with communicable diseases and everything to do with the name of the Van Doorn meat-packing corporation. The Van Doorn family has a network of mistresses, relatives, and alliances as complicated as anything in Byzantine history and a warehouse-full of dark, dastardly family secrets. Those secrets and alliances become clear as the intrigues on the factory floor and within the family lead in tandem to blackmail and murder. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Wessel Franken (Paolo Graziosi) is a writer who leaves his wife and work behind for a vacation in sunny Cote D'Azur. When he discovers his elderly host Max (Walter Kous) is having a homosexual affair with young Danny (Joop Van Hulzen), he flees to Rome for a brief fling with Karen (Kittie Courbois). Wessel soon is lonely for his wife Leonie (Asta Weyne) and longs to return to the home he previously couldn't wait to leave behind. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide