Armando De Razza Movies
- 2001
Noted Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura follows up on his 1999 opus Goya with this wild and woolly reimagining of a 1930s adventure serial from the mind of a surrealist master. The film opens in the present with an aged Luis Buñuel listening to a script pitch about the search for a magical table smuggled from the Ottoman empire to Spain several centuries ago. As the spiel plods on, Buñuel's mind drifts, imagining himself during his prime with his buddies Salvador Dali and Garcia Lorca. The trio search for the missing item of furniture through the winding alleys and sewers of Toledo. Along the way, the actors playing Buñuel, Dali, and Lorca reflect on playing the parts of great artists while engaging in witty banter with one another. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- El Gran Wyoming, Pere Arquillue, (more)
- 1995
- R
Spanish filmmaker Alex de la Iglesia followed his outlandish sci-fi/horror debut, Accion Mutante, with this colorful apocalypse fantasy about Father Angel (Alex Angulo), a scholarly priest whose intensive research into cabalistic "Bible Code" prophecies leads to a horrific discovery: the exact birthdate of the Antichrist. Convinced that Satan's spawn will be born somewhere in Madrid on Christmas Day, Father Angel embarks on a bizarre journey down the path of sin, committing the foulest possible acts against God and humanity in order to worm his way into the Devil's inner circle and face the ultimate foe on his own turf. Comprised of equal parts high-concept horror and scathing social satire (in the mode of the director's peer and former collaborator Pedro Almodovar), this ambitious horror film has garnered a sizable cult following. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- 1993
The innovative Italian neuropsychiatrist Marco Lombardo Radice started at treatment movement which draws its name from the unlikely object of worship found in the Peanuts cartoon series, The Great Pumpkin, and it seems likely that this movie and its story represent some kind of homage to his memory. Arturo's wife walked out on him, and now he devotes all his time to his job. He (Sergio Castillitto) is a professor of psychiatry at the university hospital in Rome, and specializes in children's problems. When Pippi (Alessia Fugardi) is brought in for a consultation, it is alleged that she is an epileptic, but the good doctor thinks otherwise. He convinces her reluctant parents to leave her in his care, and through a series of brilliant manipulations, he manages to cure her. The world of mental illness and how it is handled in Italy are not seen through rose-colored glasses, here, and reviewers found tht what could have been a mere tear-jerker manages to be a convincing, gripping drama. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sergio Castellitto, Alessia Fugardi, (more)
