Franco Ferrini Movies
- 2006
A fugitive from justice discovers he has to leave his principles behind to come out of the underground in this drama from Italy. Giorgio (Alessio Boni) was a member of a radical left-wing group who was forced to flee the country when a bomb he planted unexpectedly killed an innocent party. After living in Central America for several years, Giorgio has decided to return to Italy and turn himself in. Giorgio is enrolled in a program where he is "rehabilitated" by cooperating with the police, staring by getting the goods on Anedda (Michele Placido), a corrupt cop. However, before long Giorgio's actions start to seem more like blackmail than justice, as a demands payments from the owner of a topless bar and persuading a married woman, Flora (Isabella Ferrari), to sleep with him until her husband makes good on a long-standing debt. However, temptation becomes too much for Giorgio when Anedda offers to bring him in on a robbery he's been planning; Giorgio's share of the loot looks to be enough to keep him afloat for years, but his new criminal lifestyle is more than he knows how to handle. Arrivederci Amore (aka The Goodbye Kiss) was adapted from a novel by Massimo Carlotto. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alessio Boni, Michele Placido, (more)
The Dario Argento-directed Do You Like Hitchcock? pays homage to the man considered by many to be the master of suspense. A voyeuristic film student senses foul play when a murder strikes at the apartment complex across the street, but the plot, which references such Hitchcock classics as Rear Window and Strangers on a Train, is less important than the style. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elio Germano, Chiara Conti, (more)
A serial killer with a knack for video poker and a taste for blood taunts a determined policewoman in director Dario Argento's attempt to bring the traditional giallo into the digital age. Detective Anna Mari (Stefania Rocca) is sitting at her desk when a message from an anonymous online gambler bearing the moniker "The Card Player" invites her to join a game of video poker. When the game screen loads, Mari is horrified to learn that the stakes of the game are higher than she ever could have imagined, as an unidentified female in an over-pixilated web-cam window screams for her life. Though the chief initially refuses to take part in the killer's horrifying game, the death of the innocent victim leads Mari to seek more unconventional means of tracking the murderous gambler. As the killer continues to taunt police, British policeman John Brennan (Liam Cunningham) is brought in to help solve the case. When the killer ups the ante by kidnapping the police chief's daughter, it's only a matter of time before the killer and Mari herself are locked in a pulse-pounding, life-or-death game in which anyone could hold the winning hand. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liam Cunningham
Director Dario Argento, best known for his stylishly bloody horror films, revisits the style and themes of his early directorial efforts in this tense crime thriller. A prostitute (Barbara Lerici) discovers one of her customers has a taste for much rougher sex than she's willing to give him; trying to sneak away from her john, she accidentally walks off with one of his scrapbooks, from which she discovers her client apparently committed a series of unsolved murders almost 20 years earlier. The john tracks down the prostitute and murders her to insure her silence; this awakens in him the desire to kill again, and soon he's once again leaving a bloody swath across Italy. Ulisse Moretti (Max Von Sydow), the police detective who investigated the earlier wave of killings, is brought out of retirement when clues link the new murders to those committed in the early '80s, and the aging cop finds his sometimes foggy memory jolted back to recognition by the growing number of bloody victims. Meanwhile, Giacomo (Stefano Dionisi), whose saw his mother being killed by the murderer as a boy, learns that the killer is back at work, and sets out to investigate the case on his own. Non Ho Sonno features an original musical score by the rock band Goblin, who also wrote music for a number of Argento's best-known films. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Max von Sydow, Stefano Dionisi, (more)
- 1997
This Italian crime drama, based on the book Io il Tebano (I, the Theban) by Antonio Carlucci and Paolo Rossetti, alters names in dramatizing the lives of real-life Milan gangsters. In prison in 1980, Michele Croce (Claudio Amendola) tells his story to an investigator as he looks back on his life, seen in flashbacks. Avoiding a regular job, the kid from Southern Italy teamed with his buddy Salvatore (Tony Sperandeo) to pull off small-time crimes, aggressively edging his way to the top of the heap as one of Milan's main gangsters. Independent Italian producer Claudio Bonivento turned to directing with this film. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claudio Amendola, Ennio Fantastichini, (more)
- 1997
When snooty Gueflo's blue-blooded mother finally dies, he is delighted. At last the family fortune and estate will belong to him. However, his joy is short-lived for he learns that his mother bore an illegitimate son to whom she has bequeathed half her wealth. The bastard son turns out to be a waiter living in southern Italy. Upon learning of his good-fortune, he and his pal head north to Florence to take up residence in his newfound family's posh estate. Gueflo does not welcome his half brother and the two engage in heated battles that only worsen when a beautiful and very single baroness gets involved. The relationship between the quasi-siblings abruptly changes when another family secret is revealed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1996
When the Berlin Wall came down, Polish peasant lass Eva wept with joy. Seven years later, the beauteous girl is living the high-life in Milan as a pricy call girl. One day, her innocent, but equally beautiful little sister Maria shows up for a surprise visit. She thinks Eva makes money as an interpreter. Unfortunately for Maria her surprise is spoiled because Eva has been missing for a while. Teaming up with the police, Maria begins a search that leads her to discover Eva's true profession. Desperate to locate her older sister, Marie masquerades as Eva. Featuring a cast comprised of international supermodels, this Italian thriller fits nicely into the "so-bad-it's-good" category of trashy films. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
The title affliction causes sufferers to react to paintings in extreme and bizarre ways. In the case of police detective Anna Manni, she swoons and feels herself entering hallucinatory versions of the artwork she sees. This Italian psychothriller contains dark elements of horror as Manni tries to capture a murderous serial rapist. The lady detective is first seen walking the art-filled hallways of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The great paintings have a terrible effect upon her and she ends up having one of her surreal visions after fainting in front of Brueghel's "The Flight of Icarus." She sees herself falling through the painting's deep ocean and is only saved by the hands of Alfredo, a stranger who saw her fall. She returns woozily to her hotel. Her memory has temporarily lapsed, and once in her room she finds herself similarly mesmerized by a painting on the wall, but eventually she remembers her assignment. Unfortunately, when she meets up with Alfredo again, he attacks and rapes her. He then forces her to watch while he rapes and murders another. She manages to escape and make it back to Rome where she begins seeing a psychiatrist. Her former lover Marco also makes sure she is guarded 24-hours a day. Unfortunately for Anna it is not enough, and Alfredo strikes again. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Two well-known directors each adapt stories by Edgar Allen Poe in this horror drama. George Romero's "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" tells how the wife of an elderly, wealthy man and her lover--who also happens to be the husband's private physician--scheme to control his assets. Dying before they can carry out their plans, his soul is caught between life and death while they freeze the body to finish their work. In the Dario Argento-directed "The Black Cat" a crime photographer, known for his photos' gruesome content, kills his girlfriend's titular pet and then his girlfriend. Soon he gets a good look at what he's done. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Adrienne Barbeau, E.G. Marshall, (more)
Originally intended as the third chapter in producer Dario Argento's Demons trilogy, La Chiesa stands alone as an effective horror film centering on a haunted cathedral with a violent past. The church's history begins in Medieval Italy, when the Knights Templar massacred an entire village of suspected Satanists and built the structure upon the site of the slain peasants' mass grave. Designed by an architect/alchemist (who was buried alive within his creation), the church is filled with elaborate machinery designed to seal off all entrances if ever the spirits of the entombed villagers were to rise again... which, of course, takes place in the present when the crypt's seal is removed. As demonic forces have their way with the church's occupants, it becomes the task of the parish priest (Hugh Quarshie) and a young girl (Asia Argento, daughter of Dario) to discover the builder's last line of defense before the evil is unleashed upon the outside world. Directed by Michele Soavi (who later gained critical acclaim with the inventive Dellamorte Dellamore), this is an imaginative Gothic horror film with startling imagery straight out of a Hieronymous Bosch painting and its own well-conceived mythology. Shots of the church's elaborate Medieval machines grinding to life are particularly memorable. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- 1988
A group of characters come in and out of each other's lives in this Italian sex comedy. Nagra (Giuliana De Sio) is an ambitious journalist who is not opposed to sleeping her way to the top. Brunetta (Kate Capshaw) is victimized by her lover Lionel (Michele Placido) when he dumps her for young swimming teacher Marina (Carolina Rosi). Brunetta later watches in disgust when Lionel picks up Nagra. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Giuliana de Sio, Michele Placido, (more)
- 1988
- PG
A ham radio operator hears more than he wants to when he tunes into a satellite relay station and listens in on the murder of a woman in this suspenseful Italian thriller. The other witness is Peter, who helms the station and accidentally taps into a spy station. Unfortunately, he doesn't know where the murder occurred. He and the amateur radio operator then team up to warn the woman they believe will be the next victim of the murderer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vincent Spano, Oliver Benny, (more)
The polar-opposite worlds of opera and horror collide in this gory giallo film from director Dario Argento. Christina Marsillach (Tom Hanks' romantic interest in Every Time We Say Goodbye) stars as Betty, a beautiful understudy who gets an unlikely break to play the female lead in a contemporary opera of Verdi's Macbeth. Her fear of Macbeth's notorious curse proves to have foundation when a psychopath with a strange connection to Betty murders a stage hand in the midst of her debut and later kills several ravens being used in the opera. Characters introduced at this point who could be the killer include: the show's director, Marco (Ian Charleson); Betty's publicist, Mira (Daria Nicolodi); and the police inspector, Alan Santini (Urbano Barberini). The middle third of the film is devoted to the killer's bloody work which serves to torment Betty. The madman binds her and tapes a row of tiny needles beneath her eyes so that she is forced to watch him butcher a young stage manager and a costume designer, among others. With the police investigation going nowhere and the killer zeroing in on Betty's death, Marco decides to enact his own plan to stop the madman; he releases the ravens (apparently, they always remember their enemies) during a performance. The birds circle wildly before attacking the killer and plucking one of his eyeballs out. He absconds with Betty, but dies in a fire after revealing his demented motivation and his connection to the young singer. A final scene set in the Swiss mountains provides a couple of final shocks. ~ Patrick Legare, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christina Marsillach, Urbano Barberini, (more)
A high-end apartment complex is the setting for demonic disaster in this like-minded splatter sequel to the 1986 cult hit Demons. A spoiled young woman named Sally (Coralina Cataldi Tassoni) is hosting her own birthday party in her apartment. Other characters in the building include a man (David Knight) and his pregnant wife (Nancy Brilli), a little boy who is alone for the evening, and a gym full of workout maniacs. In each apartment, televisions are all tuned to a horror film in which a group of young people find evidence of demons which precedes their becoming possessed. Upset that an ex-boyfriend is coming to her party, Sally goes into her room and turns on the film. A demon bursts through her television. Moments later, the possessed Sally enters the party and slaughters all of her guests, turning them into demons. The possession spreads throughout the building as tenant after tenant is transformed, leading to a furious battle between the exercise fanatics and a pack of demons. The young husband manages to stay alive and makes a desperate attempt to save his wife -- who is being tormented by the now-possessed little boy. He rescues her after the demon child gives "birth" to a Gremlins-style demon and the couple make a dangerous attempt to rappel down the outside of the tower with the raving, drooling Sally in hot pursuit. ~ Patrick Legare, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nancy Brilli, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, (more)
- 1985
- R
In this pretentious erotic thriller an American forest ranger heads for Rome to search for his sister, a model who has mysteriously disappeared and later turns up murdered with a pair of scissors. The police know it is the work of a serial killer, but they have few leads. The young brother begins his own investigation and slowly solves the murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Schanley, Renee Simonsen, (more)
Italian horror auteur Dario Argento produced and co-wrote (with director Lamberto Bava) this gory, nightmarish horror film set almost entirely within the "Metropol," a huge, cathedral-like Berlin cinema showing an invitation-only screening of a rather lame slasher film. The difference, of course, is that the cheap scares on the Metropol's screen are child's play compared to the horrors which soon emerge to lay hold of the unsuspecting filmgoers: when a young woman is scratched by part of a display in the theatre lobby, she begins to mutate into a fanged, slavering creature who then attacks other audience members, spreading the demonic infection until only a handful of survivors are forced to combat rampaging armies of inhuman beasts, making the latter portion of the film resemble Night of the Living Dead. A handful of sequels followed; there's a little "reward" for those who stick around for the end credits. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Natasha Hovey, Urbano Barberini, (more)
Though some viewers might be put off by its length, graphic violence, and absence of likable characters, Sergio Leone's final film is also a cinematic masterpiece. Spanning four decades, the film tells the story of David "Noodles" Aaronson (Robert De Niro) and his Jewish pals, chronicling their childhoods on New York's Lower East Side in the 1920s, through their gangster careers in the 1930s, and culminating in Noodles' 1968 return to New York from self-imposed exile, at which time he learns the truth about the fate of his friends and again confronts the nightmare of his past. The acting, the re-creation of the time period, the cinematography, and the music are all superb. However, even more important is Leone's ability to make the film work on so many different levels: it's both a criticism of gangster-film mythology and a continuation of the director's exploration of the issues of time and history. Strange as it may seem, the violence and gore in the first half of the film turn into a sad elegy about wasted lives and lost love. The film's strengths emerge only in its full 229-minute version -- the 139-minute and other edited versions don't make nearly the same impact. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert De Niro, James Woods, (more)
Declared "my most personal film" by Italy's premier horror director Dario Argento, this production marked the director's return to the eerie thematic territory he pioneered in 1977 with the horror classic Suspiria. Much like that film, Phenomena conforms to the logic of nightmares. Jennifer Connelly stars as Jennifer Corvino, the daughter of an American film star, who enrolls in a prestigious Swiss boarding school under the tutelage of the prudish Mrs. Bruckner (played by frequent Argento collaborator and former beau Daria Nicolodi). Possessing a unique telepathic gift, Jennifer is capable of communicating with insects on an instinctive level, often while sleepwalking. This trait soon brands her a "freak" among her snooty classmates but makes her a valuable asset to entomologist Dr. MacGregor (Donald Pleasence), who is currently employing the innate forensic skills of insects to aid police in tracking a serial killer targeting the boarders at Jennifer's school. As Jennifer's tiny friends (including the corpse-hunting Sarcophagus Fly) guide her closer to the murderer's lair, everything from MacGregor's revenge-driven pet chimpanzee to Bruckner's monstrously disfigured son figure into the mix, providing not one but three shocking endings. Shot in English and re-dubbed for various European markets, this graphic thriller was released in drastically edited form as Creepers in the U.S. and England; Argento's original cut runs 110 minutes. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jennifer Connelly, Donald Pleasence, (more)
- 1984
Sophia Loren plays an Italian cab driver whose 12-year-old son (played by her real-life son Edoardo Ponti) is blinded in an accident. Lacking the funds necessary for her son's operation, Sophia goes the Buona Sera Mrs. Campbell route by scouring the Italian countryside looking for her former lovers. By claiming that each man is the father of her son, Ms. Loren is able to build up a sizeable bank account. True love rears its head when Sophia hits upon her American ex-lover Daniel J. Travanti, an embittered recluse who lives near Mont Blanc, on the French/Italian border. In addition to Edoardo Ponti, several other members of Sophia's family pop up as actors and on the production staff of Aurora; in addition, Ricky Tognazzi, son of Italian film star Ugo Tognazzi, is featured in the cast. Originally titled Aurora by Night, this US/Italian coproduction premiered on NBC TV in October of 1984, then was released theatrically in Europe. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1983
Rolando (Carlo Verdone) has tried everything to find a teaching job and so when he fakes it and lands a job as a priest tutoring Sandy, a teenage American model (Natasha Hovey), he feels particularly blessed -- it certainly beats his work as a janitor at an English school run by the Catholic church. Soon Rolando is handsomely ensconced at his new job site -- an opulent villa -- but his student Sandy speaks Italian and quickly figures out that Rolando is not a priest. She bargains with him: if she keeps quiet about who he really is, then they must continue going out to "forbidden food" places (like pizzerias and pastry shops) so she can eat the things she likes. Forbidden food and a fake identity cannot last forever, and both are jeopardized when the real priest shows up for the tutoring position. Much more cleaned up and mainstream than Verdone's past comic outings, Acqua E Sapone was applied to the script and the dialogue, as well as the title. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carlo Verdone, Natasha Hovey, (more)
- 1983
A slow pace tends to drag the storyline down in this film about a stand-up comedian (Francesco Nuti) whose live-in companion leaves him for another man. When she walks out, he slides into an alcoholic haze and does not come out of it until he hits rock bottom. Once he finds contracts for his act again and is re-establishing himself as a dependable performer, he runs into his old flame at a party, and for a moment it looks like they might end up together -- almost. Touches of the comic talents of Francesco Nuti appear in the nonsense words he composes to a song supposedly in English, and to his treatment of an unsuspecting mailman whom he believes is his ex-lover's new romantic interest. Otherwise, the story is slow and uneven. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Francesco Nuti, Barbara de Rossi, (more)
- 1982
Like his more famous loin-clothed tree-swinging, yodeling counterpart, Bingo Bongo was raised in the jungle by apes. This Italian comedy follows his lively adventures after he is captured, caged and sent back to civilization. There he begins working with a pretty anthropologist who teaches him all he needs to know about speaking, eating correctly and falling in love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Adriano Celentano, Carole Bouquet, (more)
- 1982
- R
After his twin sister is killed in an accident, her distraught brother (Laurent Malet) jams her corpse in a cello case and hits the road. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laurent Malet, Nina Scott, (more)
- 1982
In this comedy centered around competitive pool sharks, Franceso Nuti (also co-writer) is the talented pool player Francesco who after beating the inimitable "Scuro" (Marcello Lotti, a three-time pool champion) gets conned into playing for money -- and then everything starts going downhill. The clear-headed Chiara (Giuliana De Sio) comes to Francesco's rescue, and in the meantime, some impressive pool shots entertain even the uninitiated with their wizardry. Fans of the game would appreciate the dexterity and inventiveness of the featured shots. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Francesco Nuti, Giuliana de Sio, (more)
