Faust meets Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde* meets the Phantom of the Opera meets the Wolf Man --Mexican style. Unexpectedly, the otherwise laughably made-up monster struck me as real nightmarish and made me literally sick. The scene with the little girl playing Tchaikovsky on the piano, before the concert in the final act, was the best in a quite surprising elliptical fashion, and still I found myself talking to the screen and the characters on it more often than not from…
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The Fearless Vampire Killers 1967
If you watched this as a child, it was more terrifying than Rosemary's Baby.
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Wings of Desire 1987
Damiel, the angel in love with a trapeze artist (Solveig Dommartin), may well be Bruno Ganz's most beautiful performance. The cinematography (by Henri Alekan), in particular, reaches its own kind of poetry.
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Pepi, Luci, Bom 1980
The movida madrileña as pop-art, LGBTQIA+, feminist cultural and social satire. Almodóvar at his rawest yet most authentic and groundbreaking. Alaska as her teenage Punk/Goth self.
Assumpta Serna!
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The Omen Legacy 2001
How can this be narrated by Jack Palance and not have Holly Palance as one of the interviewees?
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Omen IV: The Awakening 1991
Last shot of the last Omen (made-for-TV) movie sequel: Delia and her adoptive father, carrying her little brother, walking down a lane that is revealed to be an inverted cross after the funeral.
Me, still appreciating the desperate effort to enhance a beyond-mediocre flick: "I see what you did there!"Bad, very bad --and not the evil kind of bad it's supposedly aiming for--, yet not in the same godawful level of unimaginativeness as the 2006 remake of the original classic.
My ranking of the Omen franchise: boxd.it/lxsfE
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Cruising 1980
The look on Pacino's face when he breaks the fourth wall at the end is so beyond disturbing!
Cruising remains one heck of an ugly and arguably offensive picture, yet also an intriguing and fascinating thriller that dares to go some crazy places --and this is the reason why it can provoke an almost primal reaction still felt as of today.
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Omen III: The Final Conflict 1981
I had kind of forgotten how new everything is in this entry, hence making it a risky and ultimately compelling effort: Jerry Goldsmith's score, the political plot and the overall frame of the narrative heavily relying on Scripture (in a similar way as the original production), and Sam Neill as an adult Damien. The finale is the best! Of course, there are some shocking murders, but their significance is better realised here than in the previous sequel --although I still…
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