Showing posts with label Ornella Muti. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ornella Muti. Show all posts

Saturday, 27 January 2018

Un Amour de Swann (1984)



When the elegant and educated bachelor Charles Swann falls in love with a courtesan, his friends in the most powerful and fashionable circles of Paris in the 1890's warn him against marriage.

Well produced with top credentials in all departments, the result is a unloving, coldly calculated adaptation of Proust's story; alone Hans Werner Henze's excellent score gives an impression of what this movie could have been.

Halliwell**: "Reasonably successful attempt to film part of an unfilmable book. Comparisons with Letter From an Unknown Woman are inevitable."

Maltin**1/2: "Lavish but lifeless telescoping of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past with Irons surprisingly stiff...Redeemed somewhat by the latter [Ornella Muti] and Delon (as a homosexual baron), a sexy under-the-covers scene, and Sven Nykvist photography. "


Friday, 17 February 2017

Flash Gordon (1980)



A football player and his friends travel to the planet Mongo and find themselves fighting the tyranny of Ming the Merciless to save Earth.

Well produced and nicely designed attempt to make a campy version of the Flash Gordon saga; the intention is much too in-your-face, and the makers seem to ignore the fact that the original was more camp than they could ever achieve.

Halliwell (no star): "Lively comic strip addition to the increasing numbers of such things being restaged at enormous expense fifty years after their prime."

Maltin***: "Updated version of comic strip is better than expected, thanks to eye-filling production/costume design by Danilo Donati, amusing rock score by Queen. Jones and Anderson are liabilities..., but Muti's evil Princess Aura...leads a strong supporting cast."

Psychotronic/Michael Weldon: "Despite a repetitious rock score by Queen and a terrible campy attitude, this Flash Gordon...is often visually impressive, and Max von Sydow does a good Charles Middleton impression. Basically it's as good as Battlestar Galactica. Sam Jones is a pretty bad hero...His lines had to be dubbed over by another actor!"