|
Music Lovers
»rank: 424
: :Furious, violently bombastic, terribly unsettling, Ken Russell's 1970 biography of Peter llich Tchaikovsky (Richard Chamberlain) is a portrait of artistic brilliance beset by the Russian composer's mounting guilt over, well, everything: his homosexuality, his marriage to the increasingly miserable and mad Nina (Glenda Jackson), his hidden attraction to Count Anton Chiluvsky (Christopher Gable), and his suggestively incestuous relations with a sister while growing up. Consumed by his art to the point of explosiveness, Tchaikovsky has increasing difficulty coping with his life, finding some ...
|
|
The Boy Friend (1971)
»rank: 8739
: :Furious, violently bombastic, terribly unsettling, Ken Russell's 1970 biography of Peter llich Tchaikovsky (Richard Chamberlain) is a portrait of artistic brilliance beset by the Russian composer's mounting guilt over, well, everything: his homosexuality, his marriage to the increasingly miserable and mad Nina (Glenda Jackson), his hidden attraction to Count Anton Chiluvsky (Christopher Gable), and his suggestively incestuous relations with a sister while growing up. Consumed by his art to the point of explosiveness, Tchaikovsky has increasing difficulty coping with his life, finding some ...
|
|
Lisztomania
»rank: 3184
: :Lisztomania, Ken Russell's follow-up to Tommy (both films were released in 1975) finds him even more in the mood for desultory spectacle than his garish pop artistry adapting the Who's rock opera. Seeking to tell the story of superstar composer Franz Liszt through a freewheeling series of pop allegories, kitsch, quotes, and pastiches, Russell hopes to reflect in contemporary terms the runaway train of Liszt's celebrity, love life, and alleged rivalry with Richard Wagner. Roger Daltrey, the Who vocalist and star of Tommy, ...
|
|
Tommy
»rank: 15586
: :lf you've ever wanted to hear Jack Nicholson sing (or try to) or marvel at the sight of Ann-Margret drunkenly cavorting in a cascade of baked beans, Tommy is the movie you've been waiting for. As it turns out, the Who's brilliant rock opera is sublimely matched to director Ken Russell's penchant for cinematic excess, and this 1975 production finds Russell at the peak of his filmmaking audacity. lt's a fever-dream of musical bombast, custom-fit to the thematic ambition of Pete Townshend's epic ...
|
|
Tales of Erotica
»rank: 21373
: :lf you've ever wanted to hear Jack Nicholson sing (or try to) or marvel at the sight of Ann-Margret drunkenly cavorting in a cascade of baked beans, Tommy is the movie you've been waiting for. As it turns out, the Who's brilliant rock opera is sublimely matched to director Ken Russell's penchant for cinematic excess, and this 1975 production finds Russell at the peak of his filmmaking audacity. lt's a fever-dream of musical bombast, custom-fit to the thematic ambition of Pete Townshend's epic ...
|
|
Devils, The
»rank: 15292
:Description:0riginally rated X, this film combines historical, comedic, and surrealistic elements to tell a tale of politics and witchcraft. ln order to take over pre-rennaisance France, Cardinal Richelieu and his power-hungry followers will have to eliminate Father Grandier. Grandier controls the one town that keeps Richelieu from having total control of the region. The plan is to convince the townspeople that Grandier is a warlock and that all of his nuns are possessed by devils. The accusations are heard at a public trial ...
|
|
Dante's Inferno
»rank: 25612
:Description:0riginally rated X, this film combines historical, comedic, and surrealistic elements to tell a tale of politics and witchcraft. ln order to take over pre-rennaisance France, Cardinal Richelieu and his power-hungry followers will have to eliminate Father Grandier. Grandier controls the one town that keeps Richelieu from having total control of the region. The plan is to convince the townspeople that Grandier is a warlock and that all of his nuns are possessed by devils. The accusations are heard at a public trial ...
|
|
Savage Messiah
»rank: 21484
:Description:0riginally rated X, this film combines historical, comedic, and surrealistic elements to tell a tale of politics and witchcraft. ln order to take over pre-rennaisance France, Cardinal Richelieu and his power-hungry followers will have to eliminate Father Grandier. Grandier controls the one town that keeps Richelieu from having total control of the region. The plan is to convince the townspeople that Grandier is a warlock and that all of his nuns are possessed by devils. The accusations are heard at a public trial ...
|
|
Aria
»rank: 24304
: :This omnibus directors fest brings together 10 different filmmakers making 10 different films based on operatic arias. Jean-Luc Godard is stylistically the boldest, Robert Altman possibly the most imaginative, Franc Roddam celebrates American glitz, and Bruce Beresford is the most sentimental. Nearly all the other filmmakers involved--including Nicolas Roeg, Ken Russell, Julien Temple, Charles Sturridge, Derek Jarman, and Bill Bryden--are (or were, in the case of the late Jarman) world-class talents, but you wouldn't know that from their murky participation here. --Tom Keogh
|
|
Altered States
»rank: 30743
: :The main problem with this 1980 science fiction drama is that it is oh-so derivative. However, it is classier than your average Wolf Man rip-off, as Ken Russell directed it and the screenplay it is based on the 1978 novel by Paddy Chayefsky. However, Chayefsky so disliked the finished version of the film, with its preposterous ending, that he asked to have his name removed, with the credit for the screenplay attributed to his pseudonym, Sidney Aaron. William Hurt, in his screen debut, ...
|