top of page
Locked-Down Cinema
Film reviews of all the films I should have seen but didn't...
What do you do if you receive a Christmas present that is a membership to the British Film Institute when there's a pandemic on...?
Search
"The Organizer", Dir: Mario Monicelli, 1963
it features the actor in a very uncharacteristic role as a scruffy bespectacled academic in a film about 19th century Italian mill workers
Ravi Swami
Sep 11, 20243 min read
18 views
0 comments
Belmondo, Belmondo, Belmondo !...3 films.
All three films share the fact that they were either written by or directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, as frequent collaborations..
Ravi Swami
Mar 12, 20247 min read
41 views
0 comments
"L'Innocent", Dir: Louis Garrel, 2022
"L'Innocent" (Eng: "The Innocent") by a director I'd never heard of, Louis Garrel, and featuring French Moroccan actor, Roschdy Zem..
Ravi Swami
Jun 1, 20232 min read
58 views
0 comments
Amarcord, Dir: Federico Fellini, 1973
"Amarcord" roughly translates as "I remember" and the film is a semi-autobiographical recounting of life in an Italian village...
Ravi Swami
Feb 25, 20238 min read
502 views
0 comments
A trio of black comedies by Bruno Dumont
I only really stumbled upon Bruno Dumont's 2018 film "CoinCoin and the Extra-Humans" while flicking through the films on offer on Mubi...
Ravi Swami
Nov 22, 20226 min read
49 views
0 comments
"An Autumn Tale" / "Conte D'automne", Dir: Éric Rohmer, 1998
"Conte D'automne" (Eng: "An Autumn Tale") marks the final part of Rohmer's themed film cycle "Tales of Four Seasons"..
Ravi Swami
Sep 22, 20223 min read
184 views
2 comments
"Bloodstone", Dir: Dwight H. Little, 1988
As a Western "cross-over" film, in this case co-produced by former tennis champion Ashok Amritraj and written by Nico Mastorakis..
Ravi Swami
May 8, 20225 min read
35 views
0 comments
A Trio of Truffaut, 1957, 1972, 1973
As with many film directors, alongside their most well-known, career-defining films, there are films that I certainly wasn't aware of...
Ravi Swami
Feb 25, 20224 min read
49 views
0 comments
"Harold & Maud", Dir: Hal Ashby, 1971
It also depends on watching a film whose effect might linger until the next morning, as is the case "Harold & Maud"...
Ravi Swami
Dec 12, 20214 min read
18 views
0 comments
"100 Spook Stories / 100 Monsters", Dir: Kimiyoshi Yasuda, 1968
Arrow's title is "100 Spook Stories" (Japanese: Yōkai Hyaku Monogatari) and it is variously titled depending upon the region..
Ravi Swami
Oct 22, 20213 min read
57 views
0 comments
"That Darn Cat", Dir: Robert Stevenson, 1965
Launched with the hugely successful "Pollyanna", Mills soon found herself cast with top billing in a slew of Disney films..
Ravi Swami
Sep 19, 20214 min read
86 views
0 comments
"Zazie Dans Le Metro", Dir: Louis Malle, 1960
Zazie (Catherine Demongeot) herself is a bit of a disfunctional tearaway who wastes no time in trying to explore Paris herself...
Ravi Swami
Sep 6, 20213 min read
12 views
0 comments
"Lucky To Be A Woman", Dir: Alessandro Blasetti, 1956
However, this is really Sophia Loren's film and she is placed center-stage as a street smart young woman...
Ravi Swami
Sep 5, 20213 min read
50 views
0 comments
"La Grande Bouffe", Dir: Marco Ferreri, 1973
I watched Marco Ferrari's 1973 film "La Grande Bouffe" (Eng: "The Blow-Out", though it translates more accurately as "The Big Feast")..
Ravi Swami
Jul 30, 20215 min read
238 views
0 comments
"The 10th Victim", Dir: Elio Petri, 1965
The film opens with shots of modernist buildings in New York as a woman (Ursula Andress in a brown wig) is being pursued...
Ravi Swami
Jul 18, 20214 min read
23 views
0 comments
"Il Sorpasso", Dir: Dino Risi, 1962
I stumbled on this film by chance and was instantly hooked by the preview featuring two men in an open-topped sports car..
Ravi Swami
Jul 13, 20214 min read
101 views
0 comments
"Boccaccio 70", Dir: Fellini, De Sica, Visconti, Monicelli, 1962- Part#2
As promised in Part #1 of a review of "Boccaccio 70", and since I felt each film in the portmanteau deserved a separate review..
Ravi Swami
Jul 3, 20216 min read
121 views
0 comments
"Cinema Paradiso", Dir: Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988
Giuseppe Tornatore's much lauded and garlanded film about a love affair with cinema, "Cinema Paradiso"..
Ravi Swami
Jun 4, 20217 min read
206 views
0 comments
"La Visita" / "The Visit", Dir: Antonio Pietrangeli, 1963
"La Visita" stars Sandra Milo as "Pina" - by this point a regular in Pietrangelo's films - with the French actor François Périer as "Adolfo"
Ravi Swami
May 29, 20216 min read
223 views
0 comments
"The Bachelor"/ "Lo Scapolo", Dir: Antonio Pietrangeli, 1955
I came across his 1955 "Commedia All'Italiana" film starring Alberto Sordi, an actor most associated with the genre...
Ravi Swami
May 29, 20213 min read
47 views
0 comments
Contact
Thanks for your interest in Lockdown Cinema. For more information, feel free to get in touch and I will get back to you soon! - Ravi
Subscribers are welcome, but if you have nothing sensible to add in comments, you will be deleted.
London, United Kingdom
bottom of page