Let no one be misled by the title: this is no 1950ies soft porn or chic erotica à la French. Adapted from three stories by Maupassant, the Max Ophuls movie is masterfully deceptive and true to the writer’s melancholy and cynicism.. Fears, frustrations and Death itself lie behind the gaiety of a dancing hall, beneath the happy laughs of young prostitutes going for a partie de campagne with their madame. Great cast crowned by the figures of Gaby Morlay, Danielle…

WHERE’S RALPH ?
That’s how this 2024 film season feels like. Dear old Ralph Fiennes (62 – a kid!!) is everywhere: after being M in a couple of Bond movies and Lord Voldemort in a couple of Harry Potter movies, here he strikes again, not just once, but twice: he’s a tired looking but muscular Odysseus in the Return, Uberto Pasolini’s wonderful retelling of the final chapters of Homer’s Odyssey. He’s also a cardinal – and almost a Pope (there,…

GOLDA
And first, my brothers and sisters, we’ll sing a pageant to the greatness of Helen Mirren.
She was young and beautiful, and oh so hot, some fifty years ago, when she appeared in a screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night Dream.
She played several queens (including, yes, THAT queen), an empress, she was in Harry Potter,, she was in Fast and Furious, she was on TV, in fringe movies, in cheasy blockbusters, she was never dull or even ok,…