Cinematographer Gianni di Venanzo's masterful use of Technicolor transforms Juliet of the Spirits (Giulietta Degli Spiriti), Fellini's first color feature, into a kaleidoscope of dreams, spirits, and memories. Giulietta Masina plays a betrayed wife whose inability to come to terms with reality leads her along a hallucinatory journey of self-discovery. Home Vision is proud to present the fully restored version of one of Fellini's most dazzling dreams.

One of the first, and most successful, French export comedies, Cousin Cousine garnered a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Marie-Christine Barrault, an international audience for director Jean- Charles Tacchella, and a substantial, surprising haul at American box offices in late 1975 and early '76. Retrospectively, it's not difficult to understand why: Barrault and costar Victor Lanoux prove themselves to be adept, protean comic actors, and Tacchella's breezy pacing makes the witty, gag-laden script crackle with frenetic verve. Barrault and Lanoux play cousins (by marriage only; it isn't quite that French) drawn together when their respective partners are caught philandering. Their initial friendship quickly blossoms into something altogether more scandalous. The narrative, framed by weddings, funerals, and other family get-togethers, feels surprisingly modern in its choice of milieu; indeed, recent comedies such as Four Weddings and a Funeral and My Best Friend's Wedding owe a substantial debt to the whimsical tone of Cousin Cousine. More Hollywood than Cannes, it's perhaps unsurprising that Tacchella's comedy was recently remade into Cousins (1989), an intermittently amusing Ted Danson vehicle with occasional resemblances to its vastly superior predecessor. -Miles Bethany.

The director of Dead or Alive, Takashi Miike, made his name on the international scene with Audition, a chilling psychological thriller that builds from a quiet start towards a prolonged torture sequence almost too unbearable to watch. But such deliberate pacing isn't typical of Miike, whose movies often assault the viewer with an onslaught of slam-bang action that makes John Woo look like Eric Rohmer. Dead or Alive, his most successful cops-vs-yakuza thriller to date, kicks off with six nonstop minutes of machine gun-paced violence, sex, and slaughter, all set to a pounding heavy-metal beat. Thereafter things calm down a little, though not much. Given Miike's penchant for murky, livid-toned visuals and skewed camera angles, it's not always too easy to work out exactly who's doing what to whom, but the general outline's clear enough. The Tokyo underworld is being torn apart by a turf war between the yakuza gangs and the invading Chinese triads. Ambitious yakuza member Ryuichi (Riki Takeuchi) isn't above playing both sides off against each other in his bid for power, while police detective Jojima (Sho Aikawa), himself none too scrupulous in his methods, is out to destroy the gangs. Into this conventional plot framework Miike piles enough warped characters and bizarre, twisted happenings to fuel half-a-dozen Tarantino movies, while cheerfully borrowing-and inflating-key moments from such hard-boiled gangster-noirs as The Big Heat and Kiss Me Deadly. One character deep-fries his own hand, a stripper is drowned in a paddling-pool filled with her own excrement, and the literally apocalyptic finale, the showdown to end all showdowns, will leave you gasping. The appallingly prolific Miike, who regularly makes about five movies a year, has since directed two sequels-the first only three months after the original. [+]

Diane Kurys's autobiographical remembrance of young adulthood, a sequel to her study in adolescence Peppermint Soda, plays the events of May 1968 from a unique perspective. Headstrong Anne (Elise Caron) runs away when her rich, status-conscious mother forbids her from seeing her working-class boyfriend. Her plan to hop a ship to Israel and join a kibbutz takes Frederick (Philippe Lebas) by surprise, but after some crossed connections they ride off with Frederick's best friend Bruno (François Cluzet) on a giddy road trip. As Paris explodes in student demonstrations and citywide strikes, they become stranded in Venice when their car is stolen by a giggly Trotskyite. They hitchhike back home, dealing with one another's quirks and emotions as the intimacy of sex turns into the greater intimacy of a genuine relationship, and at the same time experiencing the Paris revolution through newspapers, radio reports, and the passing remarks of road companions. Kurys looks at the ripples of May 1968 rather than the splash, giving it a curious distance while dealing with its echoes throughout the country (in one powerful scene a cop relates his terrified experiences on the front lines). It's a travelogue of the personal experience of three kids through a time and a place, and Kurys's sensitivity to the trio and their journey gives the film poignancy and an easygoing immediacy. It's one of the best films about the rebellion of young adulthood: thoughtful, sensitive, energetic-an honest portrait of kids of Kurys's era looking for themselves. -Sean Axmaker.

With his aptly titled Contempt, Jean-Luc Godard embraced the widescreen splendor of Hollywood while thumbing his nose at Hollywood itself. A rebel with a cause, Godard pursues an iconoclast's agenda, using the Franscope format (expertly controlled by cinematographer Raoul Coutard) to undermine the grandeur of widescreen melodramas. The story ostensibly concerns an innovative production of Homer's Odyssey and the struggle of a respected screenwriter (Michel Piccoli) to please a pugnacious producer (Jack Palance), a veteran director (Fritz Lang, essentially playing himself), and a petulant wife (Brigitte Bardot) who's grown tired of their turbulent relationship. It's all pretense, however, for Godard's mischievous (and yes, contemptuous) deconstruction of commercial Hollywood filmmaking, potently infused with film-buff in-jokes, astute observations about love, stardom, and artistry, and enough glossy style to suggest that Godard had mastered the craft he so willfully rejects. Contempt is one of his most accessibly fascinating films. -Jeff Shannon.

Federico Fellini's 1963 semi-autobiographical story about a worshipped filmmaker who has lost his inspiration is still a mesmerizing mystery tour that has been quoted (Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, Paul Mazursky's Alex in Wonderland) but never duplicated. Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido, a director trying to relax a bit in the wake of his latest hit. Besieged by people eager to work with him, however, he also struggles to find his next idea for a film. The combined pressures draw him within himself, where his recollections of significant events in his life and the many lovers he has left behind begin to haunt him. The marriage of Fellini's hyperreal imagery, dreamy sidebars, and the gravity of Guido's increasing guilt and self-awareness make this as much a deeply moving, soulful film as it is an electrifying spectacle. Mastroianni is wonderful in the lead, his woozy sensitivity to Guido's freefall both touching and charming-all the more so as the character becomes increasingly divorced from the celebrity hype that ultimately outpaces him. -Tom Keogh.

Shot in black and white, this 1965 Japanese monster movie was the Daiei company's answer to Toho's famous Godzilla series. A skirmish between U. S. and unknown "enemy" planes results in an atomic explosion over the Arctic which unthaws and unleashes the giant flying turtle Gamera, who eventually settles into Japan to wreak havoc while seeking out hydro-electric sustenance. However, this fire-eating (and breathing) behemoth displays a compassionate streak when he saves the life of a young boy who nearly falls to his death from a toppled lighthouse. Panicky scientists and military officials vainly try to find ways to destroy Gamera while the boy seeks to bond with his misunderstood reptilian hero. Like many of its celluloid Japanese monster brethren, Giant Monster Gamera has not aged all that well, but the well-staged and photographed assault on Tokyo makes for festive mayhem. Overall the film is good entertainment for young kids as well as the inner children of the adults who grew up on these monster mashes. -Bryan Reesman.