88% (2)  Red Desert  117 min,  [Drama]  [Michelangelo Antonioni]  [08 Feb 1965]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 77%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 100%,   External Reviews
Awards:  7 wins & 3 nominations.
Actors:  Carlo Chionetti, Monica Vitti, Richard Harris, Xenia Valderi
Writer:  Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino Guerra
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb  Website     Language:  Italian, Turkish    Country:  Italy, France
Plot:  In a bleak rundown industrial area a young woman, Giuliana, tries to cope with life. She's married to Ugo the manager of a local plant but is soon having an affair with one of his co-workers, Corrado Zeller, who is visiting. Giuliana is unstable, not quite knowing anymore just what her role is, whether that be a wife, a mother or just another person. Her escape from life is short-lived however as Zeller is simply using her to satisfy his own needs and desires.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Red Desert (Il Deserto Rosso) once more combines the considerable talents of director Michelangelo Antonioni and star Monica Vitti. Cast as Giuliana, an unhappy wife, Vitti suffers from an unnamed form of depression and malaise. Her quicksilver emotional shifts disturb everyone around her, but they, like she, pretend that nothing is truly wrong. British engineer Corrado Zeller (Richard Harris) seems to understand what Giuliana is really after in life, and he acts upon it by entering into an affair with the troubled woman. Giuliana eventually comes to terms with her physical and mental pain, but this hardly means that she's "cured" in the conventional sense. Monica Vitti's sense of isolation is heightened by Antonioni's (and cinematographer Carlo DiPalma's) choice of colors, and especially by Carlo Savina's bizarre electronic musical score. This is a landmark movie in Antonioni's effort to portray alienated individuals in contemporary life; he places people against towering forms of technology to emphasize their smallness and lostness in the modern world of technological change. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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87% (2)  L'Avventura  144 min,  Not Rated,  [Drama, Mystery]  [Michelangelo Antonioni]  [04 Mar 1961]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 79%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 95%,   External Reviews
Awards:  Nominated for 2 BAFTA Film Awards. Another 6 wins & 7 nominations.
Actors:  Dominique Blanchar, Gabriele Ferzetti, Lea Massari, Monica Vitti
Writer:  Michelangelo Antonioni (story), Michelangelo Antonioni (screenplay), Elio Bartolini (screenplay), Tonino Guerra (screenplay)
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Italian, English, Greek    Country:  Italy, France
Plot:  A group of rich Italians head out on a yachting trip to a deserted volcanic island in the Mediterranean. When they are about to leave the island, they find Anna, the main character up to this point, has gone missing. Sandro, Anna's boyfriend, and Claudia, Anna's friend, try without success to find her. While looking for the missing friend, Claudia and Sandro develop an attraction for each other. When they get back to land, they continue the search with no success. Sandro and Claudia proceed to become lovers, and all but forget about the missing Anna.
Rotten Tomatoes:   This exceptional Italian mystery offers potent comments upon life in the bourgeoisie class and upon the isolation sometimes suffered by people in love. The tale begins when a girl suddenly vanishes during a yachting trip. Her lover and her best friend begin searching for her. During their quest, the two become lovers.
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85% (2)  L'Eclisse  126 min,  Not Rated,  [Drama, Romance]  [Michelangelo Antonioni]  [20 Dec 1962]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 79%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 92%,   External Reviews
Awards:  1 win & 4 nominations.
Actors:  Alain Delon, Francisco Rabal, Lilla Brignone, Monica Vitti
Writer:  Michelangelo Antonioni (scenario and dialogue), Tonino Guerra (scenario and dialogue), Elio Bartolini (scenario collaborator), Ottiero Ottieri (scenario collaborator)
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Italian, English    Country:  Italy, France
Plot:  In the suburbs of Rome, the translator Vittoria breaks her engagement with her boyfriend, the writer Ricardo, after a troubled night. Vittoria goes downtown to meet her mother, who is addicted to the stock market, and she meets the broker Piero on a day of crash. The materialist Piero and the absent Vittoria begin a monosyllabic relationship.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Monica Vitti leaves her much-older lover Francisco Rabal in favor of arrogant young stockbroker Alain Delon. All they have in common is sex, but they make an effort to sustain the relationship on an intellectual level. The action--or lack of it--is played out in the tempestuous Borsa section of Rome. Eclipse (originally L'Eclisse), Antonioni's follow-up to the equally slow-and-steady L'Aventura, La Notte was the winner of the Grand Prize at Cannes. Unlike the other two above-mentioned films, Eclipse hasn't remained in as high esteem as it was once held.
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81% (2)  La Notte  122 min,  Not Rated,  [Drama]  [Michelangelo Antonioni]  [19 Feb 1962]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 80%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 82%,   External Reviews
Awards:  6 wins & 1 nomination.
Actors:  Bernhard Wicki, Jeanne Moreau, Marcello Mastroianni, Monica Vitti
Writer:  Michelangelo Antonioni (story), Ennio Flaiano (story), Tonino Guerra (story), Michelangelo Antonioni (screenplay), Ennio Flaiano (screenplay), Tonino Guerra (screenplay)
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Italian, English, French    Country:  Italy, France
Plot:  In Milan, after visiting dear friend Tommaso Garani that is terminal in a hospital, the writer Giovanni Pontano goes to a party for the release of his last book, and his wife Lydia Pontano visits the place where she lived many years ago. In the night, they go to a night-club, and later to a party in the mansion of the tycoon Mr. Gherardini. Along the night, Giovanni flirts with Valentina Gherardini, the daughter of the host, and then he receives a proposal to work for him in the area of communication and write the history of his company. Meanwhile, Lydia flirts with the playboy Roberto.
Rotten Tomatoes:   La Notte is another of Michelangelo Antonioni's cinematic interrupted journeys. Just as no one solved the central mystery in Antonioni's L'Avventura, neither does anyone truly enjoy the literary party that is La Notte's centerpiece. The party is being thrown to celebrate the publication of author Marcello Mastrioanni's new novel. But before he even reaches the door of the house, Mastrioanni's evening is ruined when his wife Jeanne Moreau announces suddenly she is disgusted with him--this reaction evidently triggered by an earlier visit to a dying friend. Moreau skips out on the party to wander the streets, searching for...for what? Meanwhile, Mastrioanni tries to inaugurate an empty affair with Monica Vitti, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. The very elements that drive Mastrioanni and Moreau apart at the beginning of the film reunite them at the end. Maybe. L'Avventura and La Notte were the first two chapters in Antonioni's "barreness and alienation" trilogy; the third, L'Eclisse, was released two years later. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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48% (2)  Modesty Blaise  119 min,  [Action, Adventure, Comedy, Crime]  [Joseph Losey]  [04 Jul 1966]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 51%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 44%,   External Reviews
Awards:  Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 1 nomination.
Actors:  Dirk Bogarde, Harry Andrews, Monica Vitti, Terence Stamp
Writer:  Evan Jones (screenplay), Peter O'Donnell (original story), Peter O'Donnell (strip cartoon), Jim Holdaway (strip cartoon)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  English, French, Italian, Arabic, German, Dutch    Country:  UK
Plot:  Modesty Blaise, a secret agent whose hair color, hair style, and mod clothing change at a snap of her fingers is being used by the British government as a decoy in an effort to thwart a diamond heist. She is being set up by the feds but is wise to the plot and calls in sidekick Willie Garvin and a few other friends to outsmart them. Meanwhile, at his island hideaway, Gabriel, the diamond thief has his own plans for Blaise and Garvin.
Rotten Tomatoes:   A popular British comic strip series served as inspiration for this light-hearted espionage adventure, which if nothing else certainly shows the marks of its origins in the mid-1960s. A large departure for director Joseph Losey, better known for brooding interpretations of Harold Pinter works (The Servant, Accident), the film is emphatically bright and colorful, taking on at times a nearly psychedelic feel. The strangeness is emphasized by the unusual casting, including Italian star Monica Vitti in her first English-speaking role as the title character and Dirk Bogarde, playing against type as her arch-nemesis. Essentially everything is played for its camp value, including the rather convoluted, James Bond-like plot, which concerns the hijacking of a shipment of diamonds heading for the Middle East. Like its mod-era sets and costumes, this unusual, inconsistent effort is certainly intriguing and attractive, but might seem rather dated to some.
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53% (1)  An Almost Perfect Affair  93 min,  PG,  [Comedy, Romance]  [Michael Ritchie]  [27 Apr 1979]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 53%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Christian De Sica, Keith Carradine, Monica Vitti, Raf Vallone
Writer:  Walter Bernstein, Don Petersen (screenplay), Don Petersen (story), Michael Ritchie (story)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  English    Country:  USA
Plot:  A smalltime US filmmaker goes to Cannes to try to get his movie in the limelight. A wife of one of the producers there gets interested in his story and they begin an affair.
Rotten Tomatoes:   In this romantic comedy, an ambitious but naive independent director will do anything to get his highly personal film entered into the Cannes Film Festival. Upon arrival at Cannes he has a passionate affair with the helpful wife of a prominent Italian producer. The film takes place at the festival and features many inside jokes about the film industry.
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