Has anyone seen the new Argento flick?

[stypees back]

It's out on import and was wondering if anyone caught it yet. I want to get my hands on it but don't want to pay the buckage if it's going to blow. I'm hearing some interesting rumors about his next project though. Fuck I am so wired.

[PECKER{*x*}WOOD]

The film u are talking of is called The Card Player, and lucky for u I saw it at this years Fantasia Fest.

Needless to say, the film sucks. I'd keep that cash in your pocket, because Argento's next and last (he says) film will be the third in the Three Mothers Trilogy.

[stypees back]

Fuck, this is depressing on so many levels. The man has lost his touch, I didn't mind SLEEPLESS that much, it wasn't great but it held my attention. I miss old-style Argento. The guy with the silly gore and amazing camera movements. Even if he pulled a few turds out, you can also trust on some nifty camera work.. Case in point: "Trauma". Hell, even the work on "Synrdome" wasn't that bad.

The second level is that his making his "last film". I know, he hasn't been up to par lately but I also believe in the come back. Maybe I have to much faith, I don't know but it's still really sad.

I think we should all start a petition to get Paramount to give "Four Flies" to a decent distributer. Maybe if we all get a pile of money together we can release it ourselves. I can't even comment on that film because the copy I have is so freaking dark.

[Kimberly]

Welp... it was pretty bad. Not as bad as Phantom, but bad all the same. It's no way near his earlier work. It's definately not something that you'd wanna watch again. After seeing Sleepless (which I didn't think was all THAT bad)... I had a bit of high hopes that The Card Player would be a film in true Argento fashion. Noppers... I was very disappointed to say the least. There was no amazing camera work, there was a shitty score and some bad acting. Then again I saw it dubbed though some of the actors did not appear to have dubbing. So I don't know if my seeing it this way played a factor... from the overall viewing I don't think it would of made much a difference. It still would of sucked...

[DylanDog]

Yeah, I just finished it myself and gotta say it's pretty damn disappointing. Disappointing to the point where I find myself looking forward to Dario's retirement. I didn't mind the score so much (I thought it was well in keeping with the computer game theme), but the ending was tacked on and pointless. Re-using the same plot device as in Bird With The Crystal Plumage was pretty lame too. I kind of liked the Remo character, but everyone else was pretty annoying. I think the film would have worked better as less of a "whodunnit" and more of a "how do we find him" with better policework. I mean, all that dilligent work to find out where the killer lives was stupid. "He's in Rome!" Well, duh, that's were all the girls were kidnapped. It's where all the corpses showed up. This should not have been a surprise.

[Remo D]

"Remo character," huh? Well, not surprising to find that name in Italy...

...and since there's a town known as "San Remo," there must be a "Saint Remo" in some religion--anybody got any info on him?

Now, by "new Argento flick," do you actually mean THE CARD PLAYER, or might you mean DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK? I haven't seen it, but that's his latest, and it has nothing to do with the Three Mothers...

[steven_millan]

Nope,I haven't seen them yet,but I'm definitely going to once they get their official U.S. release.

BTW:where did you hear that the planned final Three Mothers film is going to be Argento's "planned last film ever"(a rumor that I just don't believe one single word of)?!

[PECKER{*x*}WOOD]

Well that post is a year old, and at the time I had read (a book/mag/interview?) where Argento said the third Three Mothers film would be his last. This was right around the time of last years Fantasia Fest 2004. I had talk to Harvey Fenton owner of FAB Press He told me that Argento next film after The Card Player would be his Third Mother film. Well its been a year, and Fantasia 2005 is coming to an end. I talk to Harvey Fenton again this year, and he said Argento had started working on the third Mother film, and that he wasn't sure if it would be his last project.

Anyway, Harvey has published two great books on Argento (the first being Art of Darkness:The Cinema of Dario Argento )the second of which is called Profondo Argento:The Man, the Myths and the Magic Profondo Argento is a book of interviews with the man himself, and those that have work with and have comments about him. The last two pages of the book have info on his next two projects, Do You Like Hitchcock? and an untitled third Mother film.

Here is the full info on Do You Like Hitchcock?, which I only just read today after buying the book from Harvey a few days ago:

Do You Like Hitchcock?

<Dario Argento: "Seven detective stories, seven disturbing tales, or thrillers, however you want to call them. Each one is different from the other because we would like to tell about the fears and the anxieties that live within us all. Some are irrational fears, some are not, I'll say!! Whether we read about them in the newspapers, see them on TV or hear the stories from friends, they torment us these diffused fears - almost city legends. They are more than just films made for TV. They are shows that capture the interest and emothion of the audience. I will try not to betray the tradition of my own films - that terrifying tense atmosphere, those unexpected twists and turns, those surprise endings and the suspense that must always remain imminent. I will try my hardest to follow the structure of every story, the preparation and the work on every episode (personally directing the first one) so as to be able to co-ordinate and dominate this series and give them the unity of style. A unity that will make people say,' Tonight on TV they are showing one of Dario Argento's thrillers. I've seen them all and I want to see what he comes up with this time'".

The Italian international sales company RAI Trade, annouced they would be distributor and co-producer of Argento's latest foray into television movie giallo terror at the Cannes Film Festival 2004. With and estimated budget of 4 million euros raised by RAI, Genesis in Italy and Cinema Catalano in Spain (the eye is healthy DVD sales in other international territories), the first in the Do You Like Hitchcock? series, Argento's third collaboration for television but his first in English, shot for six weeks from July 27, 2004, in Turin, the director's second movie home after Rome.

Starring Elio Germano (Respiro and Ferrari), Argento's episode tells of a 23 year-old media student Giulio about to take an exam on the classic films of Alfred Hitchcock. Just as he reaches for the DVD of Strangers on the Train (1951) for homework purposes in the local store owned by his friend Andrea, two other pairs of hands do so also. One is dark-haired Sasha (named Eva in the script treatment) and the other blonde Federica. They strike up a conversation beginning with Giulio's question "Do You Like Hitchcock?" before they all agree to let Federica rent the title. Outside the store, Giulio sees the two women swap telehone numbers and, later, learns Sasha lives in the building opposite his. As he crams for his exam, he keeps spying the two girls together. Obviously they have become firm friends. But when he sees them kissing, he realises their relationship could be evolving into something a whole lot more.

Then one night screams are heard from the building opposite and Sasha's mother, Teresa, is brutally murdered. Is it just his paranoia, or is his urgent swotting getting to him, because Giulio becomes convinced the girls have entered into a Hitchcock-like pact. So he begins to spy on Sasha's every move, an obsessive task made easier when he fractures his leg in one stalking and is confined to his apartment. After keeping everything to himself, he tells his girlfriend Arianna his theory. She thinks he's crazy and believes he's overdoing his homework, even though it emerges Teresa left Sasha an enormous amount of money in her will. But if federica killed Sasha's mother, whom will Sasha kill in return? Attempting to solve that conundrum, Giulio makes anonymous phone calls to Sasha saying it's Hitchcock on the line. Learning Federica is suffering sexual harassment by her boss, he's sure the pervert will be her victim. A delusion, a coincidence or just his active imagination on frenzied overdrive? The answer takes Giulio even further into shocking whirlpool of fiendish bargains, double-cross, MacGuffins and mistaken identity culled from entire Hitchcock back catalogue navigating themes contained in Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960), Family Plot (1976), and Dial M for Murder (1954) before the real maniac utters the word "I Confess" (1953). After decades of being dubbed 'The Italian Hitchcock', it seems Argento is going for broke in a stylistic homage to both his and the London-born Mr. Hithccock's oeuvres.>

-taken from page 329 of Profondo Argento:The Man, the Myths and the Magic written by Alan Jones

[PECKER{*x*}WOOD]

Here is the full info on the third Three Mother film:

The Third Mother

<Thomas De Quincey (1785 - 1859): "Three sisters they are, of one mysterious household: and their paths are wide apart; but of their dominion there is no end... The eldest of the three is named Mater Lachrymarum, Our Lady of Tears. She it is that night and day raves and moans, calling for venished faces. she stood in Rama, where a voice was heard of lamentation - Rachel weeping for her children, and refused to be comforted. She it was stood in Bethlehem on the night when Herod's sword swept its nurseries of innocents, and the little feet were stiffened forever, which, heard at times as they tottered along floors overhead, woke pulses of love in household hearts that were not unmarked in heaven. Her eyes are sweet and subtle, wild and sleepy, by turns, oftentimes rising to the clouds, oftentimes challenging by heavens. She wears a diadem around her head... By the power of the keys it is that Our Lady of Tears glides a ghostly intruder into the chambers of sleepless men, sleepless women, sleepless children, from Ganges to the Nile, from Nile to Misssissippi. And her, because she is the first-born of her house and has the widest empire, let us honour with the title of 'Madonna'."

At the time of completing this book, Dario Argento turned 64 years of age. After a decade of living in Rome's swanky Parioli district (he filmed the Inferno library exteriors just around the corner fron his penthouse apartment), he recently bought a villa on the outskirts of Rome, in the suburb of Cassia, where he intends to eventually retire, "Hopefully with all my family around me", he wistfully said. His future plans involve completing 'The Three Mothers' trilogy he began with Suspiria (Mater Suspiriorum, Our Lady of Sighs) and continued through Inferno (Mater Tenebrarum, Our Lady of Darkness). He's always resisted doing the Mater Lachrymarum (Our Lady of Tears) episode but he knows time is moving along repidly and he really can't wait much longer if he is going to direct it. Claudio Argento is no fool when it comes to publicity or promotion and what better climate could 'The Third Mother' movie be released in than after all the hoopla that will be generated by proposed big-budget Miramax remake of Suspiria, if that ever indeed happens.

Argento said, "I already have a subject. During the Dark Glasses fiasco, I thought of a new story that could be incredible, inspired by my father, the memory of him, the presence I feel when he visits me in my dreams - and he visits me often. It's about a young boy, me, and it will be a combination of autobiography, fantasy and saddness. A major Hollywood studio may get involved to ensure I have the proper budget to realise what will be a major and costly undertaking. My thoughts at the moment are that La terza madre/The Third Mother will revolve around mysticism, alchemy, terrorism and Gnosticism (a religious movement believing in intuitive spiritual knowledge). So many people were tortured because the Church said Gnosticism was heresy and that's my starting point. It will be set in Rome where we will first see the Mother of Tears in medieval times. She is the most beautiful and cruel of the three sisters. I've been researching Russian supermodels to play Madonna as De Quincey calls her. Ania Peroni (who played the vague Mother of Tears in Inferno) will not appear as she now has five kids! It's been over twenty years since I left 'The Three Mothers' behind and it has been surprisingly good to go back and explore the whole myth again from a retrospective point of view. I'm discovering more about witchcraft than ever - meaning I'm sleeping once more with great difficulty".>

-taken from page 330 of Profondo Argento:The Man, the Myths and the Magic written by Alan Jones

Hope that helps answer your question:)

[DylanDog]

I was referring to The Card Player. And I've always said that the first two Three Mothers movies never did too much for me so a third and final doesn't necessarily excite me either.

On another Argento topic, the tv series Door Into Darkness was an anthology correct? I had both dvds on my nicheflix queue and they went ahead and sent 2 before 1 since 1 was not currently available.

[PECKER{*x*}WOOD]

I checked the Argento book, and it says he directed, wrote, and introduced The Door To Darkness, which was a series of short films made for TV. I wouldn't say its an anthology.