Crimson Nights

fine picture

I own 5 different players capable playing of dvds and none of them are able to access the english subtitles on this disc, which is a great shame because I now own a film which I loved the first time around but can never watch (and understand) again.

I completely disagree with the reviewer from New York! I LOVED this video! Any fan of old french and italian cinema will love this title! What a treat to see such great talents as Mastrioanni, Depardieu, Deneuve, Moreau - just to name a few, together with American actors such as DeNiro and Eastwood. Going down memory lane with M. Cinema and having the opportunity to see old film clips from past european films is truly delicious! If you're a film history buff and appreciate the european flavor of expression, you will love this film!

I had fairly low expectations when I bought this dvd. This movie had no plot what so ever and every scene was the same; with a few shower scenes to waste time. A woman comes home and has tepid sex with her husband/boyfriend and then slices him and drinks his blood. The next scene he goes, has sex and drinks another womans blood. Next scene, she goes and has sex and drinks the blood of another woman. You see each person for two scenes each, then never hear from them again. I love low budget horror films and vampires films are a favorite but this was never entertaining in the least. If all you want is nudity you might find something to like about this piece of garbage. Otherwisw, steer clear.

Amazing experience for old timers !!!! I wonder if viewers still believe that men do not age! The film robably won't impress young people in spite of its best intentions....film students, perhaps

THE DVD WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SUBTITLED IN ENGLISH! WHOEVER WROTE THE AD WAS HONEST BUT WHAT HE/SHE DID NOT SAY WAS IT ONLY WORKS DURING THE TRAILER!THE ENTIRE MOVIE HAD NO SUBTITLE!

But if you DO love movies, well, the more you love and appreciate them, the more you will love and appreciate this one! This is an AMAZING homage to movies and to the role they play in our lives. It is boundless in its imagination, wit and charm, and it balances beautifully between the sophisticated and the sentimental. I love the cinema from France and from all other countries, but I watched this with someone who had not seen many films outside the USA and he still managed to adore this, even though he was unfamiliar with many of the films and stars that are referred to in this film. The more familiar one is with French cinema, the more one will appreciate this film, but there are plenty of Hollywood films and stars that are referred to as well (including a scene with a Liz Taylor clone that is hilarious!). This film's quintessential charm will hold anyone in a spell who knows intrinsically that cinema equals MAGIC! Varda understands that perfectly (as did her late husband, the great director Jacques Demy, who she also refers to in this film). She creates a loving tribute to the past century of films just in time to celebrate its centennial (fans of the Lumiere Brothers and Georges Melies will identify some great gags associated with their films!). If you aren't already obsessive about movies, you will be after seeing this one!This one definitely deserves a hundred and one stars!!

ONE HUNDRED AND ONE NIGHTS, or rather LES CENT ET UNE NUITS DE SIMON CINÉMA, ought to appeal to those steeped in French New Wave, Italian Neo-Realist, and various other genres and movements in European cinema. Produced in the hundredth anniversary year of moving pictures, give or take a month or two, it's a Euro-cinemaphile's delight. One-hundred-year-old Mr. Cinema's memory is fading, and he hires a pretty - nay, beautiful - young woman to stimulate his memory with talk of movies past. With my rube's knowledge of European cinema I knew almost every scene in this film referenced an earlier movie or star, although I was never quite sure who or which. For instance, the beautiful Camille (Juliet Gayet) must ride a bicycle to Mr. Cinema's estate, and in one scene, for no particular reason, the bicycle is stolen. Although I've never seen it, I'm sure act was meant to remind us of Vittorio de Sica's "The Bicycle Thief." Marcello Mastroianni has a fairly substantial role in the film, too, playing `The Italian Friend' of Mr. Cinema's who wants to buy his old films. Mastroianni is dressed as a magician in a number of scenes, with an identically costumed actor behind him pulling a rabbit out of his hat. I figure - this is a guess - that this is supposed to remind us of a Fellini film, although that's about the best I can do with that. And so it goes. Old French actors and actresses like Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo have small parts. Can't place the woman in the flowing purple robes, though, who I think is sposed to be personating Death. The one person I definitely recognized was Robert de Niro, who played a scene in a swan gondola with Catherine Deneuve, although both spoke French half the time. I'm not mocking any of this. If I were more familiar with the actors and the movies this one would probably have been a lot of fun. Without that to fall back on, though, the movie wasn't all that terrific. Camille has a boyfriend with whom she schemes to cheat the old man out of enough money to finance a movie he's making, but even that plot stream seems borrowed or reflected from an earlier source. ONE HUNDRED AND ONE NIGHTS was okay, a kind of disjointed time-killer that would probably be a lot more appropriate for a lover of European cinema.

This review is acting as a bit of a warning: The DVD says that it contains english subtitles, and apparantly it does, but they seem to be cut of by most TVs and DVD players. Apparantly they might work when viewed on an X-box. This was just to warn you!Please read the other reviews of this film though, as it is truly brilliant indeed! Very much deserving of any attention that it gets.