La donna lupo (1999)

Director:

Aurelio Grimaldi

Writers:

Aurelio Grimaldi (writer)
Michele Lo Foco (writer)

Release Date:

26 August 1999 (Italy)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

This is the story about a Sicilian woman that try to have avidly as many sexual adventures as possible...

Plot Keywords:

Italy | Prostitution | Pool | Erotica | Sex In Pool

Cast

Loredana Cannata	...	She-Wolf
Arturo Paglia	...	Valerio
Pascal Persiano
Francesco Di Leva
Gianluca Cuomo
Loredana Solfizi	...	Valerio's mother
Marcello Aiello
Johnny Scavone
Massimiliano Lagonaro
Nicole Alexandropulos
Marta Bifano

Also Known As:

The Man-Eater (Europe: English title)

Runtime:

80 min | Canada:77 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Black and White | Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Italy:VM18

Company:

Aranciafilm

Movie Connections:

References As Good as It Gets (1997)

Like eating a big bowl of salt

It would be hypocritical of me to rail against sex films since I've watched (and reviewed) plenty of them. But still I maintain there is a difference between liking a liberal amount of salt on your meal and just eating a big bowl salt. Modern-day sex films, whether they be hardcore or softcore, are like a big bowl of salt--they have a lot of sex in them, but absolutely nothing else of substance or interest.

As sex films go this is top drawer. It has very good production values (aside from the atrocious English dubbing, but that wasn't the Italian filmmakers fault). The music especially is excellent--it's interesting and varied and not the usual sub-Kenny G. crap found in sex films. The cinematography is also very good (and it's 35-mm film rather than digital video). The lead Loredana Catanada is absolutely stunning and a truly natural beauty (sans the over-sized silicone tits that come standard with most porn stars today). She was also a good enough actress to eventually break into the mainstream (despite the fact that some of her sex scenes here would technically be considered hardcore). As for the the plot, well, it's serviceable if very generic. Cantanada is the titular (and ass-ular)"she-wolf" who picks up one anonymous man after another, sometimes two at a time. She won't tell them her name or she gives them a fake one. The conflict arises when a naive, directionless college student falls in love with her and tries to get her to change her ways.

If you like Tinto Brass films, you will no doubt like this a a lot as director Aurelio Grimaldi is obviously very much in debt to the old master (of bating). But the movie also suffers from the same liabilities as a Brass film. Despite the non-stop sex and Cantanada's gorgeous and perpetually naked body, this movie is actually pretty boring. It looks good, but is also rather dull I'm afraid (OK, there is some comic reliefs involving a bunch of mooks trying to pick up transvesites because they allegedly give better b.j.'s--but what that has to do with anything I don't know). This is about as tasty as a big bowl of salt can be, but it's still a big bowl salt nevertheless.