Claudio Carvalho After the lecture of a poem to a group of bored students, the alcoholic and sex addicted poet Charles Serking (Ben Gazzara) meets a young girl in the backstage and caresses her breasts. Then he travels to Los Angeles, and has kinky sex with bizarre women. When Charles meets the gorgeous self-destructive prostitute Cass (Ornella Muti) in a bar, he finds his soul mate and falls in love for her.Marco Ferreri is one of the weirdest directors that I know, and this "Storie di Ordinaria Follia" gives a perfect theme for him to make a good movie about of two self-destructive souls. I do not know the work of the underground poet Charles Bukowski, and actually I just know a little about his biography based on the movie "Factotum" that I hated. But in "Storie di Ordinaria Follia", Ornella Muti is on the top of her awesome beauty and her performance in the role of a tormented character is impressive. Ben Gazzara has also a stunning performance in the role of Charles Serking, a man near to madness that survives drinking booze and having dirty sex. However, this movie is only recommended for very specific audiences. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Crônicas de um Amor Louco" ("Chronicles of a Crazy Love")

The_Void Tales of Ordinary Madness is the first film to be based on a book by Charles Bukowski and focuses on the story of one man as he descends into a life of loose women and alcohol. I have not read the book that this is based on so I don't know how it compares to the source material; but as a movie, it's very good and I was surprised to find that the writer himself did not approve of the film. The plot is fairly straight forward in the way that it focuses on just a single character; but the film changes often and this odyssey is a long way from a commercial movie and thus is not for all tastes. Our central character is Charles Serking; a writer who also happens to be an alcoholic. He goes out looking for booze and women and finds both inside a seedy Hollywood. The story really starts when Charles meets a prostitute with a penchant for cutting herself named Cass. He brings her home to meet his ex-wife and have sex; but it's not long before he begins on a downward spiral of depression and turns to the drink for comfort.This film presents a completely downtrodden view of the world and director Marco Ferreri completely succeeds in creating a dirty and sleazy atmosphere for everything to take place in. There's plenty of full frontal nudity and sex in the film and it's all portrayed as being very dirty and thus is not erotic at all. The style of the film is excellently matched by a stunning performance from Ben Gazzara in the lead role. The actor fits into this role amazingly well and always convinces as the central character. The film doesn't hold back when it comes to showing things such as nudity either, although it's all done in such a 'matter of fact' way that sometimes the film is not even shocking. The female lead is taken by the stunning Ornella Muti, who is a real beauty and convinces alongside Gazzara. The film feels too smart to not have a point, and while the substance comes from the central character and his plight; there's not really a defining point to the film. Overall, Tales of Ordinary Madness is a film that is well worth seeking for the cult fanatic and I can recommend it.

fertilecelluloid Spectacularly sleazy, beautiful, boisterous and sexy, this is the real Bukowski deal, a booze-fueled erotic odyssey by the adventurous Ferreri with the perfectly cast Ben Gazzara as Charles Serking (Bukowski).Ornella Muti, as Serking's sexual muse, is Venus incarnate and turns in a powerhouse performance as Cass, an emotionally damaged whore with a penchant for pain. The scenes of Gazzara swaggering in and out of LA's fleapit bars, apartments and hotel rooms convey a filthy, delirious ambiance that is vividly captured by Tonino Delli Colli's superb cinematography and Dante Ferretti's exquisitely oily production design. This is such an amazing looking film with a thick, steamy, anything-goes atmosphere of lust-ridden anarchy.Much grittier than the accomplished "Barfly" and more watchable than "Love Is A Dog From Hell", the entire affair has an emotional, raw resonance that slavishly captures the Bukowski sensibility and remains consistently perverse in its singular vision of a man enslaved by alcoholic and sexual gluttony.Phillipe Sarde's score is moody and rich, as is Gazzara's breathy voice-over.A masterpiece.

ckyjackson This movie is just plain bad.Badly acted, ridiculous dubbing and filled with fat chicks (save Cass).No wonder Bukowski hated this, the guy who plays him is a joke. He looks like a twelve year old boy with a beard and the voice box of Chuck Siegert. The Most Beautiful Woman In Town is one of my favorite short stories. This movie uses that but in the same way a third grader uses Batman as the basis for his afternoon playtime.Oh, and it's really very boring. Nothing like Buk's work. It reminds me more of "La Au Tu Rene'Svees" or one of those terrible french movies where all the characters do is bone each other.