Change Your Image
tensaip
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Dan Oniroku hakui nawa jigoku (1980)
Correcting others' misidentifying of movie.
Mainly, I want to clear up the confusion which has arisen among reviewers due to their lack of Japanese literacy. Those reviewers have conflated "Dan Oniroku Hakui Nawa Jigoku (1980)" with the similarly titled "Dan Oniroku Bara Jigoku (1980)" {aka "Rose Hell"}. This is mainly due to an error on the internationally released DVD which misidentifies the Romanized title of the latter film.
"Dan Oniroku Bara Jigoku" is the film in which two pornographers abduct a girl and hold her in their own apartment. "Dan Oniroku Hakui Nawa Jigoku" {aka "White Uniform Rope Hell"} is the story of a lesbian nurse who quits both pursuits after marrying a clueless male doctor, only to find herself extorted by underground pornographers (after having been raped by them) into starring in their live sex shows.
As Nikkatsu entries of the late Disco Era go, this offering is very rote. It is cinematically competent; but there's really nothing to distinguish it from its contemporaries, aside from the relative novelty of a lesbian main character and libertine-feminist theme.
Riti, magie nere e segrete orge nel Trecento... (1973)
So bad u gotta see it (to figure out how not good it was)
I won't bother regurgitating the plot, because the movie didn't seriously try to have one. It had an idea for a plot, but... well, read the other reviews in the comment section.
This is going to be an analogy of how not good REINCARNATION OF ISABEL played.
It was as if... the producers had arranged a train wreck killing the entire cast and crew (including Renato Polselli) on their way home from location to collect on a life insurance scam. The wreck also destroyed all copies of the finished script but spared 90% of the exposed negatives. Not satisfied with just the insurance money, the producers then hired an undergrad film student to edit the footage into a releasable film by the end of spring break. With neither a script nor a budget, the student calls his girlfriend at the college radio station to borrow a few albums nobody at the station will notice missing and then join him at the editing studio. The two then spend the next week cutting the film and dubbing in the music and dialogue by themselves. Finishing just in time, they suddenly realize that one missing can of film rolled behind the refrigerator and was ruined before they could make use of it.
Thus, we are left with a finished product that is haphazardly structured, inappropriately scored, and buffoonishly scripted. We have a scene in which a doctor character is molesting his patient in one room while simultaneously applying a vampire bite to a different woman in a completely different room. SIMULTANEOUSLY, dude! We have a virgin-raping 3-way scored to ragtime harpsichord. We get a Donald Pleasance impersonator thrown into a snake-pit with only TWO snakes in it and one is already DEAD. Even at the denouement when Laureen runs down the stairs, she's barefoot, but once outside she's wearing bedroom slippers. WTF, was she keeping them by the front door?
The Tragedy of Macbeth (1971)
Interpreting marriage of Mr. and Mrs. MacBeth per Polanski
Annis's interpretation of Lady MacBeth should be understood as Polanski's interpretation of his late wife, Sharon Tate. In his interpretation of the MacBeths, Polanski sees MacB as a man who has married slightly above his station to the most beautiful woman in Scotland. Note that other characters, especially King Duncan are wholly besotted with her. In medieval times it was generally accepted that beauty was NOT SKIN DEEP and that any ugliness on the inside would manifest on the outside.
The drawback is that MacBeth, while a terror in battle, has few social graces and the VIPs who come to visit really only come by to ogle his perfect wife. The wife, however, is manipulatively passive-aggressive and socially ambitious. Having come down in station to marry him, she is eager to find some way to re-ascend. MacBeth is frightful of losing her since she is the one thing he has that his superiors envy. Once her husband is finally the King, Lady MacBeth realizes she is no longer his top asset, and, though he undoubtedly loves her, she can no longer manipulate his sense of social inferiority.
La marge (1976)
Sigh... forget the other reviews and let me explain the movie.
In the prologue highlighting Sigimond's idyllic family life, he mentions a trip he is going to make to Paris. The narrative then skips ahead to show Sigimond in Paris. There is directorial intent to confuse the audience into believing that this trip is the same one Sigimond had mentioned, but that is later revealed indirectly not to be the case. This trip happens at a later date. The other reviewers missed that vital detail. While on that earlier trip to Paris he had mentioned to his wife, his son drowned and the wife committed suicide. The letter Sigimond retrieved from the post office (the one that had been sent to him by his maid concerning the death of his family) was NOT the first time he learned about it. It was her resignation letter, since she cannot herself deal with the tragedy.
The key thing to remember is that LA MARGE is a love story. However, it is very abstract in how it seeks to unravel their courtship ritual. There is a misconception shared by the other reviewers that Sigimond is cheating on his wife or had been cheating on his wife. That view is entirely the opposite of the filmmaker's intention. Sigimond is still entirely devoted to his wife, but as seen in the prologue, he has a mighty libido. He can't bring himself to LOVE other women, but he still has the desire for sex -- therefore, he travels to Paris to binge on prostitutes. Note that the super-hot hotel maid tries to tempt him into putting a move on her without success at least three times. Diana, on the other hand, won't fall in love either for the usual professional reasons -- her jaded mercenary demeanor is what convinces Sigimond to keep going back to her as she seems to be the character opposite of his late wife, Sergine.
There has also been complete and total misunderstanding of the ending by the other reviewers. The magic of this movie is in the PROCESS not the outcome. I'll tell you right now that as in most Euro-Romance novels, there is no happy ending -- and that's a double entendre. Diana flees from her last session with Sigimond in mid-fellatio because she's realized that she's fallen in love with him and is frightened he'll notice by the change in her sex-making. Later Sigimond shoots himself because the feelings he's developed for Diana made him feel unfaithful to Sergine's memory.
LA MARGE is by far the best work I've seen by either Dallesandro, Kristel, or director Walarien Borowczyk. This is a movie about body movement and the subtle ways in which emotions can be communicated through such movement. Apparently, one can tell whether or not one is in love with someone by the kind of orgasm one receives from him/her.
Sukiyaki uesutan Jango (2007)
"At the end I am an anime otaku at heart" -- Piringo
That's the most anachronistic line in the movie and Quentin Tarantino spake it. Actually, 90% of the lines in the movie were nicked from English-language action films most of which are Westerns and the rest are films with plots structured similarly to the Hollywood Western formula. Takashi Miike's premise is that all modern action cinema whether Occidental or Oriental is derived from the conventions of the Hollywood Westerns, particularly character archetypes and motivations. For Miike SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO serves as sardonic homage to (and a parody of) American action films since at the time he made it, it was unlikely that he would ever be able to direct a straightforward genre film for Hollywood.
This film is purposely ANTI-original. It strives very mightily to be derivative and have people identify it as a MASTERPIECE of PASTICHE. Thus, the title of the film -- "SUKIYAKI" stands as metaphor for the various odds and ends found within the movie: collecting famous bits and bites of other movies and cooking them up into a single dish.
Seriously, anyone who doesn't recognize the monologue from Yoshitsune's Mononofu lecture ("Don't see it, FEEL it.") starts as the Jeet Kune Do lesson imparted by Bruce Lee in ENTER THE DRAGON ("Don't think. FEEL."), then segues ("Now, you gonna come at me or whistle Dixie?) into Clint Eastwood as OUTLAW JOSEY WALES ("Are you gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?") just isn't qualified to comment on SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO.
Laura, les ombres de l'été (1979)
To clear up a misconception about the ending...
PAUL IS STILL BLIND AT THE END.
Many viewers fail to realize this, and thus come to erroneous conclusions concerning the final scenes. Paul's removal of the smoked glasses as he examines the leaf is meant to symbolize that he has learned to "see" the world through his sense of touch and no longer feels "blind" as an artist. This is why he pays no attention to Laura as she watches him play in the fountain. His eyes cannot see her. Laura for her part perceives that Paul no longer needs her to serve as his muse, so she leaves.
All that aside of Hamilton's 3 plot structured films, LAURA is his best effort. Each frame of film has delicately lit mies-en-scene and purposely resembles impressionist paintings -- particularly those of Degas. This is not an "actor-oriented" movie. It's a "picture-oriented" movie. Hamilton has meticulously choreographed and rehearsed every human movement he captured on this film. All movie-acting should be like this.
If I feel the finished product is what the director intended it to be, I give a film a high rating whether I personally enjoyed the viewing experience or not. Regarding LAURA I enjoyed the viewing of it but the score makes me wretch. I despise every note. Patrick Juvet must have become tone deaf by the time he scored it.
Gefangene Frauen (1980)
Satire of Third-World Coup Mentality during Cold War
I kid you not. The surprise ending is meant to comment on a bizarre political trend in the last third of the 20th Century in which military putsch leaders seemed to be of ever decreasing rank. The nadir of this phenomena being the 1980 Liberian coup which left MASTER SERGEANT Samuel K. Doe as head of state.
At the climax of this film the lowly soldiers stationed as guards at Red Island turn out to be part of the movement to overthrow their country's military dictator and replace him with one of their own. But, surprise, Red Island's sub-commander reveals during the denouement that he's already cut a deal with the regular military to depose and succeed his comrade within a fortnight.
Oh-ho! Sex AND Politics? That's the SEVENTIES for you.
(should also mention that the chicks were totally smoking)
L'éventreur de Notre-Dame (1975)
of EXORCISM (1974) non-hardcore version available on DVD
EXORCISME (1974) was ORIGINALLY a hardcore XXX film. From it TWO distinct movies were edited together utilizing the footage: EXORCISM, itself, and SADIST OF NOTRE DAME (1979). The latter film is less sexploitative and is more of a serious serial killer drama. It is much longer with additional scenes featuring Jesus Franco (looking noticeably heavier than in the EXORCISME scenes). The Franco and Romay in the XXX version are definitely their 1974 and not 1979 incarnations.
EXORCISM, however, is a poor soft core sister of the original cut of EXORCISME. It has all the odd story loopholes and illogic of the XXX version but without the added attraction of the explicit anatomical exertions/insertions (including Franco, himself, in a rape scene of Lina Romay's "Anne" character). SADIST made the best artistic use of the footage. EXORCISME made the most exciting use of the footage. At least we have decent picture clarity in this one.
You're in Love, Charlie Brown (1967)
The LRHG did NOT slip him a note at the end -- it was a prank!
The fact it was a prank is more obvious in the comic strip storyline that sequence was based upon, but the dead giveaway in the TV special was the fact that the author ID'd herself in the note as "The Little Red-Haired Girl" (it would be 10 years before her name was revealed as Heather) and that the ending theme which plays over the credits is the same song which the mean girls at the school were using to mock Charlie Brown from earlier.
What made YOU'RE IN LOVE, CHARLIE BROWN so shocking (to the extent that it was never again aired on CBS after its 1967 debut) was the emotionally sadistic ruthlessness which Charlie Brown is subjected to. No other PEANUTS special is so brutally faithful to the psychotic self-loathing of Charles Schulz's 1960-70s PEANUTS strips when his chronic depression was at its worst -- and his artistry the best.
This remains one of the great artistic triumphs in US TV animation, because it teaches you something about the artist who made it.
The Victors (1963)
The first "ANTI-COMBAT" anti-war movie
Preceding the likes of CATCH-22 (1970) and JARHEAD (2005), THE VICTORS (1963) was notable for not having any scenes in which the American soldiers at the core of the story actually kill any of their German enemies. As Anthony Swofford pointed out in the autobiographical JARHEAD, any war film which features scenes of combat is in actuality a pro-war movie because it glamorizes the action aspects of martial combat and even an obviously anti-war statement such as PLATOON ends up as a recruiting tool for the military. Carl Foreman, proved himself way ahead of the game in THE VICTORS, devised by Foreman as a rebuttal of sorts to THE LONGEST DAY. Carl Foreman's WW2 experience taught him that lessons to be learned from war were not from the fighting itself but from the consequences of the fighting. In THE VICTORS, the movie title is meant to be IRONIC, for none of the story arcs featuring the central characters reach happy conclusions. Foreman's central thesis is that a war has only VICTIMS and no VICTORS not even those playing on the "winning" team.
300 (2006)
Does for Sparta what BIRTH OF A NATION did for the Confederacy!
Great Zeus! What ludicrous hogwash! Miller and Snyder somehow transform the most oppressive, most superstitious, and most pederast of the Greek city-states into a bastion of "republican" virtue! Next thing you know Hollywood will put out a movie where Jesus of Nazareth gets married or something....
300 was visually arresting, but otherwise morally, politically, and historically BANKRUPT. Plenty of wheat field footage but not a hapless Massenian helot in sight. No mention that Sparta had TWO kings who reign simultaneously. No mention that Queen Gorgo was Leonidas's own teenage NIECE (and yet Dilios derisively dismisses the priests as "inbreds"). No mention of the famous Delphic prophesy warning Leonidas that either Sparta will die or one of its Kings will die. Completely screwing with the battle order at Thermopylae so that neither the Athenian navy (who guarded the seaside flank) nor the Thespians who died to the last man at the Spartan rear get their historical due. Also, Leonidas was among the first to die on the final day and the succeeding action was for control of his corpse. Fiddling with historical accuracy is one thing, but purposely insulting the intellect of the audience in this manner is unconscionable.
The Great Waltz (1938)
Anti-Nazi Musical Propaganda
Everyone who has commented on The Great Waltz (1938) has entirely missed the movie's raison-d'etre -- to protest the "ANSCHLUSS" (annexation) of AUSTRIA by NAZI Germany on 03/13/1938. With that in mind its theatrical release date of 11/04/1938 makes the political intentions of The Great Waltz rather blatant. Since Hitler was in 1938 merely warlike and not war waging, Hollywood (or the Jews dominating the film industry at any rate) had to make their protest films sneakily, or in this case allegorically.
In this mythical Hollywood version of Austria (which would persist well into the 1960's), the Viennese want nothing more from life other than eating food, drinking wine, and dancing to waltz (and occasionally polka) music. Ahh ... it's hard to believe this is the same autocratic Empire which produced World War 1 (and Adolph Hitler) in Strauss' lifetime!
Since America was pseudo-isolationist with a populace which prided itself on having poor historical memory, it was necessary for Hollywood to construct this mythical Austria in order to control the perception of just what the Austrian people were REALLY all about and so unlike those march-stepping Germans across the border. THE GREAT WALTZ (1938) is therefore an allegorical work meant to lament the seemingly permanent absorption of this mythical, freedom-fighting, waltzing, polka-ing Austria into Hitler's pan-Germanic blob.
This allegorical STRAUSS, Jr. represents the Austrian soul, or at the very least the Viennese soul. His wife Poldi Vogelhuber is implicitly Jewish and actress Luise Rainer really was in fact a German Jew -- Poldi represents traditional Jewish integration into Austrian society. His mistress Karla Donner (how much more Teutonic can you name a gal?) is German and played by the very Nordic (ethnically Swedish) Miliza Korjus who nearly took the Academy award for her performance. The dilemma faced by Strauss in the film was to choose to remain in his lovably humble Vienna with his lovely demure Poldi or to follow Karla on her world tour and conquer the musical world. The dilemma faced by the real Austria in their 1938 Anschluss plebiscite was independent humility vs pan-German arrogance. Karla makes the choice for him and leaves him in Vienna; Hitler did the opposite and marched an army into Vienna, semi-forcibly uniting it with Germany. The denouement of the Great Waltz in which the Viennese population hold a massive demonstration showing appreciation to the elderly Strauss (in the presence of a very benign Kaiser Franz Josef) was intended to represent the world's appreciation for all of Austria's historical contributions to Western culture.
Duvivier scores the single greatest directorial achievement from Hollywood's Golden Age and it takes place in one single reel of this film. The reel in which Poldi finally convinces herself to follow Count Hohenfried's advice to fight for her marriage. Donning the gown Strauss has left for her, she rushes to the theater to confront Karla Donner only to abandon hope upon catching sight of the diva's godlike stage presence. Poldi enters the auditorium with face in close-up, but the camera starts moving away from her in a quick series of edits until she looks like a small doll in the doorway of a doll house. The camera suddenly cuts away from her in a long-distance shot at the entrance to a close-up of Karla on stage. Karla seemingly radiates sunlight from her long golden curls and sings with a voice thunderously awesome (as Rosalinde in DIE FLEDERMAUS). After several minutes documenting the stage number, the scene shifts to Poldi walking through the backstage area where to her unspoken dismay everyone knows exactly who she is and congratulates her on her husband's success. Poldi graciously acknowledges them but keeps on walking, walking and thanking, thanking and walking until she is alone out the back door and finally collapses into uncontrollable weeping.
If all the people worth interviewing weren't dead, I'd love to write about a book just about the diagramming of that single sequence and what went into it.