THE MAD BUTCHER [Il
Strangolatore di Vienna] (1971). Victor Buono plays Otto Lehmann, who spends
three years in the nut house when he smacks a woman in the head with a 2lb.
Liver. When he gets out he demonstrates his new found mental health by strangling
people and grinding them into sausages. Extremely dull film mostly centers
on a bad love story featuring peplum vet Brad Harris (who keeps his shirt
on) and Karin Field, which drowns out Buono's delightfully comic performance
as the psychotic butcher. Very, very, very loosely based on Fritz Harrmann,
who killed young men and sold their flesh during WWI, but don't expect any
gory deaths or flesh eating, as this is mostly a comedy directed by Guido
Zurli, who mostly made fluff films.
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MAHOGANY (1975). Bad
movie and Anthony Perkins fans do not miss this movie! This is the kind
of film that makes you wonder what the hell they were thinking, and the
fact that star Diana Ross designed the atrocious outfits makes it even more
hysterical. Ross plays a poor Chicago girl who wants to be a fashion designer,
she falls in love with Billy Dee Williams (who gives his typical drunk off
his ass performance), and succeeds, but does she lose her soul in the process?
Forget the melodramatic plot, Perkins, as a psychotic photographer steals
every scene he's in (like he usually did). Ross is unbelievably bad, and
it's not hard to figure out why she was only in Berry Gordy related films,
and the scene where Ross, covered in dry candle wax says "I'm a winna!"
over and over is surreal. Gordy fired Tony Richardson (what the hell happened
to his career?) and shot most of the film himself; if you like watching
egotistical pop stars fall flat on their faces that maybe wasn't such a
bad idea. Berry Gordy and Diana Ross were the love story of two people who
truly deserved each other.
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MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY
[Cannibal Ferrox] (1981). This has a champion title that makes every self-respecting
sleaze fan want to see it. It's Umberto Lenzi's last cannibal epic, and
is a great gross-out movie that can be shown at weddings and graduations.
Weird-looking college student Lorraine de Selle (who worked with Deodato
and D'Amato, what a career!) and her friends go into the Green Inferno to
investigate de Selle's PhD thesis, namely that cannibalism among the natives
was the creation of racist whites (aren't they always to blame?). Along
the way they meet up with party-animal drug dealer John Morghen ("you twat!")
and quickly find that de Selle shouldn't have entered another field, as
they run into vengeful natives pissed off at Morghen for torturing one of
their tribesmen. They are all captured, tied up and tortured. Morghen's
dick is cut off, but at least they cauterize the wound, but then they cut
off Morghen's hand and the coup de grace is when he gets the top of his
head chopped off (and the natives then proceed to chow down on his brain).
Zora Kerova is hooked through the breasts Man Called Horse style. Animals
are gleefully killed for the camera. Morghen says things like, "you get
off on ecology, twat!" and "it was a bad scene". Robert Kerman plays a cop
in New York City. There's an on screen warning at the beginning, but if
you make it that far you should know what to expect.
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THE MAN ON THE ROOF
(1977). Superb police thriller based on one of the excellent Martin Beck
novels by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Martin Beck (Carl Gustaf Lindstedt)
investigates the brutal murder of a police officer, a cop who was a hated
sadist, a murder which seems like a revenge killing, and the investigation
comes to an abrupt end when a sniper starts killing cops. Almost neo-realist
in style, director Bo Widerberg (of Elvira Madigen fame, who offered a refreshing
alternative to Ingmar Bergman) centers on small, almost trivial details,
and builds impressively to the tense climax, as well as an almost humorless
sense of humor that is very refreshing. Definitely recommended.
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THE MAN-HUNTER (aka
Mandingo Manhunter/Devil Hunter/Sexo cannibal/Chasseur de l'enfer/Hell Hunter/Chasseurs
d'hommes/Jungfrauunter/Kanibalen/Il cacciatore di uomini, 1980). Ugh. That's
about all you can say for this ridiculous Jess Franco "effort". Everybody
hides behind aliases here, and it's not surprising. Franco calls himself
Clifford Brown, and casts Playboy bunny Ursula Buchfellner, who calls herself
Fellner, so she can deny she was in this mess to her grandchildren. She's
kidnapped by some baddies and taken into the jungle and held for ransom.
Enter gallant Al Cliver (aka Pier Luigi Conti, of course) who comes to the
rescue. For some reason, a naked African god walks around and kills people,
and, in a hilarious scene, Cliver climbs up a mountain (actually he just
crawls like a toddler while Franco turns the camera sideways) and fights
the invincible god, defeating him to shoving a stick in his mouth. Really
inspired there, Jess. If you like to see Africans walk around naked and
bash white women's heads in and Al Cliver out-acted by his moustache, by
all means, see this movie.
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MANHUNTER (1986). I
guess I must be in the minority: I think this movie is ten times better
than the rather bloated Silence of the Lambs since both films are
basically the same, and Michael Mann brings this one off with a lot more
panache. Okay, okay, so there's a lot of dubious 80s music, and a little
too much left over Miami Vice stylistics, but these are really just
minor qualms. I said that this and Silence of the Lambs were the same, and
essentially they are: a serial killer is stalking the countryside, and the
FBI calls in an agent, in this case the slightly disturbed Will Graham (William
Peterson) who tracks killers by getting inside their heads. This time out
he's trying to catch "The Tooth Fairy" a guy who slaughters entire families
and horribly mutilates their corpses. Graham heads out to see his old buddy
Hannibal Lecktor (Cox, who no one seems to remember, but who is actually
better in the role than Anthony Hopkins' gentleman killer) to "get the scent".
Unlike the other movie, Lecktor isn't out to help anybody, since Graham
caught him he wants revenge, and goes as far as uses the pathetic murderer,
Francis Dolarhyde (Tom Noonan, who is one of the creepiest actors imaginable)
to try and assassinate Graham. The killer has a cleft palate and is pathetically
shy and disturbed (the film's only big flaw is making him into a near-invincible
boogey man at the end) and is more compelling than the Jerry Springer Buffalo
Bill of Silence of the Lambs. I still love the ending, even if it
is a bit disorganized and ridiculous, and it should be noted that it's quite
a feat to make In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida, the flat out goofiest song in history
seem ominous. Please, oh please, don't confuse this with Jess Franco's movie!!!!!!!!!!!!
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MANIAC NURSES FIND
ECSTASY (1992). Where the hell do I begin except to say that Troma's Lloyd
Kaufman and Michael Herz must have balls the size of China to keep unleashing
cinematic bags of diarrhea like this on the video store going public (it
used to be theater going public, but no such luck anymore). This is a 20th
rate knock-off of the Ilsa movies (I guess) and it has no plot. It does
have the worst acting/music/dialog/camerawork/editing/effects of any movie
I've seen in some time. The adds tried to compare this to Bloodsucking Freaks,
what that movie had was humor that rose from its own ridiculousness, this
certainly doesn't have that, and has nothing going for it at all. This could
have used Sardu and Ralphus showing up, chaining up these dumb bitches,
yanking out eyeballs, using butts as dartboards, and having some laughs.
Where's Ted Bundy when you need him?
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MANIAC (1934). No,
not the William Lustig/Joe Spinell gore-fest (or the Oliver Reed film, for
that matter) this is arguably the best film (?) from schlockster Dwain Esper.
In what may be the most over-the-top low budget film performance in history,
Bill Woods plays a lab assistant who kills the doctor he's working for (experimenting
with bringing the dead back to life, of course!) and assumes his identity.
In typical exploitation fashion, Esper and writer/wife Hildegarde Stadie
insert a couple of other plots: a man is injected with "super adrenaline"
and thinks he's the murderous ape from Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue (and
he looks even dumber than Spencer Tracy in that Jeckyll and Hyde movie);
blackmailing women are locked in a basement and armed with hypodermic needles;
fighting cats; a police investigation. Of course, Esper manages to screw
up in every department, pointlessly inserting scenes of cats fighting (filmed
by a monkey or someone having a seizure) and stock footage from Witchcraft
Through the Ages to show Woods' descent into madness (I guess)
and trying to legitimatize his film with pointless titles describing various
mental conditions (that have nothing to do with whatever the hell's going
on on screen). Esper includes Woods pulling out a cat's eyeball and eating
it and some hide-your-eyes 1934 nudity. Don't forget about Woods ranting
about "the gleam" and running his fingers through his hair. Made with the
finesse of an A-Bomb, Esper was as talented as he sounds.
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MARS NEEDS WOMEN (1966).
Typical Larry Buchanan abomination has all the finesse of a bulldozer, and
is as stylish as an educational film. As the title informs us, Mars is short
on the female sex, and so five straight-laced Martians, led by ex-Disney
brat Tommy Kirk (later in straight-to-video obscurities) come to Earth to
kidnap five hot dames to repopulate the red sphere. Did you know that ties
reveal male vanity and haven't been used on Mars in 50 years? Learn this
and more in Dianetics (please don't sue me). There's a lot of dubbed-in
sound, some music that was used in Plan 9 From Outer Space, scenes in a
strip club, and you can clearly see the crew's reflections in a mirror.
Made for TV around the same time as travesties as Attack of the the Eye
Creatures and Zontar, the Thing From Venus. Many years later Buchanan talked
about doing a sequel to this and he actually said, "I'd like to see what
happened next." Yikes.
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MASTER
KILLER (36th CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN, 1978). This is one of the all-time great
kung-fu movies, it use to be shown innumerable times on late-night TV (which
is where I first saw it, and of course loved it immensely as a kid) and
is probably the most widely seen non-Bruce Lee chop-socky film outside of
Asia. Maybe it exported well because it is so exotic, rather than being
a typical period piece of heroic swordsmen/boxers fighting it out amidst
esoteric plots that most non-Chinese could never understand very easily.
This one is all about training and the odd techniques involved in the Chinese
martial arts. Plus its cool as hell, and it stars the awesome Gordon Liu,
who, with that great intense gaze of his, was one of the great martial arts
film stars. Liu plays a scholar whose group runs afoul of the evil (of course)
Manchu government, and he narrowly escapes being killed by evil government
troops. He manages to sneak into Shaolin temple, and convinces the head
abbot to allow him to learn kung-fu. This being a movie he turns out to
be the best (and most dedicated) student, far surpassing everybody else
in training that includes, jumping on logs in water, running up hills carrying
buckets of water with knives strapped to your arms, head-butting heavy bags,
hitting illuminated targets in a dark room and so on. Eventually he gets
to be so good that he's allowed to take over any one of the 35 chambers
of training in Shaolin, but asks to create a new chamber, one devoted to
instructing outsiders in kung-fu. His wish is granted, and he leaves to
take on the evil Mings who wiped out his school/family/friends usual targets
in kung-fu movies. There isn't much "real" fighting till the end, but that
hardly matters, since the training sequences are so fascinating and Liu
is such an engaging actor that when the fight scenes do come they
are all the more rewarding. Director Liu Chia Liang was one of the Shaw
Brothers best in-house directors, and his films are much more muscularly
action-oriented than Chang Cheh's, which tended to be closer to John Woo-type
male bonding melodramas, Liu's (who is star Gordon Liu's half-brother via
adoption) films tend to have a healthy and earthy sense of humor that separate
them from Chang's rather dour vision of warriors duking it out, and in many
ways are more watchable than many Shaw Brothers films. Of course, nearly
every actor here is a familiar face, including the indefatigable Lo Lieh,
who plays the villainous Ming general.
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MASTER
OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE (One-Armed Boxer Vs. The Flying Guillotine , 1975).
For many years this oddball Jimmy Wang Yu kung-fu epic had a sizable cult
reputation, mainly due to the title and its rarity (for instance, there
was supposedly only one very worn-out print in existence). As with a lot
of other formerly rare titles its found a new life on DVD (and a brief theatrical
release). For a kung-fu movie it really isn't all that great, and has as
much to do with kung-fu as Iron Chef does with mechanical engineering,
but it is....interesting at least. Wang Yu was never a very interesting
actor, rather stiff and wooden, and the former swimmer had no practical
martial-arts training to speak of, so his films tended to veer wildly into
the realm of fantasy and this is a good example. The virtually non-existent
plot has Wang's One-Armed Boxer kill a pair of government assassins before
the start of the film; the teacher of the assassins, the blind master of
the epinonymous weapon swears revenge. Despite this, the bulk of the first-half
deals with a martial arts tournament, unusual only in the assortment of
bizarre fighters present. There's “Win Without a Knife” Akuma, who, of course,
employs a knife to finish off his opponents (and nobody seems to think that
this is underhanded at all), Rope Hair, who strangles opponents with his
long braided hair, Southern Daredevil who wins despite a broken leg by poking
his opponent's eyes out Three Stooges style, and, more spectacularly,
an Indian fighter who has enormous arms that stretch out to pummel whatever
miscreant falls before him (he also employs an attack owl that he throws
at people, but that doesn't come out till later). The blind master of the
flying guillotine (who has been hilariously traveling the countryside killing
every one-armed man he comes across) shows up long enough to kill a few
people and sent in motion the second half of the movie, in which Wang shows
his dubious “stuff” and kills off all the baddies. Mostly Wang has to cheat
more than anything, roasting a Thai kickboxer alive, or the bizarre array
of tricks he uses to do in the blind master, which is the problem with the
narrative, we're lead to believe that the One-Armed Boxer is a legendary
fighter, but his technique centers around running away and being sneaky.
The “restored” version shows just how rough the print was, as the color
is frequently washed-out, somewhat odd is the fact that there are two titles
for the movie shown (both of the ones listed above), and the fact that one
scene suddenly slips into Chinese for no discernible reason (I suppose it
was cut from the original dubbed version), and a note given to Wang at one
point is left untranslated for us. I liked the scene in which the blind
master tosses bombs at everyone for no reason and very closely resembles
Tim from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and the horrible English
dubbing, that includes classics like, “the man who runs away is a coward
and a fool, but to be over cautious is a mistake too...” and “get out of
my way you old has-been!”
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MARTIN (1977). God
its sad to see what happened to George Romero. Even his minor films from
the 70s had something going for them, but then in the 80s it all went to
hell. I just can’t believe (with the exception of Day of the Dead)
that Romero “lost it” in the conventional sense, I think there were deeper
reasons, namely the decline of the cerebral brand of filmmaking Romero excelled
in for the BOO! school of 80s schlock. Watching some of Romero’s films from
that decade (and even up till now), I sense a lack of passion in them, as
if Romero just loves to make movies, but has become indifferent to what
his name gets attached to, which is sad, since he was one of America’s best
filmmakers. This is undoubtedly one of his best, a decidedly ambiguous and
non-supernatural vampire film, it features the perfectly boyish John Amplas
as the titular character, a confused teen who either believes himself to
be or is an ancient vampire. The contrast is to the potentially ageless
vampire living amidst the ruins of a dying Pennsylvania steel town, all
signs of course point to the boy being nothing more than a very modern,
and very sad sexual pervert who’s odd fantasy world makes him strangely
more innocent than the doomed inhabitants of the town, and Martin’s own
mocking of vampire lore (eating garlic, touching crucifixes, walking around
in broad daylight, wearing fake fangs in a Lugosi-type cape) suggest a rather
ironic understanding of vampiric traditions. At the very least Martin sees
his victims, whom he dispatches via syringes in an idealized manner, completely
at odds with his bleak existence (like the brilliant opening scene in which
Martin stalks a woman on a train, who is alternately made out to be a silent
movie complete with damsel in distress, and the blander reality, the woman
screaming epithets at her assaulter). Slyly humorous, and never really showing
its hand, Martin remains a strangely beautiful and hypnotic film.
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MAXIMUM RISK (1996).
For awhile Jean-Claude Van Damme (a recent E! True Hollywood Story
victim) was a one-man way station for Hong Kong directors looking to break
into Hollywood, John Woo, Tsui Hark, and Ringo Lam all making films for
him. Only Woo made it into the big leagues, with Tsui and Lam thankfully
going back to Hong Kong before selling out completely (though Lam made the
almost anonymous seeming Replicant, also with the Belgian Waffle).
This is a very slick and atmospheric, but rather limp thriller with van
Damme playing, yup, twin brothers (yikes, both director and star have done
this kind of plot before, with Double Impact and Twin Dragons
respectively), one a cop (of course) the other—get this—was a gangster!
Who would’ve guessed? Anyway, cop Damme goes to New York and ends up with
gangster Damme’s woman, Natasha Henstridge, and has to run away a lot from
the minions sent out by Russian gangster Zach Grenier, who is normally rather
effeminent, but is quite vicious here, not to mention a pair of crooked
FBI agents (Paul Ben-Victor and Frank Senger). Some of the locations are
great, and I liked the ending that takes place in a meat locker complete
with dead pig carcasses and Jean Clod swinging around on a meat hook, but
otherwise this is much less than what someone like Lam should be doing with
his time.
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MAYHEM (1986). The
City Lights team of Joseph Merhi and Richard Pepin churned out movie after
movie in the video era, most of them blandly made and barely compelling
ones like this one. Private eye/drug dealer/pimp/hitman Robert Gallo and
vigilante/lovesick psycho Raymond Martino run around blasting pimps, kiddie
porn producers and, of course, disposable street punks. Martino spends a
lot of time bulging out his eyes and looking for his floozy wife who left
him and aborted their kid. Gallo’s girl (Pamela Dixon) is kidnapped by pimps
and our venerable team spring into action. Very bloody indeed with lots
of splattering bullet hits, and with such delicacies as a female porno producer
getting blasted by a shotgun in the crotch, and a punk getting the back
of his skull blown off. This is the sort of movie Charles Bronson would’ve
starred in if…oh wait, all he did was star in movies like this in the 80s.
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MEET THE FEEBLES (1989).
In poor taste to say the least, it was the movie that killed Jim Henson!
Maybe not, but it seems like an episode of The Muppet Show as written by
William S. Burroughs. A behind-the-scenes expose of the popular variety
show “Meet the Feebles” that features a walrus producer who dabbles in crime,
a sleazy drug-dealing rat who makes porn in the basement, a womanizing bunny
rabbit with AIDS, a hippo who’s the star but has a weight problem, a harried
stage director with a penchant for singing vulgar songs, an aardvark with
a semen problem, a Nam-vet lizard who’s addicted to heroin and much much
more. Hilariously vulgar and crude, with not a sentimental moment in sight,
a beautiful movie.
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MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR.
LAWRENCE (1983). This is probably Nagisa Oshima’s best movie, it still has
a lot of his incomprehensible symbolism and rather confusing way of telling
his story, but is a strangely discomforting yet affecting film. Taking place
in a Japanese run POW camp in Java that is run by stern commandant Ryuichi
Sakamoto (who also composed the beautiful score), it becomes a strange battle
of wills between the humorless commander and his barely repressed love for
downed aviator David Bowie. Tom Conti is the Mr. Lawrence of the title,
the only white man in the camp who speaks Japanese (and who also has his
own, barely repressed love for these people who brutalize and humiliate
he and his fellows), and he must continually contend with the strangely
sentimental, but cruel guard Takeshi Kitano (which alone makes the movie
worth watching). I guess Oshima is stripping away a great deal of subtext
and gets to the point, that in an all-male environment, men will fall in
love with each other, and while not as obvious as his much later Gohatto
(also with Kitano, of course) it is obvious that the Sakamoto/Bowie plot
is essentially a love story, albeit set amidst the draconian social order
of the Japanese military, which carves away Sakamoto’s ability to admit
his feelings (though, on the other hand, the more “natural” and crude guard
played by Kitano has obvious affection for Mr. Lawrence and seems capable
of admitting to it). I guess it’s the usual plot of social order coming
up against human emotions, yet despite that there is that indefinable element
that makes this such a haunting and strangely human film. The ending especially,
is quite beautiful.
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MICROWAVE
MASSACRE (1983). This is it. This movie has literally made me give up on
life. I will no longer update my site or continue to breathe. I will simply
waste away till even the memory of the man I was is no more. Thank you,
Microwave Massacre, thank you for destroying my life. They say that
looking into the face of the devil will make you insane, likewise, contemplating
the sheer awfulness of Microwave Massacre will cause your brain to
simply give up; computers that attempt to crack the code of Microwave
Massacre will simply blow themselves up rather than continue. Indians
and Pakistanis will happily detonate their own nuclear stockpiles in their
own countries rather than have to face Microwave Massacre. Osama
Bin Laden will gulp down Big Macs and Pepsi and trade jihad for Abercrombie
and Fitch. He is a man who knows Microwave Massacre all too well.
Babies will abort themselves in joy after only 12 seconds of Microwave
Massacre. There are no words in the English language that can actually
describe accurately the experience of viewing Microwave Massacre.
Only screams and random curses and convey the feelings one has while the
film plays before one's eyes. Only the very moment of one's own death can
give sense to the senselessness that is Microwave Massacre. It cannot
be understated, I cannot warn you enough, view my fate, avoid it. DO NOT
WATCH MICROWAVE MASSACRE. Think of the worst memory of your life.
The time you vomited on the most beautiful girl in school. The time a dirty
bum introduced you to the ways of the Kama Sutra. The time your grandmother
caught you masturbating over a She-Hulk comic. Compound these memories
by factors of one billion and perhaps just vaguely you can begin to understand
the scarring that Microwave Massacre will cause you.
Microwave Massacre stars a man named Jackie Vernon who is the Devil.
There can be no other explanation for it. It was directed by a man named
Wayne Berwick who is, perhaps, some sort of cinematic Grand Inquisitor,
laughing at the return of Christ, banishing all goodness from the Earth.
It was written by two men who are, perhaps only one man who's savage nihilism
could not be held by only one body, so Craig Muckler and Thomas Singer were
created to house this phenomenal energy. Jackie Vernon plays a filthy and
disgusting wretch of a human being who also happens to be a construction
worker. He and his wife seem to exist in some sort of space/time vortex,
despite taking place in some ill-defined California location, they are both
aggressive New Yorkers, ugly, hideous slabs of humanity. Vernon's wife serves
him awful food, which is a metaphor for the cruelty of the film, we are
forced to suffer while Vernon digests the morsels of our pain. One day he
becomes angry and kills his wife, then stuffs her body into the couple's
brand new gigantic microwave. He then chops up her body, yet, oddly, death
has caused the delicate feminity of his wife to become mannequin like, while
her head resembles an old ball of yarn. After getting the idea to cook and
eat her, Vernon begins to bring home various shapely women, whom he proceeds
to kill and eat after having sex with them. At this point the film crosses
the line from evil into some sort of Lovecraftian amalgamation of ancient
evil and metaphysical dread. Seeing the fat, smelly, horrifyingly ugly Vernon
even pretending to have sex with attractive young women is beyond my small
mind's ability to comprehend evil. Listening to the constant stream of "jokes"
"delivered" by Vernon ranks as a kind of mental torture few dictators would
have the heart to implement. My favorite bits are between Vernon and his
wife, as one delivers a lame unfunny joke, while director Berwick refuses
to either cut to the other "actor" or even insert some sort of dialogue.
Nothing is better than watching a lame joke not only die, but thrash about
on the floor, suffering unimaginable pains before it goes. Are the young
women who appeared in the film to be fondled by Vernon all right? Please
tell me they somehow got over the experience of this film and moved on with
their lives. I can also attest to my love for the dynamic editing of many
of this film's fine scenes. As Vernon cleans out his refrigerator to make
room for the dismembered body of his wife, he cleans out the fridge while
repeating the refrain, "have to make room for May" over and over and over
and over and over and over again. Obviously Berwick was interested in making
a cinema verite view of a cannibal killer's life. If the man is cleaning
out his fridge, then goddammit he'll clean the whole thing out. Have I mentioned
this film is evil? Have I mentioned how much I hate it? Can I even begin
to describe the depths of my hatred for both this film and those who appeared
in it? No, I cannot. Quite simply this moves beyond all classification.
This is not a "bad" film as such, because even the word "bad" or "awful"
or "fucking shitty" don't really convey this film's qualities. I simply
cannot write any more about this film. It has killed me. I am dead now.
On a lighter note, Jackie Vernon died in horrible pain of a heart attack
a few years after this movie was completed. Now that's funny!
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MISA THE DARK ANGEL
(1997). Another entry in the popular Wizard of Darkness series dumps
director Shimako Sato and star Kimika Yoshino for new people. The intense
Hinako Saeki (a welcome relief from the usual colorless Japanese star) plays
Misa Kuroi, a sort of freelance good witch who investigates supernatural
goings on. This time out Misa looks into a drama club at a girl’s school
after a body is found, she discovers that the play the girls are rehearsing
is really a ceremony for an evil cult trying to create a “Homonucleus”.
The first-half has lots of friendly enough girl-bonding and implied lesbianism
while the second goes all out with the cute girls being torn to pieces,
drowned, stabbed, etc, all to the accompaniment of spraying blood. Saeki
is pretty cool, with her serious gaze and deep voice, even when mumbling
all sorts of silly magical incantations she remains above the fray. The
circular ending is more than a little confusing, though the weakest part
is the epilogue, which serves no purpose other than to stretch the running
time and keep the door open for a sequel.
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MISHIMA: A LIFE IN
FOUR CHAPTERS (1985). Yukio Mishima was Japan’s best-known author when in
1970 he committed ritualistic suicide, this rather remarkable film takes
an impressionistic view of Mishima’s life and times, as biographical material
is counterbalanced with stylized scenes from Mishima’s novels. The young
Mishima is seen growing up in an all-female environment, teenaged Mishima
longs for a glorious war-time death but dodges the draft, the adult Mishima
molds his body to perfection while becoming an eccentric celebrity, part
Hemmingway, part Mifune. Schrader was forbidden by Mishima’s widow to make
any mention of his homosexuality (and in fact had to deal with death threats
from various right-wing groups), and perhaps due to threats of lawsuits
there is superficiality to the biographical portions, and (despite an excellent
performance from Ken Ogata as Mishima) there isn’t much learned about the
man. The real strength is in the portions dealing with Mishima’s fiction,
and make for much better viewing, as they flesh out Mishima a bit more,
his abstract idealism, homosexuality and sado-masochism, his self-conscious
pose as the “tortured artist”, and his narcissistic fanaticism (Mishima
didn’t kill himself for Japan, he killed himself for Mishima). The excellent
music score is by Philip Glass.
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THE
MISSION (1999). This is easily the best Hong Kong film in years, with its
sly humor and subtle nod to the yakuza film it takes place in a world
utterly different from the usual post John Woo triad film with mad dog killers
and knights in shining armor who ride about on a virtual wave of bullets
and explosions. Here the triads who leap about while manning two or three
guns at once and wiping out wave after wave of bad guys are replaced by
the icily professional characters more at home in a Takeshi Kitano film.
In fact, the Kitano influence is clear in the listless boredom of the characters
in between the outbursts of highly controlled and professional violence.
But, fortunately, director Johnny To is too good to simply rehash Kitano/yakuza
stylistics, and he makes this, at its heart, a subtlety told tale of the
old and new triad, brotherhood vs. corporation, and as such crafts a perfect
gangster film that will undoubtedly be the mold for future triad pictures.
Eddy Ko plays Lung, an aging triad chief who suddenly finds himself the
target of assassination. His brother, Frank (Simon Yam, sleek and deadly)
organizes a group of five triads of various backgrounds to protect Lung.
The intense Francis Ng, a local small-timer who's having trouble with rival
gangs, the cold-blooded Anthony Wong (known as The Ice) who seems to have
retired from the gangster life and taken up being a hair stylist, efficient
marksman Roy Cheung, weapons man Lam Suet, and the inexperienced, but fearless
Jackie Lui. Together they organize an efficient system of defense for Lung,
as Frank attempts to hunt down who is trying to assassinate him. It is the
complete calm of these men as they are faced with their challenge that is
refreshing here, unlike the clichéd triads, who, during one of the shootouts
here would be running around like chickens with their heads cut off, these
triads stay perfectly still, covering each other until the threat is eliminated.
Yet, even after Lung is kept safe To keeps things going for a neat twist
ending, as Frank says, "the organization is indifferent to its members now",
and the five must decide what side they are on, the "organization" and its
tight control, or a brotherhood with all the ins and outs of human behavior
to take into account. The only real drawback is the typical "we need a musical
score, that guy over there has a Casio, let's use him" soundtrack, which
sounds like it was hashed out over an afternoon, but the many small moments,
the bored practical jokes or impromptu soccer matches, or the self-sacrifice
of a disgraced triad which is hardly mythologized at all, but only paused
upon as if to say "this is the life he chose for himself" are the ones that
stick in the mind.
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MOTEL HELL (1980).
Engaging but strange horror film featuring Rory Calhoun and Nancy Parsons
as the proprietors of the Motel Hello (the “o” in the neon sign has burned
out) and the sellers of Farmer Vincent’s Meats. No surprise as to what the
secret ingredient is: human meat harvested from people kept half buried
out back with their vocal cords cut. A sort of everything-and-the-kitchen
sink movie, there’s a car chase, romance (plus the added bonus of dopey
romantic music), the dorky cop from CHIPS of the hero, and Calhoun
wearing a pig’s head and fighting a chainsaw duel.
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MNASDIKA
(1969). This is the strangest film I've seen in awhile, its an impossibly
cheap (borderline home movie) sex pic from Michael and Roberta Findlay,
and despite occasional tedium and downright strangeness, its the only nudie/sex
pic from the era I can think of (that I've seen anyway) that tries to be
poetic and almost succeeds. Michael Findlay himself “stars”, walking around
a coastline (in modern clothes) he suddenly awakes in ancient Greece (aka
up-state New York) on the island of Lesbos (?); he happens upon a woman
trapped by a log, he frees her, then rapes her, and beats her to death.
With no warning the “narrative” (as such) changes to Sappho-inspired scenes
of nude women lounging around, kissing and caressing. A woman narrator talks
non-stop providing poetic insight into these goings on. Finally Findlay
shows up again, is chased (in slow-motion) and ritually sacrificed by the
women. In the end he provides a poetic coda to his own death. For half the
film the narration is impossible to make out (the bass is way too high),
but half-way through it seems to fix itself. The continual classical music
(used very appropriately) and “split beaver” shots (not to mention the atrocious
color photography) may scare some people off, but this is in many ways an
amazing movie.
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MS. 45 (1981). Extraordinary
film from Abel Ferrara is by far the best thing he’s ever done, and features
an excellent performance from Zoë Tamerlis as Thana, a mute garment worker
who is raped twice in one day. She kills and dismembers her second attacker,
and this already pathetically shy and lonely woman becomes a gun-toting
paranoid, sensing anything that has to do with sex being tainted with filth.
She takes to the streets, purposefully making herself up as a sex object
and slaughters all the men who come on to her, men that Ferrara delineates
to grotesque stereotypes: a pimp, gang members, a harem seeking Arab. Eventually
as her psychosis begins to take over she strikes out against all men, who
have been reduced, in her mind, to her original attackers. Within the confides
of a Death Wish style exploitation film Ferrara and writer Nicholas
St. John explore his usual themes of urban angst and paranoia in the guise
of a wide-eyed innocent, corrupted and perverted by a world she can never
gain entry to or hope to understand.
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MULTIPLE MANIACS (1970).
The usual John Waters amateur freak show isn’t particularly funny or even
amusing, unless your desire to watch generally venal silliness outweighs
all other factors. Divine runs the “Cavalcade of Perversions” (puke eaters,
gays, pornographers, etc), robbing and murdering random patrons, all the
while having trouble with Mr. David (David Lochary) who’s taken up with
blonde tramp Mary Vivian Pearce and commits “acts” with her. Scenes of Divine
and Mink Stole having lesbian sex in a church and Divine being raped by
a giant lobster are the sort of adolescent things Waters loves to do, “shocking”
his “middle class” oppressors while getting cheap laughs from the people
who actually watch his movies. I’ve never gotten Waters (who seems fairly
amiable and even witty) and the fact that he has gotten blander and progressively
more middle-of-the-road suggests he was never even all that interested in
shocking people.
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MY FATHER IS A HERO
(1995). An action film with a heart, normally would be unendurable, but
here its pulled off with some pinache. Jet Li plays an undercover cop from
Mainland China who’s sent to Hong Kong to trap a twitchy gangster (Yu Rong-Guang,
an excellent fighter, as usual), he leaves behind his dying wife and, ugh,
kung-fu fighting kid (Tse Miu), and ends up going so far undercover that
he ends up being wanted for a robbery! Anita Mui plays a kung-fu fighting
Dirty Harriet cop who agrees to take care of Li’s son when his wife dies.
Since producer/screenwriter Wong Jing wasn’t directing, the lapses into
goofy Wong humor are at an extreme minimum, with the emphasis on action,
a Yuen Kwai trademark, of course, and even the dramatic parts aren’t too
vomit inducing, all the more surprising since most of the actors aren’t
exactly dramatic stars (save Anita Mui and Damien Lau). Of special note
is the shootout in a totally glass restaurant.
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