Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro direct Dominique Pinon, Jean-Claude Dreyfus and Marie-Laure Dougnac in this post-apocalyptic romantic comedy where the quirky residents of a Parisian apartment building await the latest janitor to be murdered and served up as their weekly sustenance.
An eye-popping mash-up of Gilliam-esque excess and Chaplin inspired slapstick. It loses the plot by the end but that ensemble manages to be more ornate and garish than the impressive fantasy production design. Cannibalism, suicide and troglodytes abound but its pure heart is always reassuringly in the right place. A unique treat for visualists and vegetarians.
Peter Watkins directs Katherine Quittner, Carmen Argenziano and Gladys Golden in the mockumentary about the US government sanctioned torture and murder of dissidents in a desert assault course.
Don’t ever choose Punishment Park! Yet that’s the choice for the draft dodgers, folk singers, social activists, drop outs, pacifists and Black Panthers in Peter Watkins’ gruelling but unsensational vision of American fascism. It is a fantasy, an alternative US, 1971 in a different reality. It could be the start of the timeline we follow in Alan Moore’s Watchmen where Watergate had no effect, Vietnam was a “success” and Nixon enjoyed a perpetual presidency. But is this Land of the Free under the thrall of background fascism so much more different than how the conservative majority dealt with the youth who didn’t play ball, spoke out and fought back? Is it too strong of an embellishment after the National Guard opened fired on student campuses indiscriminately, the kangaroo courts of Bobby Seale and Abbie Hoffman, and those hippies forced into having their buzz cuts by thugs outside Disneyworld? Punishment Park explores, references and recreates all these true life injustices finessing them into a nightmarish escalation. We follow two groups: one almost voiceless and nameless enduring the desert. The other – the next batch being processed and trialed before given their options. The accused enter a tent, are given a pointless chance to defend their politics (the improvised testimonies are sensitive and compelling) to a jeering, uncaring panel. And then they are given that choice… a life sentence in a penitentiary or a two day challenge to complete a punishment park. A futile trek through an arid desert, pursued by cops who will violently detain you. If you somehow outrun them, survive, reach the flag (the America they are seen as rejecting) then you no longer have to serve the prison sentence. But the cops and soldiers aren’t dehydrated, have vehicles, weapons, shelter… of course they are going to catch you. And with your one chance at freedom cruelly snatched from you, of course you are going to resist or run… allowing the pigs carte blanche to deal with you violently. A cunt’s trick. A cruel con. But isn’t that the American Dream summed up? You can get there if you strive hard enough, only those protected by the state stand between you and your freedoms… Freedom is always tantalisingly out of reach. Makes The Hunger Games and Battle Royale seem like juvenile cartoons in its grim, didactic and queerly mundane persuasiveness. The movie ends with the few survivors being carted off to the prison sentence they strove to avoid, and the next batch leaving the last vestiges of society to face the same dehumanisation. The international documentary crew stands helpless, like us, they feel complicit.
John Waters directs Divine, David Lochary and Mary Vivian Pearce in this independent black comedy about a juvenile delinquent’s journey from single teen mother to the electric chair.
The first half is ribald and hilarious, the second half quite grim if you were to take it seriously. Don’t. Mink Stole steals the film as the bratty daughter. The highlight is probably a disfigured Divine vamping it along a busy pedestrian street and the real Baltimore people just blithely going about their day around her.
Eugène Lourié directs Paul Christian, Paula Raymond and Cecil Kellaway in this monster on the rampage movie.
We went to the Scottish Museum of Modern Art’s excellent Ray Harryhausen exhibition last weekend so it only seemed right we should watch one of of his special effects classics. A solid progenitor of Godzilla, this proves pretty standard sci-fi stuff until those final twenty minutes when a stop motion giant lizard is non-stop rollicking through New York. Lee Van Cleef pops up in the rollercoaster finale as the best sniper shot on the force.
Roger Donaldson directs Tom Cruise, Bryan Brown and Elisabeth Shue in this romance drama about a young bartender with a dream.
“When he pours, he reigns!” Like watching five years of a soap opera on fast forward, this never lays out why we should care about the dreams and desires of its wannabe yuppie himbo. The script just tragically assumes we share the hero’s juvenile values and dead eyed drive. It is so in love with Cruise’s pretty yet gormless bartender it never stops to consider how surreal the constant adulation reads to uncommitted eyes. The sad fact is a lot of the drink slinging and flair moves look nervous and cautious. Bryan Brown’s jaded guru flits in and out of the narrative… by the second act you wish we were following him and his hard earned bullshit rather than the callow youth. Hard to decipher what the entertainment value ever was here unless you are jonesing for Eighties cheese.
Billy Wilder directs Tom Ewell, Marilyn Monroe and Evelyn Keyes in this farce where a put upon book editor fantasises about the hottie upstairs while his family is away on holiday.
Dated sexual mores, toothless transgressions and a damp lead mean this handsomely filmed stage adaptation fails to live up to its classic status. Marilyn looks like a dream and lands the laughs, her overspilling sexuality and childlike innocence make her a difficult goddess to get a grip on. She makes the film, it crumbles whenever she is off screen, which is too often. Like watching one of those early Bugs Bunny cartoons where Porky Pig dominates.
Kim Ki-duk directs Jung-woo Ha, Ji-Yeon Park and Jun-yeong Jang in this disturbed Korean romance mystery where a jealous girlfriend ghosts her lover, gets identity altering plastic surgery and stalks him.
Even though I enjoyed every film of his I caught back in the day, I hadn’t really checked in with Kim Ki-duk since Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter… And Spring. It is fair to say that he continued to release extreme Asian cinema up until his death from COVID but was also under scrutiny over continued allegations of abuse and rape threats to his female cast members. Strangely, like Polanski, his works often have a misogynistic tone so it doesn’t really diminish their power to discover the man himself might have had violent lusts, a disregard for consent and a warped idea of gender equality. This unsettling little chiller is genuinely unnerving, with a strong visual sense despite its flat digital cinematography. If you’ve enjoyed films like Last Year at Marienbad, Seconds or Abre Los Ojos then this could well be up your alley. Time certainly caught me off guard with its obsessive twists and turns.
Martin Scorsese directs Leonard DiCaprio, Jonah Hill and Margot Robbie in this black comedy biopic about the scumbag who manipulated the already corrupt and deregulated stock market to the criminal limit.
Goodfellas, only about the real criminals. The excess and abandon is hypnotic and hilarious but Jordan Belfort’s downfall lacks the emotional sophistication of Henry Hill’s. Across the board, this is amazingly well cast and acted. A scabrous epic. “Gotta pump those numbers up. Those are rookie numbers in this racket. I myself, I jerk off at least twice a day.”
Ivan Reitman directs Harrison Ford, Anne Heche and David Schwimmer in this romantic adventure comedy where a grizzled pilot and an uptight city girl find themselves stranded on a desert island.
Admirable in its attempt to make a bright and breezy respin on The African Queen and Romancing the Stone. Ford is openly eyeing up what to do with his marquee cache when the running and punching inevitably becomes a less attractive option, Anne Heche is expressive and slightly grating in a tailor made breakout role. They just don’t gel… the sitcom relationships feel uncinematic, the humour lacks bites and you are left squinting at the luminescent production design hoping the bolted-on action won’t mar the view of the tropical locations. Lavishly forgettable.
Radley Metzger directs Constance Money, Jamie Gillis and Gloria Leonard in this classic porno where a sex expert trains up an uncouth prostitute.
One the more celebrated adult movies of “The Golden Age”. Critically tolerated in its day. Even Ebert covered it with an open mind. It has the decent production values of a well budgeted independent movie, rhythmic cross cutting, globetrotting location shoots and a kinky spin on the plot of Pygmalion. It is definitely a lot less grimier than any of its peers I’ve explored (Deep Throat, I’m pointing but certainly not looking at you.) The performers can act, have characters, look movie star attractive. Cute Constance Money could easily fit between PJ Soles and Jamie Lee Curtis in a decent slasher. Jamie Gillis has an Elliot Gould air about him. The movie has a wit, not up to Woody Allen levels but certainly not sub-Confessions of a Window Cleaner innuendo. At times it feels like an unintentional satire of how difficult it would be to enjoy everyday pleasures if people are allowed to be constantly at it in any setting. Misty Beethoven would make a stronger ‘Couples Movie’ than anything of its stripe I’ve seen so far. There is more dick on display than female nudity, rarely a scene goes by without an average sized cock being unzipped, pumped or sucked. For the first thirty minutes there is no sustained sex set pieces even if there are lots of random instances of fellatio. But the lengthier set pieces do come. They are sensual, well edited , the women often stay half clothed, any emphasis is on genitalia. It isn’t all vanilla sex. An old man in a Napoleon outfit is wanked off, later a handsome man is pegged with a strap-on. Women come out on top in most of the encounters, especially the coda. Compared to mainstream cinema or modern pornography this is still quite wonky, dated and unarousing. Yet it is outstanding in its field for 1976. If you are going to wager your evening on anything from this sub genre, this has to be the most appealing bet going. The Opening of Misty Beethoven did not need to try to be this competent to make money, so I’ve given it an above average score for purely that reason.
