Friday

 

Updates: Charlie's French Cinema Nudity site is updated

 

 

Sweet Killing

Tuna reviewed this one a while back and, while I didn't originally intend to cover it, I thought the premise was intriguing, so I picked up a copy.

Here's the deal:

A stodgy middle-management banker has a fairly solid life except that he's stuck with a fat, shrewish, frequently drunken wife. He despises her so much that he fantasizes about killing her. He's a comic book buff and one story in his collection gives him the concept for a perfect murder. He impersonates a fictional client (Mr. Targo) who calls for him at work several times until his supervisor gets upset that Mr. Targo is not being treated properly by the firm, and orders Our Hero to make an appointment with the fictional character. The banker then goes to great lengths to inform everyone at work precisely when he will be visiting with Mr. Targo. While he is in "Targo's neighborhood," he stops often to ask directions making sure to make silly errors so people will remember him, meanwhile doubling back to sneak into his home and kill his wife brutally, all while wearing a protective covering to prevent any blood contamination. He showers, places the same clothing back on, then sneaks back out and resumes his search for Targo, eventually landing in an apartment building and knocking on a random door asking for Targo and claiming to be confused. He manages to get inside the apartment to use a phone, calls home in front of the apartment owner, and finds nobody there, even though he is "sure" his wife is home. He calls his neighbor and asks him to check on the wife and ... is shocked to find she has been brutally murdered!

The banker's life becomes perfect. His alibi is air-tight. People saw him leave before the time of death; people saw him all along the way; people saw him return after the time of death - in the same clothes. His supervisor actually talked to Targo and ordered our guy to arrange the appointment. On top of everything else, the woman in "Targo's apartment" is a stone cold fox who becomes his new lover. Everything is hunky-dory except for a bulldog police detective (Michael Ironside) who doesn't believe Targo exists, but the policeman is ordered off the case by his captain and told to work on something sensible. The captain closes the case. Our hero has gotten away with murder.

Until ....

One day, while our man is at home by himself, there's a knock on the door. Who could the sinister man in the leather hat be? Why, it's none other than the fictional Targo! (F. Murray Abraham) To make matters more complex, Targo seems to know almost everything about the murder.

What's that all about?

I know it seems that I have "spoiled" the film, but I have not in the least. What I have revealed is merely the set-up, and I can't tell you one more blessed thing because ... well, that's the whole fun of a film like this, isn't it?

Surprisingly, this case is (very loosely) based on a real and once-famous case in the U.K.: the 1931 murder of Julia Wallace in Liverpool.

William Wallace was an insurance agent who attended a meeting at his chess club one evening where he was handed a telephone message to call on a prospective client at an address in Menlove Gardens East the following evening. The caller, Mr. "Qualtrough," had called just a few minutes before Wallace's arrival at the club. Wallace took a tram to the appointment, only to discover that there was no Menlove Gardens East. Wallace talked to people frequently along the way: to the tram operator, to a newsagent, and to a beat cop. He returned home to find his wife Julia beaten to death in her sitting room.

The police found that the phone box used by "Qualtrough" to make his call to the chess club was just a few hundred yards from Wallace's home. They were also convinced that it would have been just barely possible for Wallace to have killed his wife before leaving and still have had time to arrive at the spot where he boarded his tram. Wallace was found guilty and sentenced to death, but the verdict was reversed upon appeal. Wallace wasn't around long to enjoy his exoneration. His health was poor and he died in 1933. The case remains unsolved, and Qualtrough's identity was never determined.

This case from the 1930s was made into a novel in the 1960s before it became a film in the 1990s. The novel, Angus Hall's "Deathday," was a fictional story loosely based on the Wallace case, with "Qualtrough" developed into a fully-defined character. The link in the previous sentence spoils the book, but not the movie. Although the movie is based on the novel and has many things in common with it, it also changed many key details, including Qualtrough's name and his secret. At first, I thought the film would have the same explanation as the novel, with Qualtrough/Targo turning out to be an alter-ego, Tyler Durden style, caused by the murderer's guilt, but that did not turn out to be the case. Furthermore, Targo's identity is not as important to the movie as it seems to be to the book. Even after Targo's secret is revealed, the film still has more surprises and quite a coy and crafty ending.

It's a movie with many strengths and weaknesses. On the positive side, there is the great premise, Leslie Hope's beauty, lots of entertaining plot twists, some humor, and the off-kilter performance of Salieri as Targo. On the negative side there is some very stilted unnatural dialogue, some uneconomical plotting filled with unnecessary details, some errors in judgment about the appropriate use of humor, and some very bad acting by everyone except the four main characters. I also found the film very aloof and difficult to relate to because there are no sympathetic characters. The murdered wife was seen through the eyes of a man who despised her enough to kill her. The police detective, who should invoke some sympathy from us in his quest for justice, is an cold, ruthless and priggish ass. The wife-killer, in addition to being a sociopath, is a total pussy who spends most of the movie whining about something. The new girlfriend has some kind of split personality and keeps turning hot and cold in her relationship with the killer - sometimes for good reason, but at other times just because she seems to have some "issues," as they say. The only character who is consistently interesting is Targo, but he's certainly not someone to root for, even when he turns out to be real. If it had been my call, I would have made both the killer and the detective sympathetic, and would have cast them with the most clean-cut and appealing actors possible, guys like Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart.

Speaking of The Black Dahlia, this movie would be a great candidate for a remake by somebody like Brian de Palma, who could apply the money and talent necessary to make in professional through and through, which is what it lacked to be a really terrific movie.

I'm not sure what happened to Eddie Matalon, the director of this film. Just a few months after he made Sweet Killing his IMDB credits stop. He is not considered deceased. (???)

Here's a film clip of the Leslie Hope sex scene, which was nice, but short, and could have used some light bulbs.

Find Tuna's caps in the edition of last September 16th.

 

 

* Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe).

* White asterisk: expanded format.

* Blue asterisk: not mine.

No asterisk: it probably sucks.

OTHER CRAP:

Catch the deluxe version of Other Crap in real time, with all the bells and whistles, here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dark Ride

Dark Ride (2006) is a teen slasher offering set in the "Dark Ride," or funhouse of an amusement park, supposedly Asbury Park, New Jersey.

Years before the main action, twin Catholic School girls were killed on the ride. Upon further investigation, several other bodies were discovered. The perpetrator was confined to a hospital for the criminally insane.

Cut to the present, and a group of college friends are headed for New Orleans for Spring Break, but decide to spend a night in "Dark House," which is to be reopened, saving the cost of a motel room for one night, and having a little fun in the process. They pick up hitchhiker Andrea Bogart, and break into the ride.

Naturally, the imprisoned killer picks that very day to escape and return to the ride.

The nudity and the most original idea are in the same scene. Andrea Bogart, topless, is giving a blow job to one of the characters when the killer cuts her head off. The guy raises her head up after climax, and there is no longer a body attached.

Apart from that one moment, there is nothing new here. All the genre requirements are present, and some of the photography is especially nice, but I didn't find it scary or gross at all. On the other hand, I have seen so many such films I am probably immune to them now.

This is a C-.

  • IMDb readers say 4.9.
  • The film played in one festival, and is now available on video.
Andrea Bogart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


The Curse of the Komodo

A little change of pace today after doing all the Sharon Kelly stuff.  Here's caps and three clips of buxom Glori-Anne Gilbert taking a dip in a really bad movie, The Curse of the Komodo. This is the highlight  of the movie.

 

 

 

 

 

El Cortez

The main thing to remember when watching this 2006 drama/thriller: have patience. The first half is very methodical and slow-paced, but the overall result is a cool story with a definitely twisty ending.

An autistic hotel clerk, being medicated for a violent past, tries his best to live a normal life while dealing with the various inhabitants of the El Cortez, a second-rate hotel populated by various weird characters. He takes a cautious liking to the girlfriend of a small-time drug dealer while also getting involved with a cripple who claims to own a gold mine, meanwhile being hounded by a cop who is aware of his past, and wants him to inform on the dealer. The pace picks up quickly in the second half as all these characters are drawn together into an unlikely finish.

Good acting and a really cool ending make this worth sitting through the draggy first half.

 

Tracy Mittendorf

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bounty Hunters

Daniel "Jersey" Bellini (Michael Dudikoff, who looks like he had fun with this part) is a bounty hunter, and a good one. Despite a paranoid streak that leads him to place numerous booby traps in his house, he seems a well-adjusted fellow, and has befriended the young boy next door.

His relationship with B.B. (Lisa Howard) isn't quite so friendly; they both work for the same bail bondsman and compete for the same fugitives for their livings, which ended a prior off-screen relationship. When both of them are set after the same slimy car thief who has jumped bail, things get out of hand. It seems the last car he stole had a woman in the trunk (Erin Fitzgerald); a woman on her way to be killed because she witnessed a mob-related killing. The car thief gets away, but the two bounty hunters find the girl, and now have to protect her from the mob.

This is a fun little B action movie, not bad. This caps are from the full screen version of the film because I think there is more nudity visible

 

Erin Fitzgerald

Shonna Baxter

Lisa Howard

 

 

 

 

 

Notes and collages

"Farscape" - Part 18

Season 3, Eps  17-19

Tammy MacIntosh, S3, E18

Tammy MacIntosh, S3, E19

Gigi Edgley, S3, E18

Claudia Black, S3, E17

Claudia Black, S3, E18

Claudia Black, S3, E19

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heaven's Prisoners


 

 

Connie Whittemore

 

 

Kelly Lynch

 

 

Teri Hatcher

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kicking it off with some from the L Word's last two episodes

Simone Bailly and Daniela Sea in Episode 11 of season four, sample right

Then Katherine Moennig and Kristanna Loken in Episode 12, samples right
Jenna Harrison in Cambridge Spies
 

Pat's comments in yellow...



Bad news for Jewish pot heads: marijuana is not kosher.  An Israeli pro-cannabis group called the Green Leaf Party announced that cannabis products have been categorized by rabbis into the same family as peas, beans and lentils, which Jews of European descent cannot consume during Passover. The Party said people will have to forego pot and make do with approved items such as matzos, or unleavened bread.

*  But Jews spend Passover with their families, so it's when they need pot the most!




In a new frontier of clean air rights, Canada's National Post reports that a buxom brunette from Ottawa was kicked off a bus on two
separate days because the driver complained that her perfume was so powerful, it was interfering with his ability to operate the bus.  She claims she was humiliated and got off in tears, and that she was
wearing only her standard two squirts of Givenchy's "Very Irresistible," which is advertised as bringing out a woman's spontaneity, audacity and sensuality. When she complained to transit officials, they told her to sit in the back of the bus, next to an open window.  She said, "I felt like a modern-day Rosa Parks."

*  You know you need a different perfume when people prefer the smell of a bus.

 



Scientists say that due to global warming, a deadly species of tiny jellyfish is spreading along Australia's coastline, and it caused shooting to shut down on a movie with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson.

* The Republicans are right: there are benefits to global warming.


 

On this day in 1936, Adolf Hitler got 98.8 percent of the vote in Germany's national election.

* The Rest Voted For Sanjaya


*  Actually, it would've been 100 percent, but some people in south Germany voted for Pat Buchanan by mistake.