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"Love, Etc", from Tuna
Tuna's comments:
"This is a lovely little French film.
Charlotte Gainsbourg is superb as a woman who
meets a man through a personals ad, falls in
love, and marries him. Problem is his best
friend, who can't believe his unsophisticated
buddy managed to meet and pursue a woman that
interesting and attractive. The best friend makes
a play for Marie (Gainsbourg) and a very poignant
set of problems ensue."
thumbnails Gainsbourg (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9)
Tuna's comments on
yesterday's cinema classic: "The Dirty Seven
is a terrible film, and a terrible DVD transfer
(looks like they digitized a second generation
VHS) about a group of mercenaries who go on a
rampage of rape and murder. The sister of one of
their victims gets revenge. The location (Cyprus)
is not very photogenic, and the acting (especialy
the drunk/rape/murder scenes) is over the
top."
"The
King of Marvin Gardens", from Johnny Web
This one has been
largely forgotten, despite the presence of Jack
Nicholson. This was a re-teaming of the group
from "Five Easy Pieces", and you will
easily spot the similarities in tone. Jack
Nicholson is a late-night radio monologist,
spinning heart-warming material for insomniacs,
laboring for a bit above minimum wage. His
brother (Bruce Dern) is a dreamer, a very low
level mob guy who dreams of opening up a casino
and resort on his own island in Hawaii. The shy
and scholarly Nicholson somehow gets enmeshed in
his brother's web.
Spectacularly
photographed movie. Cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs
did such respected films as "New York, New
York", "Frances",
"Mask", and "Ghostbusters",
and he did a great job at evoking the lost glory,
decadence, emptiness, and desperation of
pre-gambling Atlantic City in the wintertime. For
you foreigners, Atlantic City has had a great
renaissance in the past two decades, and was a
great resort in the 1920's and 30's. However,
from the end of the war until the legalization of
gambling, it just kept getting seedier and more
run-down. If for no other reason, you should see
this movie just to see the marvelous evocation of
that epoch of decay. The best view of the city
comes in a sweeping panorama when Dern and
Nicholson hold a standing conversation in a
closed sky ride, a scene which serves as a
tribute to the genius of the classic film, The
Third Man.
Perhaps the most
interesting aspect of the movie is that Nicholson
and Dern switched roles just before shooting
started, and Nicholson got to play the
soft-spoken nerd instead of the high rolling
dreamer. Although he did OK in the role, there
are times when you really wish he would show some
of his usual spark.
The Dern character lives
with two women, a stepmother/stepdaughter who are
essentially classy hookers. In the original
script, Nicholson was supposed to end up with the
stepdaughter, beautiful screen newcomer Julia Ann
Robinson. (The imdb lists her as "Julie
Anne" Robinson). As the filming progressed,
everyone realized that there was no chemistry at
all between Nicholson and Robinson, and the
screenwriter kept reducing the significance of
her role. She did have a couple of scenes that
were pretty stiff and rough around the edges, but
she was so ethereally gorgeous that I didn't pay
that much attention to it. I guess she pissed off
the wrong guy, because she never worked in
another movie in her lifetime, so her entire
career consists of a starring role opposite Jack
Nicholson! She disappeared without a trace, and
some years later died in a tragic fire. She sure
looked great with her top off in that squirt gun
scene.
The other nudity
featured the very ample chest of 40 year old
Ellen Burstyn. Of course, there really aren't any
nudes of Burstyn as a young woman. Burstyn, who
won one Oscar and was nominated for four others,
never made a movie at all until she was 37. She
worked as a model, and then as one of the
high-kicking Rockette-cum-Busby-Berkley hoofers
called the June Taylor Dancers. You probably
remember them from the famous overhead cam shots
on the old Jackie Gleason variety programs. She
then worked as a stage actress for a decade or
so, with an occasional TV guest appearance until
she caught a break and Bogdanovich cast her in
The Last Picture Show. She's nearly 70 now, but
still working steadily.
Although I liked the
film, I don't especially recommend it except for
the marvelous visuals. It is a noble effort at
creating a big-budget American movie in the
European fashion, concentrating on character
development rather than action. If you're really
a film buff, you'll have to rent the DVD because
it is a marvelous transfer of Kovacs' work. If
your tastes are more mainstream, you'll find it
talky and disjointed. The relationship of certain
scenes to the main plot development is very
unclear, some are just pure atmosphere, and the
scenes jump from one to another without clear
transitions, so you have to fill in a lot with
your imagination. Still, I enjoyed the total
package, and consider it somewhere between a
highly-flawed masterpiece and a noble failure,
both of which are OK by me. Ellen Burstyn (1,
2)
"Julia Ann" or "Julie Anne"
Robinson (1,
2)
"Swann
in Love", from GR
Another movie with that
wacky comic genius, Jeremy Irons.
This is a multi-lingual
Volker Schloendorff (The Tin Drum) film of part
of Proust's ponderous masterpiece
"Remembrance of Things Past". It takes
place, of course, in fin de siecle Paris, where
Big Jer is a mover and shaker and the usual
phony-baloney Count or something. He runs into a
bit of a problem when he falls in love with a
low-born courtesan and has to choose between his
wealthy and powerful place in society or his
beloved slut. Unfortunately, a wrong choice could
result in neither because the love interest
doesn't seem to love him back, and continues her
promiscuous ways. This results in plenty of
opportunities for society to ridicule him, and
for Irons to deliver many anguished facial
expressions, as is his wont.
The movie is currently
unavailable. I would love to see it on DVD if for
no other reasons than (1) the cinematographer is
my favorite, Sven Nykvist (2) one of the things
he gets to photograph is the magnificent Ornella
Muti
Ornella Muti
Bimbos and
rants from Stone Cold
Yo, Scoop. Here's da goods from the latest
issue of Dead Women, which must be what Femme
Fatales mean in English, even though I don't
parlez no French, since I'm not planning to visit
any of the brothers in Haiti soon, or listen to
any songs from Johnny Depp suga.
Most of this she-it about something called
Zorrita, which is like Zorro with tits. Zorro
lady be wearin that cape, but no shirt under
there, so them guns flop out for our viewing
enjoyment. I gotta think that them big floppy
plastic guns ain't so good for swordplay, since
they make a pretty easy target for doing any of
that Errol Flynn she-it. On the other hand, they
useful for the love sword.
Kinda hard for me to relate. You don't see
many swordfightin brothas. Walkin down the
streets, I see brothas with lotta different
protection, but never with a sword. Of course, a
sword kinda hard to conceal in the first place. I
mean you can't really hide the fact that you
packin an epee. Second, sword action require some
fancy rappin in a different rhythm, hear me?
Kinda rare to hear one of the bros say "en
garde, foul blackguard" or any of that
mofo'n Basil Rathbone shit. Now if I was gonna
get a sword, it won't be one of them little
needledick fencing swords like the crackas use at
the mofo'n Sorbonne. It be one big fat mofo like
Conan use to kill them snake gods an shit. If you
carry around some mofo'n phallic symbol, you got
to have one that symbolize you proper. Maybe if
you get in a duel with some monocle-wearin' mofo
visiting from Heidelberg, he kill your ass with
his precision strokes, but at least you die with
a big dick.
Shauna
O'Brien in Zorrita Shauna in
public, with the weapons unconcealed Shauna in
full Zorrita uniform Kara
Styler's behind Kara
Styler's guns, covered some by her hands, but
still plenty left to look at Venessa
Blair in see-through lingerie Venessa
Blair in the Zorrita uniform Dani Leon Laurie
Wallace at the grave of Edgar Allen Poe
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