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"Bad Lieutenant", from
Johnny Web
Keitel plays a bad cop,
a really bad cop, who is a lost soul. What vices
are there? He has them. He's cold to his family,
sexually exploits hookers, takes dope from
dealers instead of arresting them, shakes down
criminals and lets them go, plays peeping tom
with a nun, sexually exploits young girls that he
stops for traffic violations, gambles, cheats the
gamblers, uses crack, mainlines heroin, drinks
constantly, is a racist, and calls Christ a
"ratfuck" in Church. Does that about
cover it?
SPOILERS AHEAD: He
simply can't grasp that a nun, raped violently on
the church altar, won't identify her assailants,
although she definitely knows them. She
understands their pain. She has forgiven them.
Can this corrupted man find a piece of his soul
in the heart of the nun? I don't know, but in an
ambiguous ending, Keitel figures out who did it,
and instead of roughing them up or turning them
in, he puts them safely on a bus out of town and
tells them they're dead if they return. Then he
sits in his car where the gamblers kill him for
his outrageous debts.
Sound like your kind of
movie? Personally, I hate it.
- If I were a cop who
cuts corners, I would have found a way to
make the frigging nun understand that
whether she forgives them is not material
to whether she should turn them in. I
would have taken her to the morgue and
shown her a dead 12 year old girl and
told her that the girl was brutally raped
and killed by the same guys, and that the
nun could have prevented it by turning
the guys right in. And that they left
behind a note saying they plan to rape
and torture a virgin every day. And then
I would have said, "do you know who
raped and killed that girl? Not those
deranged monsters who have no control
over their impulses, sister, but you. You
did this to her by leaving them on the
streets. You may forgive them, sister,
but this little girl's parents aren't
ready to forgive you". To maker it
even worse, I would have told the coroner
to cut off the kid's head before I
arrived. And then, for emphasis, I would
stress that the upcoming crimes would
come in the neighborhood where the nun's
nieces and little sisters live, and play
with their puppies in the streets. It
would have all been lies on my part, but
completely in character for the Keitel
cop, and she'd have sung like a friggin
canary.
- Talk about slow
pacing. This movie is only 96 minutes
long, and could be cut by another 20
minutes without losing anything. There
must be 10 full minutes of explicitly
detailed drug use, and Keitel nodding off
after using them. If you don't know how
to use the latest drugs (well, in 1992,
anyway), here's where you can get some
tips. These scenes drag on and on and on
pointlessly. If nodding off is your
favorite spectator sport, this is your
superbowl. I drifted off to sleep a
couple times watching this.
- Yes, Keitel's
performance is as good as they have said.
But so what? You going to watch a movie
to see a demonstration of acting
technique? Yes, the action has the gritty
feel of complete realism, like one of
those real-life cop shows. Give director
Abel Herrera an A for technique, but
watch something else.
- Beautiful, well-lit
nude of Frankie Thorn (#1)
Victoria Bastell (1,
2)
Frankie Thorn (1,
2)
"The
Demoniaques", from Johnny Web
One more thing to say
about this movie. In general it isn't good for
many laughs. The acting style is so completely
over the top that if that Bunny guy from Plan 9
were in it, he'd seem to be as restrained as John
Houseman in comparison. But you can't really
laugh at it since it's all basically rape and
violence and masturbating during the rape and
violence.
But there is one
exception. The opening credits are some of the
best ever. Each major character is introduced in
turn, and their faces are shown within a circle,
over a fiery background, while the announcer goes
way over the top in describing them, like the guy
who used to announce the old Batman TV show.
While their faces are on the screen, they mug,
shift their eyes, fidget, twirl their moustaches,
and generally do so much melodramatic high school
"evil acting", that they make Eli
Wallach in the "Good the Bad and the
Ugly" seem in comparison to be as calm as a
Buddhist Monk in serene meditation. And let me
apologize here to any high school thespians,
because I know you wouldn't be as corny as these
people if your drama teacher asked you to act
evil.
Lieva Lone and Patricia
Hermenier (no idea which is which) (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10)
"The
Killing of Sister George", from Tuna
Tuna's comments: The
Killing of Sister George (1968) is the story of
an aging, alcoholic lesbian soap opera star, and
the young women lover she lives with (Susannah
York). Sister George (Beryl Reid) fears that she
is being written out of the soap she has been in
forever. This sends her even more over the edge,
and she takes it out on her lover Childie (York).
The lesbian content including a sex scene with
breast play was pretty daring for 1986. There are
some funny moments, but the film drags in parts
as well. At the end, I had no sympathy for any of
the characters. I suppose it does provide an
accurate picture of jealousy and back-stabbing in
the Soaps. The DVD quality is not especially
good, with lots of dropout and no special
features at all. The last few images have
see-through only.
thumbnails
Susannah York (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
"The
Little Shop of Horrors", from Tuna
Tuna's comments: I remembered the award
winning music and the incredible special effects
with the Audrey2, but had forgotten about the
supporting cast, which included Steve Martin as
the sadistic dentist, John Candy, Bill Murray and
James Belushi. This film is a total delight, and
the DVD does it justice. In one of the special
features, I learned that they originally had the
traditional ending where Audrey and Seymore were
eaten by the plant, but the test audiences were
so attached to the two characters by the end of
the film that they nearly lynched the director
for killing them -- hence the happy ending..
Cleavage only from Ellen Greene. The plant is
naked.
thumbnails
Ellen Greene (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11)
Audrey
II
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