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Love & Consequences
Film clips of Joan
Severance in Love and Consequences. I didn't realize that Severance,
always a favorite here when she was in her prime, was still doing these erotic
thrillers. This one has the most important earmark of a truly low-grade
B-movie - Corbin Bernsen!
This film comes to DVD Tuesday, so I'll do a review and some collages when
I have the DVD in my hands. In the meantime, here are a few raw screen grabs
from these third-party film clips, just to whet your appetite. The big girl is
nearly 50 years old now (how can that be?), but still looks great.
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* Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe).
* White asterisk:
expanded format.
*
Blue asterisk: not mine.
No asterisk: it probably
sucks.
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OTHER CRAP:
Catch the deluxe
version of Other Crap in real time, with all the bells and whistles,
here.
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Sweet Movie
Sweet Movie (1974) is a Canadian art film, made by Yugoslav director Dusan
Makavejev after his escape from Yugoslavia, and filmed in Montreal, the city of Quebec, Belgium, Paris,
Amsterdam, and Poland (news footage). Over the years this film has been
notoriously difficult to find. In fact, it is still banned in the UK to this day
because of scenes involving the seduction of minors.
It is essentially two intercut stories, but I can explain better by separating them.
In the secondary thread, a woman (Anna Prucnal) helms a boat through the canals
of Amsterdam with a bust of Marx on the bow. A sailor on a bicycle
from the battleship Potemkin pursues her, as he wants to be her next lover. She
is "revolution" and warns him that her lovers always die. While that is playing
out, controversy occurs when she seduces several young children. Makevejev intercuts German footage of the uncovering of
Polish victims of the Russian purge at Katyn Forest. He contrasts Prucnal's
victims with the dead Polish army.
In the primary plot line, a world beauty contest is held to find the most
beautiful virgin in the world, who will become the bride of a rich Texas oilman
(Dean Wormer!) who is obsessed with cleanliness. Miss Canada (Carole Laure) is the winner. The
couple gets married and helicopters to his home. He undresses, scrubs her with alcohol,
and then shows her his golden penis, whereupon she starts screaming
uncontrollably. Eventually, his overbearing mother sends her packing (literally
packed into a suitcase) where she has adventures with a macho Mexican singer at
the Eiffel Tower, but becomes increasingly withdrawn and mute, and ends up in
the Otto Muehl Troupe commune. It is this section which earned the film's notoriety, as the troupe believes in a kind of therapy where we all get in
touch with our base selves, and have monthly events where they target a member,
and engage in overeating, public defecation and urination, debasement, etc. The film ends with an amazing nude bath in chocolate by Carole Laure.
This is not a film you enjoy as much as one you appreciate, the sort of film
that film scholars hold up as everything good about cinema, but which "everyman"
often regrets spending his money on. It is complex, highly episodic and tough
going for anyone not intimate with Eastern European history. I won't pretend
that I understood every reference, but the digs at US capitalism were pretty
obvious.
Scored as a sociopolitical art film, this is a C+, but has a VERY narrow
audience.
It is newly released on DVD by Criterion, and includes interviews with the
director and a film scholar.
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Notes and collages
Kampf um Rom
Goldfinger's Pussy Galore ...
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El Robobo De La Jojoya
In Spain comedy duos are very common. At any given time there has
always been at least one successful twosome. Martes y Trece (Tuesday and
Thirteen, that's what Spanish people use as a unlucky day, equivalent to
Friday the 13th in America), was the most famous pair in the 80's. In
1991 they shot this movie about two brothers who go to the museum to
steal a diamond. Unfortunately they are not the only ones with the same
idea, and in the confusion they end up with a dead policeman on their
hands. I know this doesn't sound like a comedy but all this is done in a
very ridiculous and slapstick kind of way.
They get caught and go to jail, where they meet an inmate that helps
them escape, and they decide to go back for the diamond, hoping to
fulfill their dream of spending their rest of their lives in Brazil.
They meet the daughter of the helpful inmate (Esther del Prado, who
showed her nice body thanks to the Spanish culture of having nudity even
in movies for kids. God bless Spain), who helps them get into a mall
where the jewel will be exhibited. In the end they take care of the bad
guys, but a crocodile eats the diamond. No problem. They still manage
somehow to get the diamond and end up joyously dancing their lives away
in Brazil.
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The Screwfly Solution
As a long-time Sci-Fi buff, I think the best Sci-Fi is based on
scientific possibilities; something that is at least POSSIBLE
scientifically, even if not likely. This 2006 episode of the great
Showtime series Masters of Horror offers up that proposition. While it's
definitely horror, it's also a heavy dose of Sci-Fi.
Several times, scientists have introduced insects with modified genes
into the insect population to screw with the reproductive cycle,
eradicating the pests. That is scientific fact. Joe Dante's The Screwfly
Solution asks the question: what if someone (non-human, presumably) did
that to us?
Suddenly and without reason, men become very sexually aggressive, and
wind up killing their female target for no reason. The outbreak starts in
the southern part of the globe, around the world, and starts moving
northward. Scientific examination reveals that the men who are infected
have altered genes. In humans, aggression and sexual energy are very
close, and the change causes the men to confuse one with the other. The
infection spreads, and women die by the millions. Unless a cure is found,
humans will disappear, as there will be no women left to reproduce.
Phew! A real scary scenario, made even scarier by the fact that it IS
scientifically possible. An episode not to be missed.
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Kerry Norton |
Sabrina Bryan |
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