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Shoot 'em Up
I screwed this link up yesterday. The film clip of
Ramona Pringle
Hostel, Part II
This was Eli Roth's darker, nastier sequel to Hostel. It was in theaters this
June. I think I've made it clear in the past that I just don't like torture
porn, so it really isn't fair for me to review this kind of movie. The Rotten
Tomatoes score is 49%, with a nice even 50% from the major critics, which
indicates that a lot of people were impressed. There were even some conservative
mainstream critics who gave it a thumb up, like Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment
Weekly. I'm just blind to the film's merits. If it combined the technical savvy
of Sin City with the innovation of Citizen Kane, I'd still find it hard to
recommend a film which turns my stomach. I think you can assume from the
critical response that Eli did an outstanding job of evoking the responses he
sought. It's one of those films which is very effective, and many of us wish it
were not.
The film's opening did, thankfully, herald the death of the torture porn genre.
It was given wide distribution on a summer weekend, and was expected to pull in
mid-teens that weekend, and about $50 million for its overall run. It opened in
a weak sixth place and stopped at about one third of the predicted fifty.
At any rate,
I can't review even if I want to because I just fast-forwarded to the nudity. Even that was mostly unpleasant. 99% of the
nudity is a naked older woman draining the blood from a naked virgin so she can
bathe in it. It is yet another version of the legend of Countess Elizabeth Bathory. (The
woman taking the blood bath is called "Mrs. Bathory.")
It comes to DVD and blu-ray on October 23rd.
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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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Justine de Sade
(1972)
The decade beginning in 1969 was the golden age of de Sade films. Justine de Sade is a French telling of
Justine, one of the two
stories that got de Sade jailed. The theme of Justine is one of
de Sade's fundamental tenets, that virtue will always be punished. The idea is
also expressed that nature intended men to abuse women, or women
wouldn't have been designed to be inferior and weaker. Jess Franco also tackled the same
unpleasant source material in his 1969 Deadly Sanctuary, as did Joe D'Amato in
1975's Justine and the Whip, and Chris Boger in 1977's Cruel Passion.
Even mainstream Hollywood stars like Kier Dullea and John Huston got
in the act in 1969's De Sade, which combined biographical exposition
from the Marquis's life with scenarios from his books, implying that
perhaps they were one and the same.
The film opens with France Verdier entering a whorehouse from a
convent, after being orphaned. The madam agrees to teach her the
ropes, assuring her success in life. Cut to the future, where she is
obviously well off, and stops in a public house. Two guards bring in
Justine (Alice Arno), who is on her way to be executed for crimes she
didn't commit. Verdier gets permission to hear her story. She was
orphaned and left with only modest funds, which soon were gone, and
tried to find honest work. Every place she tried heaped indignity,
sexual excess, and all manor of perversion on her, although she only
wanted to save her virginity and find a decent life.
This nasty bit of film history was released this month in the US by
Blue Underground in the complete uncensored X-rated version dubbed in
English, and with an optional French sound track and English
subtitles. Some of the restored footage has never been seen in an
English-speaking country, so it was remastered from different source
material and is presented only in French with subtitles. The film is a little grainy in parts, but is a reasonable remaster
job for much of the running time.
There is a good deal of confusion on several websites among the
many de Sade films from that Marquis-strewn decade. This one is
probably the best film of the group, and is certainly the most
faithful to the source material. It pulls few of its punches. The
scene that earned the X rating is either a monastery orgy or the scene
where Justine is given communion by having a host inserted in her
rectum and then being sodomized by one of the monks. This reflects the
actual diabolical thought process of the real Marquis de Sade, not the
fictional character presented in Quills. That is both a good and a bad
thing. In the case of a man like the Marquis, realism may be
overrated. The film stopped short of showing enough to sate the true
sadist, but the tone is such that I doubt many will find it erotic.
You aren't human if you don't feel sorry for Justine by the end of the
film.
Grade:
C-
This is classic erotica, but
with a very small audience.
Alice Arno is naked most of the film, and is beaten, bled,
sodomized and otherwise abused beginning to end. France Verdier shows
breasts. Diane Lepvrier shows everything. Several unknowns also show
body parts.
The Banker
I received a very gracious eMail from the author
of this film, and he has provided us with an ID on the unknown who
showed breasts. Her name was Karen Russell, and here are the new
images properly labeled and also available in the Tuna archive.
He pointed out that this film was one of Quentin Tarantino's
favorite films back when he was a video store manager. Also, the THE
VIDEOHOUND'S COMPLETE GUIDE TO CULT FLICKS AND TRASH PICS gave it 3 & 1/2 'bones,' which
is on a par with Blade Runner, Blues Brothers and Blazing Saddles.
This marks the third time I have been fortunate to have contact with
someone involved in a film I was covering, and I must say that all
three times have been very positive experiences. In case you are
wondering, Dana Augustine, the author, went on to a good career
doing commercials based on his work with this film.
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Notes and collages
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Scoop's note: I asked Vejiita to take another look at this film and to
provide some film clips. This is the Latin American version of The Postman
Always Rings Twice. Take a look and imagine what the American version might have been like
if Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange had done the kitchen sex scene like the one
in Cuentos Cortos!
Cuentos Cortos
Luis (Leopoldo Minotti) and Clara (Flavia Marco) are a married couple who own a small highway restaurant. Luis is remodeling the place, and one day he is approach by Claudio (Marcelo Claudio) who is looking for a job, whatever Luis can pay and the food. When
the wife and the drifter meet there is an instant connection and soon enough they are involved.
Luis gets upset when he sees that Claudio is taking much longer to finish the job than expected and
tells him to go away, but the wife tells her young lover that her husband suffers of asthma and
needs his inhaler whenever he gets an attack. Claudio sees this as his
opportunity to get rid of Luis and keep everything.
Film clips of Flavia Marco.
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The Hamiltons
Smokin' Aces (Part 2 of 2)
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The Comedy Wire
Comments in yellow...
Friday, a new Osama bin Laden tape was released, and it was a bit bizarre.
Of course, he denounced President Bush and the war, and urged Americans to
embrace Islam or die, but then he went rambling. He slammed the Democrats for
not ending the war faster, and lectured against capitalism, global warming, and
for some reason, the subprime mortgage crisis. Also, his scraggly, gray beard
was suddenly dark and thick, leading some analysts to wonder if he'd shaved to
disguise himself and put on a fake beard. Or, since the picture froze after 96
seconds and all the recent references were voiceover only, it could be a tape
filmed years ago with someone else's voice dubbed in.
* Maybe he simply dyed his beard dark with "Just For
Terrorists."
Over the weekend, Oprah Winfrey hosted a star-studded fundraiser for Barack
Obama at her palatial California estate, where the rich and famous forked over
about $3 million. It's rumored that Oprah wants to become more involved in
campaigning for Obama to win the primary, even though records show she hasn't
voted in a primary herself since 1988.
* If Obama wins the primary, everyone who voted for him
gets A NEW CAR!!!
An unnamed woman in Florence, Oregon, was charged with arson and burglary after
she allegedly set fire to a neighbor's home because she thought the woman stole
her keys. Police say she broke into the neighbor's trailer, trashed it, used a
stuffed toy and lighter fluid to set it on fire, then dialed 911 and hid in the
bushes. Her boyfriend got a call at work and rushed home to find her barefoot
and incoherent. She finally got out that the neighbor had stolen her keys. He
asked if she meant those keys, and pointed to the keys hanging out of her pants
pocket. She began to cry.
* The good news: when she gets out of jail, she has a job
offer as a writer for "My Name Is Earl."
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