Venus in Furs (1969) – DVD

April 7, 2005Posted in1960s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Blue Underground, DVD, Esoterica, Italy, Thriller, UK, West Germany

Paroxismus
**/**** Image A Sound A Extras A-
starring James Darren, Barbara McNair, Maria Rohm, Klaus Kinski
screenplay by Jess Franco & Malvin Wald
directed by Jess Franco

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Masterpiece is such a relative term. The keepcase for Venus in Furs (a.k.a. Paroxismus) anoints this rough jewel in Jess Franco's crown as "the one fans and critics alike call his masterpiece," but all this means is that next to some of the other films in Franco's dissipated oeuvre, Venus in Furs is comparatively competent, hangs together decently, and won't cause the intense eye-rolling of something like the same year's The Girl from Rio. But though it's slick and watchable, it's still a conceptual mess, combining a blithe pretentiousness with a total inability to suggest cause and effect–not to mention Franco's usual sophomoric sexuality. Or does being propositioned by Dean Martin while on acid count as a masterpiece?

The Last Unicorn (1982) – DVD

April 28, 2004Posted in1980s, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Family, Fantasy, France, Japan, UK, West Germany

*/**** Image D Sound D
screenplay by Peter S. Beagle, based on his novel
directed by Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass

by Walter Chaw Rankin & Bass’ typically sloppy adaptation of Peter S. Beagle’s classic The Last Unicorn (adapted for the screen by Beagle himself) is terribly voiced and animated, even by the ’70s Bakshi/flash-frozen/Saturday-morning conveyor belt standard. The melancholy poetry of Beagle’s novel, rife with dread and the vertiginous feeling of falling into chaos, is notable for its similarity to the big eye, little mouth of traditional anime but falls short of that gold standard in terms of performance and detail. Mouths don’t move, backgrounds are static and recycled, and it doesn’t help that the colours on the print making it to the DVD format look as though they’d been left in the front window for too long.

The Girl from Rio (1969) + Sadomania (1981) – DVDs

March 8, 2004Posted in1960s, 1980s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blue Underground, Crime, Drama, DVD, Spain, Thriller, UK, West Germany, ZERO STARS

Die sieben Männer der Sumuru
*½/**** Image  A- Sound A- Extras A-
starring Shirley Eaton, Richard Wyler, George Sanders, Maria Rohm
screenplay by Peter Welbeck
directed by Jess Franco

Sadomania – Hölle der Lust
Hellhole Women
ZERO STARS/**** Image B+ Sound A- Extras A-
starring Ajita Wilson, Ursula Fellner, Robert Foster, Gina Jansen
screenplay by Jess Franco and Günter Ebert
directed by Jess Franco

by Walter Chaw Theoretically, I'm not opposed to the idea of the exploitation film. In the right hands, its disreputable ingredients of sex, violence, and "shocking" behaviour (the girl and the gun of Godardian legend) could be a thrilling camera subject and a springboard for lush stylistic excess. But for every Russ Meyer, Dario Argento, or Suzuki Seijun who knows his way around a camera, there are scores of Lucio Fulcis, Ruggero Deodatos, and Jess Francos who have no clue as to how to make a movie that hangs together. The latter of that unholy trio is a case in point: the current DVD release of two of his films is an occasion for seeing how far the exploitation formula can go wrong. Running the gamut from ridiculous (The Girl from Rio) to repellent (Sadomania), they lack any real stylistic brio to enliven their rote excesses and cheap perversions, succeeding only as possible subjects for Mystery Science Theatre 3000-style mockery.

The Damned (1969) – DVD

February 27, 2004Posted in1960s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD, Italy, West Germany

La caduta degli dei (Götterdämmerung)
***/**** Image A- Sound A-
starring Dirk Bogarde, Ingrid Thulin, Helmut Griem, Helmut Berger
screenplay by Nicola Badalucco, Enrico Medioli, Luchino Visconti
directed by Luchino Visconti

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover It's hard to know what to think of a film as divided against itself as Luchino Visconti's The Damned. A portrait of corrupted aristocracy during the Nazi era that drags in sensational elements unrelated to its stated subject matter, it feels like a tabloid exposé in that it's more fascinated than critical of what it claims to repudiate. But once you get past the kink factor of jet-black uniforms and transvestite SA gatherings, you see what's really on Visconti's mind: an examination of how the privileged class was headed off at the pass by a fascist movement that rose from the lower orders. It's a weird smash-up between Visconti's class loyalties and his Nazi tormentors, and if their implications don't exactly impress, they make for a fairly absorbing exercise in rise-and-fall horror.

House of 1000 Corpses (2003) + Waxwork/Waxwork II: Lost in Time [Double Feature] – DVD

October 16, 2003Posted in1980s, 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi, UK, West Germany, ZERO STARS

HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES
**/**** Image A Sound A Extras A
starring Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon, Karen Black
written and directed by Rob Zombie

WAXWORK (1988)
*/**** Image D Sound D
starring Zach Galligan, Deborah Foreman, Michelle Johnson, Dana Ashbrook
written and directed by Anthony Hickox

WAXWORK II: LOST IN TIME (1991)
ZERO STARS/**** Image C Sound C
starring Zach Galligan, Alexander Godunov, Monika Schnarre
written and directed by Anthony Hickox

by Walter Chaw Curiously, compulsively watchable in a grindhouse exploitation sort of way, neo-glam shock-rocker Rob Zombie follows in Twisted Sister Dee Snider’s capering footsteps with a derivative flick that mainly goes a long way towards demonstrating how hard it is to make a coherent movie. More Richard Donner’s The Goonies than Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, House of 1000 Corpses is a shoestring series of hyperactive camera movements and disjointed images culled from what seems too many films to count, from Bloodsucking Freaks to Near Dark to Maniac to The Serpent and the Rainbow to Halloween to Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 and so on, with no reason except to demonstrate how many horror movies Zombie has seen. The only thing missing from the picture–besides actual dread–is a helpful annotation so that youngsters intrigued can check out the real deal.

Hot Docs ’03: Driving Me Crazy (1988)

May 2, 2003Posted in1980s, 2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Documentary, Film Festivals, Hot Docs, UK, West Germany
**½/****directed by Nick Broomfield by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Of interest to pupils of documentary--and no one else--is Driving Me Crazy, a film in which Nick Broomfield, for better and for worse, reveals his own machinations on camera and upstages his ostensible subject. Hired by producer friend Andrew Braunsberg to document an Austrian stage production on African-American music, the director shamelessly inserts himself into the scene, recording the financial and political transactions that allow him to continue with his work. In so doing, he antagonizes many who work on the production and doesn't seem to care, concerned only with continuing the…

Das Boot: The Director’s Cut (1981/1997) [Superbit] – DVD

March 19, 2003Posted in1980s, 1990s, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Czech Republic, Drama, DVD, Thriller, War, West Germany

***½/**** Image A Sound A+
starring Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, Klaus Wennemann, Hubertus Bengsch
screenplay by Wolfgang Petersen, based on the novel by Lothar G. Buchheim
directed by Wolfgang Petersen

by Walter Chaw The curious mental state of German submariners in the waning days of the Second World War is reflected in the general malaise of the United States in the weeks following September Eleventh and the hours preceding our unpopular pre-emptive strike against Iraq. Caught in the maddening doldrums between one act of unimaginable violence and its inevitable aftershocks, America’s implacable disquiet is one part anticipation of the inevitable, multiple parts cynicism, and, for a large portion of the population, a dollop of distinct lack of faith in the motives and competency of our leadership. A closer examination of the similarities pithy but perhaps unfruitful, sufficed to say that revisiting Wolfgang Petersen’s masterpiece Das Boot (in its Director’s Cut form) at this suspended moment in time is not only rewarding as great cinema can be, but also current and amazingly poignant.