Change Your Image
Groverdox
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try againReviews
Lord of Illusions (1995)
I couldn't follow it
I wanted to like "Lord of Illusions" more. I love some of Clive Barker's stuff. "Night Breed" is a classic, but you have to watch the director's cut. I watched the DC of "Lord of Illusions", but just didn't get into it. The movie is too confusing. It's the kind of movie where you're trying to work out who everyone is and what they're doing and while you're thinking about that, a bunch of stuff happens and now you're even further behind.
The movie has some good ingredients. I think Scott Bakula was a cool choice for the protagonist. And poor Daniel von Bargen (R. I. P.) as the main bad guy. And Famke Janssen. Not sure about Kevin J. O'Connor as the illusionist, though. He's not charismatic enough.
I also liked the visuals. The special effects look dated now, of course, but I still think they look cool.
I just wish I was able to follow the story.
In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
"I'm not insane, do you hear me? I'm not insane!"
So here's a small classic. I can't believe I had never seen this before. Horror movies, especially decent ones, were pretty light on the ground in the nineties, maybe because there were so many of them in the decade before. Perhaps this is why I hadn't seen it.
In the movie, an insurance agent investigates situations in which people who have read the books of reclusive novelist Sutter Cane begin to go crazy. He discovers that the fictional town used in Cane's stories is actually real, and more and more, his life and the world around him are influenced by Cane's writing, to the extent that he begins to believe he is existing in a story Cane is writing. Cane is god.
This is a classic movie that deserves a cult following. We should expect nothing less from the late John Carpenter, one of the greatest cult directors in history. I thought the idea was really novel and cool, and I appreciated the subtle nods to the great H. P. Lovecraft's work.
Last but not least, the movie features a brilliant performance from Sam Neill. How many horror movies can you think of with great acting?
For that reason, and all the others mentioned, "In the Mouth of Madness" is a small classic that deserves reappraisal.
Furyô anego den: Inoshika Ochô (1973)
Good - well shot, involving, but with a too-obscure plot
Every now and then I start to wonder if my attention span is now so bad that I just can't watch or enjoy a movie anymore. Typically this happens after a string of movies that were supposed to be good but only succeeded in boring me.
Then I discover a movie like "Sex and Fury". This one did not bore me. In fact, it had me engaged from the beginning.
The Japanese seemed to handle their exploitation films like they could have been great art. They're much better shot, and seem to have much better production values, than Western b-movies.
They also sometimes seem to transcend the exploitation label. Even full on gore flicks from Japan, like "Splatter: Naked Blood", feel like more than just an excuse for violence or sex.
"Sex and Fury" is no exception. It does have a fair bit of sex in it, but despite the surprising inclusion of Christina Lindberg, it never feels like sexploitation.
The movie also has some violence, though it's not as graphic as you'd expect for an exploitation flick made in Japan around the time the Lone Wolf & Cub movies were coming out.
The movie never seems to lose its sense of purpose or plot. Unfortunately that leads me to about the only problem I had with the flick, which is that I typically found myself unable to follow the story. I got that it's a revenge tale, not unlike "Lady Snowblood". I was intrigued by the introduction of Western actors, particularly a man who is out to start some kind of opium war to Japan's detriment. I wasn't really sure what Lindberg was doing in the movie, though.
I can't give it ultra high marks for this, but I still say check it out.
Wo hu cang long (2000)
It just never grabbed my attention
Sometimes it seems like I have a sixth sense in regards to the movies I will and won't enjoy. Case in point: movies like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", that I have known about for years, and intended to watch for the same length of time.
I have wanted to watch "Crouching Tiger" since it came out. That's more than twenty years. What took me so long? I think that's where the sixth sense comes in. Perhaps I always knew on some level I wasn't going to enjoy it, which is what kept me away. But how could I possibly have known that?
I'm like the Nostradamus of film.
Anyway, a review (of sorts):
I don't really know what this movie was about. It only got my attention maybe once in its entire length. I read online that it was something about people stealing swords. The only bit I paid attention to was when the beautiful Zhang Ziyi was living with some bandit guy and kept attacking him and spitting on him. That got my attention, maybe because it was smaller in scale than the rest of the movie, so it was easier to focus on it. I don't know.
What was the deal with all the people flying through the air in this movie? There's some wonky wire-fu in Shaw Bros. Flicks but I don't remember the people ever defying gravity like a superhero. I never got used to the sight of people flying. It looked weird, like a special effect in a Jean Cocteau movie.
I also didn't enjoy any of the action sequences. It's pretty much all sword fighting, not kung-fu. Maybe I just don't like sword-fighting scenes in movies. The scenes with that in "A Touch of Zen" didn't interest me either.
The Right Stuff (1983)
An underrated and forgotten classic
At last I've found a movie that'd been on my to-watch list for years that turned out to be pretty good when I actually watched it.
At first I balked at the length, being that it's over three hours long. But I knew early on I was in for the long haul. The movie is consistently entertaining and engaging. Also it has a number of fantastic actors in it, like Ed Harris, Sam Shepherd, Barbara Hershey, Fred Ward, Dennis Quaid, and small roles from Jeff Goldblum and Harry Shearer among others.
The aeronautic footage also still looks impressive. I thought it might be showing its age now, but I found it more interesting than that in the recent Top Gun movie, which I thought was very overrated.
The movie also gives powerful roles to its women characters, without it ever feeling preachy. We see what the test pilots go through and the risks they take, and we also see what this does to their wives.
It sucks that this movie tanked at the box office. It totally deserved to do well.
Xia nü (1971)
Disappointing
"A Touch of Zen" is one of those movies that had been on my to-watch list for years or even decades and for some reason I never got around to it. Well, I just watched it, and I don't know why it always seems like movies that have been on my list for ages never live up to expectations. "Tombstone" didn't, "Das Boot" didn't, and now this hasn't.
The movie got my attention immediately and made me think it was something special because it is so well shot. It also seems to be the only kung fu flick ever made that has gotten serious critical consideration (I believe it was screened at Cannes).
I lost the plot thread pretty early on and didn't know what the movie was about. I was just waiting for it to end. Also, the fight scenes all sucked.
Drive-Away Dolls (2024)
Rare believable lesbian film, often laugh-out-loud funny, with great star turns, though confusingly plotted
While watching "Drive-Away Dolls", I kept thinking about how few lesbian-themed movies there are. Off the top of my head, I can think of "Bound" and "Personal Best", and thinking harder, "Blue is the Warmest Colour" and "My Summer of Love".
This movie feels more authentically lesbian than all of those. When it was over, I was very surprised to see that it was directed by a man, and a famous director, to boot. At least three out of the four movies I named above (possibly all of them) also treat lesbianism as kind of a passing fad, like something one or both of the characters is trying to get it out of their system. "Drive-Away Dolls" might be the most lived in and believable look at same-sex female relationships/lifestyles I've seen yet.
This is funny because the movie is a pretty silly farce in terms of plot. It's something to do with dildos made of casts of male politician's penises?
I didn't really get that part, but I got the sense it didn't matter too much.
What really impresses in the movie, and what I'll remember, is the relationships between the main characters and details of their lives, which just feel "real", and particularly, Margaret Qualley's performance. I thought Qualley was incapable of being in a movie without getting naked, so it's nice to know that's not the case. Here she even has a joyful masturbation scene without showing too much skin.
Qualley is a treasure. Not only beautiful and apparently up for any role, but also extremely talented and a force of nature.
I also really like Beanie Feldstein, and Geraldine Viswanathan is hard not to root for.
I often laughed out loud watching this flick. I suspected Coen-involvement from the colourful small-town characters that come in and out of the movie's road trip story. There's even a pair of goons that includes a big quiet guy and a funny looking little guy who talks a lot (a la "Fargo").
I can't give it full marks, though, because I didn't understand its story too well. It seemed like the plot and the characters were too at odds with each other, like they didn't find a way to make them gel and seem part of the same world. I still say check it out.
Tombstone (1993)
Dum dum dah-dum dum!!! *gunshots ring out*
So I finally watched "Tombstone". It's one of those movies that's been on my list for perhaps decades and I just never got around to it. I finally did, because it really seems to have gathered a cult following long after it came out.
Unfortunately I think that following is undue. I just didn't like it that much. The movie doesn't form a cohesive whole. I thought of that famous Shakespearean phrase, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." There's a lot of gunshots, but no interesting gunfights. I kind of got tired of the sound of gunshots because they seemed thrown in at random. The movie has a romantic subplot that does nothing but provide the movie with a romantic subplot. It adds nothing and feels unnecessary.
And the music. Are you familiar with the term Mickey-Mousing? It's when the soundtrack to a film is overbearing in how much it points out to you the way you're supposed to be feeling at any given moment. Plenty of '90s flicks did that, so it's not only "Tombstone". But I felt it more here. Maybe the musicians were trying to compete with all those bloody gunshots.
What everybody talks about with this movie is Val Kilmer's performance as Doc Holliday, and it's true, it is impressive. It's probably the only thing about this movie I'll remember, truth be told. But the thing is that when a movie has a loaded cast like this one does, and you only ever hear people talk about one actor, that's not a mark in the movie's favour. The big bad here is played by Powers Boothe, a guy so awesome at playing bad guys that he single-handedly elevated a mid-tier Van Damme movie and turned it into something memorable. If he could play one of the best bad guys ever in a "Die Hard"-rip off, what could he do here, surrounded by other professionals?
Well, the answer is, not much, as it turns out. It feels like he's barely in it. The parts with him have so many other characters, so many cuts, so many gunshots, so much headache-inducing music, that it all works to distract you from it.
There is another stand out in the flick aside from Kilmer, though, and that's Michael Biehn. I had never seen him play a bad guy in a movie before, and here, well, does he ever play a bad guy. The character he plays is slimy evil incarnate. The movie should have let him take centre stage.
That's the problem. Not much is allowed to take centre stage here, so it's all chaotic and noisy and uninvolving. The movie has a cast like an epic, and a plot that doesn't justify it. A classic Western would have introduced the most important characters clearly and emphatically, letting you know that they're the ones to pay attention to, and then would have gotten busy with the machinations of the plot, involving you in the lives of the characters. Here, we just get some clichés like the unnecessary romance, and then a lot of music and gunshots, signifying nothing.
Colors (1988)
Too confusing, with too many characters, and a very unlikeable lead in Sean Penn's rookie cop
"Colors" is one of those movies that I caught on TV years ago and couldn't remember much about. I just knew it starred Sean Penn as a horrible, puffed up, P. O. C. Brutalising cop, and Robert Duvall as his more level-headed and streetwise partner. I remembered its theme song, though I didn't know it was produced by the legendary Ice-T. I also remembered Damon Wayans providing some out-of-place comic relief.
It's also one of those movies where everything I remembered about it was also everything memorable about it. The script is just too confusing, too hard to follow, with too many gangsters from too many gangs. If they wanted to make a movie immersed in the gang culture of South (and East) Los Angeles, they shouldn't have used the police characters at all.
The movie has quite a few small roles/cameos given to great character actors like Don Cheadle, Jack Nance, Maria Conchita Alonso, and the Candyman himself, Tony Todd... apparently before he developed that amazing voice. These walk-ons gave me something to do while I slogged through the movie. I needed some kind of plot thread to grasp onto instead of freefalling in this maze of characters and unclear motivations. I don't even really know what the movie was about.
In Too Deep (1999)
Where was Nas?
"In Too Deep" carries with it one revelation: LL Cool J makes a very good bad guy. Like so many rappers I knew he'd dabbled in acting, but mostly I just remember him from small roles in "Deep Blue Sea" and "Halloween H20". It's been so long since I've seen either of those.
Here, LL is the antagonist to Omar Epps' protag, and he gives the movie a much needed source of interest. You see, the movie doesn't have that much to recommend it besides LL and maybe Epps. There are some great character actors in there, like Stanley Tucci, Pam Grier, David Patrick Kelly, Robert LaSardo. They just don't do very much.
As a matter of fact, the movie doesn't do very much. It's pretty forgettable. There are too many characters, but only Epps and LL stand out. The plot is also too obscure. It's unlikely I'll remember anything about it. The only scene that registered showed LL torturing a guy on a pool table, and apparently ramming the cue up his jacksie.
Deep Cover (1992)
Good performances from miscast actors
I think the two leads in "Deep Cover" were miscast. When we first meet Laurence Fishburne's character, he is being described as a guy who is an easy fit for a criminal role in an undercover operation because of many criminal character traits he possesses. I was surprised to hear that being said of a Fishburne character. When did he ever play a bad guy? He's a straight arrow in every movie I've seen him in.
It would have been so much more involving to have him playing a straight arrow here at the beginning of the movie, and show him gradually getting corrupted, and coming close to that, by the criminal acts he is required to commit. As is, his character barely seems to change. Maybe that's the point? It certainly makes it less interesting to watch.
Jeff Goldblum is an actor you either get or you don't. I get him: he's one of the most charismatic screen presences I've ever seen. Here he is kind of restrained, less wisecracking, less of an ironic distance. The whole point of his role - and indeed, the movie - is that you can't keep a distance in the life of drugs, guns and money. I didn't really get his character. Is he supposed to be cut out for the criminal life, or not? Sometimes he seems like a rich kid in over his head, other times he seems like he could be the next drug baron.
Both performances seem off the mark, but they're still good, I guess because Fishburne and Goldblum are heavyweights that are good in anything. And I still liked "Deep Cover", though it's not particularly memorable.
Menace II Society (1993)
A mostly forgotten classic
"Menace II Society" is like the dark side of "Boyz N the Hood". That movie was about a guy from the crime ridden inner city streets of Los Angeles who nevertheless had everything going for him, looks, smarts, charisma, a conscience. There was never any doubt he was going to be a success story, and make it out of there: the proverbial rose that grew from concrete.
"Menace II Society" asks us to regard the kind of young black men who do not make it out, and perhaps that's why this movie isn't as well known or as successful. Caine, the protagonist, is not a bad person, but he's grown up around drugs, crime, guns, and witnessed his first murder in early childhood.
We know, right from the beginning, that this story isn't going to have a happy ending. The first scene is unforgettable for how shocking and confronting it is. Remember Furious Styles, Cuba Gooding Jr.'s dad in "Boyz N the Hood"? He was a strong, proud black man, and "Menace" makes you realise how lucky the protagonist of that film was to have him in his corner. Caine, the protagonist of "Menace II Society", only has a couple of people trying to help him go straight, but the movie makes us see them as the average black teen might. Caine's grandfather constantly quotes the Bible in the kind of voice old men use when they're used to nobody listening to them. Then there's Sharif, Caine's Nation of Islam friend, who just seems like a parody of that religion. None of the other characters take these two seriously.
A far more indelible presence in the movie comes in the form of Larenz Tate's O-Dog, one of the most chilling psychopaths I've ever seen in film. This character helps us see that Caine is indeed not evil by contrast, but his closeness with O-Dog and other killers also further suggests he isn't going to make it out.
"Menace II Society" was directed by 21-year-old twin brothers known as the Hughes Brothers. They were first timers and it was a very impressive debut. It's not so surprising to me that they didn't become better known, though, because sometimes their direction feels a little pedestrian. It does put you right in Caine's world, though, and just like him, you sometimes feel suffocated, like you can't take much more of it.
Fresh (1994)
The loss of innocence
"Fresh" has one amazingly powerful scene I had never forgotten. In it, the titular Fresh, a twelve-year-old boy who works as a drug smuggler, also has a crush on a girl called Rosie. Some men are playing basketball nearby, in which a much younger player is running rings around a young man who is getting more and more fed up. Fresh is tossing up whether or not to approach Rosie, then she approaches him - and then the aggravated young man pulls out a gun and starts shooting.
Can anyone forget that scene?
Besides that, the movie is pretty good, but for me it was held back by a plot that was just too hard to follow. It's one of those things where you keep hearing characters' names, but don't know which name belongs to which character.
I got that Fresh becomes more calculating by the end of the movie. Is it supposed to be that everything he's been through leading up to that has hardened him? The kid that plays Fresh gives a captivating performance, but sometimes I found myself wondering how likely his behaviour is. It wasn't so much that his character developed. It was more like he stopped being believable as a character and turned into a plot device.
I will say one last thing: "Fresh" is very different as a '90s hood movie in that it doesn't feature wall-to-wall hip hop music. That really makes it stand out.
The Holdovers (2023)
A return to form, but not one of Payne's best
It seems "The Holdovers" is a return to form for its fantastic director, Alexander Payne, after "Downsizing" didn't do too well. I haven't seen it, but I know it was a box-office bomb.
Perhaps that movie bombing is the reason why Payne went with a pretty familiar plot with his next movie. Hollywood loves movies about cranky older men learning to soften and relate to other people again, usually with a child as the catalyst, ie. "Saint Vincent", "A Man Called Otto", "Bad Santa". It's been done so many times, but Payne, Giamatti, the screenwriter and a newcomer named Dominic Sessa elevate the material mostly above cliché.
I thought this was pretty good, but it's not up there with the best of Payne's work, ie. "Election", "About Schmidt", "Nebraska". The details in the direction and screenplay are very impressive, letting you know you're in capable hands. The movie just never really grabbed me, though.
Premiers désirs (1983)
More of the same boring nude hijinks on an idyllic beach in slow motion and soft focus... ow, my head
So here's the last movie photographer-turned-filmmaker-wannabe David Hamilton made. It's more of the same. There is minimal plot and characterisation. The movie mostly just shows girls running around on some idyllic island, in and out of their clothes.
The movie also has Hamilton's constant theme of unrequited love. Here, three girls wash up on an island, where one of the girls falls in love with an older man, but he's already married. And a younger guy falls in love with her, whereas his brother (I think) falls in love with one of the other girls. The brother is a fat guy who looks like that stock character in all eighties sex comedies, you know, the fat-guy-who's-always-eating. He's not always eating here, though, nor is he supposed to be funny.
Hamilton's movies all look like one of his photography books come to life. His soft focus and idyllic locations make the movies seem like recorded dreams. Perhaps they're Hamilton's himself. This also keeps you at bay from any story or characterisation, so I guess its' just as well there's generally not much of an attempt at either in his movies.
I'm glad this is the last one, so I won't have to watch any more. If I see one more soft-focussed bowl of fruit, I'll explode.
It's also worth noting that the girls in "First Desires" aren't even that good looking, despite the fact that they are presumably all models. This is worth noting because the girls in Hamilton's flicks usually aren't that great looking, surprisingly. The camera also shows little of their faces anyway. It's more interested in their bodies.
Un été à Saint-Tropez (1983)
David Hamilton brings a movie camera to a photshoot
So here's the fourth movie photographer-turned-filmmaker David Hamilton made. He was famous for taking photos of nude girls in late adolescence, with that "soft focus" style that made people think he smeared vaseline on the lens.
Regrettably, he carried that over into his filmmaking.
Anyway, Hamilton-the-director's first two movies, "Bilitis" and "Laura", were both very similar tales of young girls in a halcyon bygone era that possibly never existed, frolicking nude with other girls on the beach, bathing nude with other girls, sleeping, again most probably nude, again with other girls.
Then the plots kicked in, and the movie mostly left nudity behind, which was the only reason anyone would have ever watched these movies in the first place.
Hamilton seems to have never gotten much renown as a filmmaker. He's always known as a pervy photographer. Maybe that's because his movies mostly just feel like he took a movie camera to one of his photo shoots. The girls in his movies are all doing the kind of things you'd see in a photography book. In some shots, such as one in "Summer in Saint Tropez", they're filmed in obvious photographic poses, arrayed nude around a fruitbowl. The only reason why anybody would ever arrange themselves nude around a fruitbowl with a bunch of other nude girls is, frankly, so a photograph could be taken of them. Did Hamilton forget he was holding a movie camera, and not one that takes still shots?
The movie Hamilton made before this one, "Tender Cousins", actually showed promise. It seemed the photographer was coming into his own as a filmmaker. It was no masterpiece, but it had a believable sense of time and place, and a plot that didn't get in the way. Perhaps if he'd continued in this vein, he might have made a name for himself in the moving picture business.
I'm surprised I've been able to write so much in this review already. It is mostly because I haven't yet said anything much about the movie I'm actually supposed to be reviewing, "A Summer in Saint Tropez". You see, with this one it seems Hamilton just went back to square one. Remember I said that in his first couple of movies, plot got in the way of the nudity? Not so here, because there is no plot. Nor is there any characters. Or dialogue. It's like Hamilton just decided to bung out all that filmmaker stuff and just brought a movie camera to one of his photo shoots.
There being so little to talk about, all I can really say about the movie is to ask a question: How can something with such copious female nudity also be so boring? If you never thought looking at nude models could get old, you should watch this.
Nightmare Beach (1989)
Forgettable slasher with a ridiculous killer's MO
I was perplexed at how notorious Italian director Umberto Lenzi (of "Cannibal Ferox" fame) made such a generic slasher flick as this one. IMDB has our backs: the trivia says that Lenzi didn't really direct it, it was made by a guy called Harry Kirkpatrick. Lenzi was only on set as an advisor to him.
About the only thing that sets this movie apart is the ridiculous method the killer uses to dispatch his victims. He rides a motorbike everywhere (and his helmet serves as a mask) and he coaxes people into sitting on it behind him. Then he pulls a lever and the bike turns into an electric chair, frying the passenger with electricity... but leaving the killer completely unharmed.
How is it possible that he is immune to electrocution?
The movie also has some nonsense about there being a conspiracy to cover up the killer's crimes, but that didn't register, and nor did any of the characters. The protagonist doesn't work on the big screen; the guy I assumed was going to be the lead gets killed, leaving us with the other guy.
And there's nowhere near enough nudity.
Tendres cousines (1980)
The best Hamilton so far
The third movie photographer David Hamilton made might have been his best one yet. It is livelier and more interesting than "Bilitis" and "Laura", and also has a more convincing sense of time and place. You can actually believe that the characters and locale in the movie are real, and that they go on existing in between shots, and outside of them.
However, probably nobody watched a David Hamilton movie for the mise-en-scene. His movies were like artful softcore pornography. "Tendres cousines" actually seems to have less nudity than the previous two flicks. "Bilitis" and "Laura" both had lengthy communal shower scenes with young women frolicking naked. I didn't see any of that here, though there is of course still nudity.
What always struck me about this flick - and the only thing I remembered about it from watching it years ago - is that the male lead, a fourteen year old boy, is more strikingly beautiful than any of the women in the movie. At first, he detracts from the beauty of the female lead, because she is nowhere near as striking as he is, and you wonder why he is interested in her. Then later, when you get a better look at her, you realise she is beautiful too.
The plot features the same theme Hamilton used in his previous two movies: that of unrequited love. Poune (what a name) is in love with her cousin Julien, who is in love with his cousin Julia. His sister Claire is engaged to Charles, but he's got his eye on Julia. A maid at the house tries to seduce Julien and take his virginity, but is caught and fired after she strips naked and lies with him and gets his shirt off. He makes up for it later, though, bagging himself a couple of other girls. He doesn't even look like he's in puberty yet.
I enjoyed this flick more than the others. I just felt like it was more professionally done.
Laura, les ombres de l'été (1979)
Better than the director's first, with better looking actresses and more plot
"Laura" is quite a bit better than "Bilitis", the photographer-turned-filmmaker David Hamilton, for a few reasons. For one thing, it has a stronger sense of plot, which makes it more watchable and carries the movie past its boring bits. "Bilitis" was barely about anything. For another, the actresses are much better looking this time. Dawn Dunlap, who plays Laura, is beautiful. Patti D'Arbanville, who played "Bilitis", was not. Even the male lead is better looking this time.
The plot: the protagonist is a sculptor who shares his favourite subject with Hamilton: beautiful teenage girls in the nude. He reconnects with an old flame, and becomes infatuated with her fifteen-year-old daughter, Laura. He wants to sculpt her, but the mother is jealous and comes between them. For some reason she'll only allow him to use photos of the girl naked to sculpt from. Later on, however, the sculptor is blinded in a fire, and the movie has its climax when Laura allows the artist to run his hands over her nude body, so as to recreate this nubile terrain in stone.
"Laura" has a very similar structure to "Bilitis". It begins like a fly on the wall observing the dreamy, halcyon day-to-day life of a group of beautiful schoolgirls, of course showing them frolicking nude in the shower like "Bilitis" did. Regrettably, when the plot kicks in the movie largely leaves its gratuitous nudity behind, which is the same mistake that movie made. At least here, the plot is enough to carry the movie, and I found it more watchable than the director's first pic.
Bilitis (1977)
Starts promisingly but quickly gets boring
It's hard to know what to say about a movie called "Bilitis". It was filmed by a photographer who is famous for his soft-focus pictures of adolescent girls who are usually naked, and that's basically what the movie gives us, except he uses a film camera to capture them this time.
The movie starts promisingly with copious nudity and suggestions of lesbianism, but when its plot starts to come to the fore it gets in the way and ruins our fun. I don't even know what the movie was supposed to be about. I got that the titular Bilitis is a schoolgirl in a boarding school where the girls skinny dip and slip into each other's beds. Bilitis has an aunt, who is romantically involved with some guy, and she may also pursue a romance with a local boy, but I don't remember seeing that, or him.
Another problem is that the actresses (and actors) aren't really that great looking. Patti D'Arbanville, who plays Bilitis, is really nothing special to look at, and nor are any of the other people on screen. The actors don't really make an impression with their looks, and it is sometimes hard to tell them apart.
This, however, might just be down to the "soft-focus" photography, which would probably give you a migraine if you looked at it for too long.
Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds (2006)
Better than the first, but still not good
At least "Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds" is better than the first movie, which is small praise indeed. It's actually fairly competently made. There are no takes that go on for too long this time, where you expect the actors to look at each other confused, and nor is there an obnoxious soundtrack over every scene, drowning out the actors.
"Eating Out 2" also has one legendary scene that I have never forgotten. It's a CFNM scene where poor Rebekah Kochan (the only actor unfortunate enough to appear in every movie in the franchise) gets up close and personal with the beautiful Marco Dapper's penis.
The movie also limits the amount of homophobia and misogyny that was bizarrely present in the previous flick. Kochan's character, Tiffany von der Sloot, is still mostly just comic relief for her sex drive, but at least Gwen (Emily Styles) isn't the homophobe she was in the previous film.
The movie still does kind of have a problem with homophobia though. It has been praised for showing the so-called "ex-gay movement", ie. Cultists who try to brainwash same-sex attracted people into thinking they're really straight. The director and co-writer Phillip Bartell has said that he thought homophobes' minds might be changed by seeing this "movement" exposed for the sham anybody with half a brain knows it is. But why would they be watching this movie in the first place?
I thought the inclusion of the Christian far-right into a goofy LGBT sex comedy was a little awkward, and detracted from the fun atmosphere the movie cultivates.
Eating Out (2004)
What not to do
"Eating Out" is a movie I less want to review than reject. I have seen YouTube skits more professionally made than this. It's the kind of movie where you stop bothering to follow the inane and confusing plot and instead just begin ticking off every mistake the filmmakers made.
Where to begin with those mistakes? The movie has near-constant muzak on its soundtrack, often distracting, always migraine inducing. It is also too loud and shows up how badly recorded the dialogue is. The camera also often feels too far away from the actors, the editing is slapdash such that you're often waiting for cuts that don't happen. Shots go on too long, making you expect to see the actors looking at each other, confused. In fact, the acting is about the only thing this movie has going for it.
Even the movie's opening credit sequence is discouraging. The cast and crew's names appear with an effect that looks like a PowerPoint presentation from 1997.
The plot is something to do with straight guys pretending to be gay to get girls, and gay guys pretending to be straight to get straight guys. There are actually some issues that could have been raised and questions that could have been asked about the role of sexual orientation in modern sexual relationships with this premise, but "Eating Out" doesn't go there. It just uses it to confuse you, and you stop paying attention and go back to noticing everything else the movie is doing wrong.
I will say that the movie does have (only) one scene that works. One guy has phone sex with Gwen, the movie's other token female (next to Tiffany von der Sloot) while he is making out with another guy. This was actually kind of sexy.
Let's not forget that this is also an LGBT-themed movie, and yet it is by turns homophobic and misogynistic. That is perhaps its biggest problem, or at least the most unforgivable thing about it. Like its sequels, the movie only really has two female characters. One, a Tiffany von der Sloot, played by Rebekah Kochan, is only in this movie (and all of its sequels) to be mocked for her sexuality. "Sloot", get it? The other, Gwen Anderson (Emily Stiles) was also basically a female stereotype in the second movie (a girl next door, gay guys' best friend type), but here her character is very different. She's a really nasty piece of work in this movie, spewing constant homophobia. I have to wonder why they made her like that. Are we supposed to like her? She is horrible. She even refers to herself with a particular word for the female anatomy, you know, that word which is supposed to be the worst thing you can call someone. Is that the famous LGBT alliance with feminism?
I am at a loss to explain two things about this movie. One, it was successful enough to spawn four sequels, and two, it was made by and for gay men. People must be really desperate for gay-themed sex comedies. But with so much of high culture having come from gay men, ie. The Sistine Chapel, the Mona Lisa, Wittgenstein, Tchaikovsky, Nureyev... how did something this tasteless and terrible get released under the LGBT banner?
It's a gay-themed, supposedly pro-feminist movie that ends up being genuinely offensive to both women and gays.
The Iron Claw (2023)
Performances of great emotional force blunted by an undynamic screenplay
"The Iron Claw" has a great cast and great performances, and is also evocatively photographed and has an eye for period detail. It just feels like its actors, and even its characters, are tied down in a script that won't let them move around and develop.
While watching the movie I often found myself wondering whether you would have to be a rabid pro-wrestling fan to get into the movie all that much. Toward the end though, I realised that even most WWE fans would be bored by the flick too. You probably need to have at least a working knowledge of the Von Erich clan to be able to follow along or really feel much for them.
You feel like you're seeing some brilliant acting at times, but it doesn't hit the emotional mark with you because the script keeps getting in the way.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
The big turn around
So I just watched this movie again and rarely, if ever, has my opinion on a film changed more upon second viewing. I saw it around the time it came out and didn't like it. To me it seemed like just a bunch of trucks driving in the desert while people scream at each other for two hours. Watching it again, knowing what to expect, I thought it was brilliant.
This is like a sci-fi-action-carsploitation-arthouse movie. It's an adrenaline rush from start to finish, sure, but it's like every frame of the movie is jampacked with creativity. Every line of dialogue, every performance, offers a hint of something much more. There are so many little details, you know it's a movie that's only going to reward repeated viewings.
I wish I'd watched it on the big screen.
Now, there's a sequel coming out, and I don't know if that's a good thing. It reminds me of "Sin City" and to a lesser extent, "300". Both captured lightning in a bottle and both had lacklustre sequels. Watching "Sin City" made me think you couldn't have too much of a good thing, but "A Dame to Kill For" had all the joy of creation taken out of it. Lightning can't strike twice.
Of course, "Fury Road" is a sequel in itself, and as far as I know there's never been a bad Max Max movie. I can't see them repeating this trick a second time though, so it'll probably have to be something different.
Cobweb (2023)
Good atmosphere but too confusing
There's a lot going on in "Cobweb". Maybe too much. The movie manages a decent atmosphere, but is too confusingly told, too muddled, and has a mishandled conclusion.
The plot: Peter is a bullied boy with weird and creepy parents. A voice behind the wall in his room starts talking to him and he ends up getting expelled for following their advice.
Peter's parents become even more weird and lock him up. People from school come to pay him a visit, some to help him, some for revenge, right when the voice behind the wall becomes more insistent.
"Cobweb" occasionally grabbed me with its atmosphere and visuals, but the story eventually lost me, and I didn't care that much about it.