Adua and her Friends (1960)
Release Date: May 31st, 2011
Distributor: Raro Video
MSRP: $29.98
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Year: 1960
Language: Italian (with English subtitles)
Directed by Antonio Pietrangeli
I'm not completely sure of how to start this review off, so I'll just get straight to the point. Adua and Her Friends is a rather average Italian Neorealist film. It starts off with interesting enough characters and an interesting enough conflict. But as it continues, the excitement presented within the first forty-five minutes dives down, and down, and down, to the point where I could care less about what's happening on screen, and ends up being a group of characters whining to each other without much significance.
Adua and Her Friends opens on the closing day of a rather popular brothel. Adua and her three friends set out to pursue a career more respectable than prostitution, they decide to open a restaurant. Already we see that the four "friends" have trouble dealing with each other; they constantly bicker, complain, and forget fairly vital assets for opening their business. For instance, Adua forgets to pay for water and gas, she forgets to carry any real vegetables or fruits except for apples and lettuce, and the list goes on. Lacking any license or proper permit to run such a business, they are given the chance to get permission to run the restaurant as long as they run their business as well on the second floor of the building. And as the regrets of their past, and dissatisfaction with the present, they all start to fall apart.
I left out a few key points in the summary above, mainly because they really aren't any points of interest, or at least to me during the film. There are interwoven love stories with a couple of the girls, as well as one of them dealing with her child (who comes in more than half way through the movie). It's subplots like this that bring this movie down. Adding more problems to the characters' lives does not add to the characters themselves. A majority of the scenes that take place during the second of the movie (and even during the first) seem like they're there to only lengthen the movie out. Though I really enjoyed the dialogue spoken in the movie, there are too many points where it goes too far; many conversations amount to nothing.
Certain characters could, and should have been cut out. The scenes which fit into the love story sub-plots become more and more frequent through the second half, as we get tastes of other characters and sub-plots that most likely would have been more interesting and progressive to the story itself. In one scene, an old customer arrives at the restaurant with his family, and pulls Adua back to talk to her and assure she's still in business. It's scummy characters like this that I would have loved to see more of. Along with that, the girls themselves never really came off as friends. Throughout the film all they do is bicker at each other, rarely do we ever see them enjoying themselves, or at least showing some sort of chemistry between one another; their friendship is just so forced.
Overall, it's an interesting movie none the less. I would give this a 5, but there are certain things in the first half that bring it up slightly so I would rate this at a low 6/10. It's no Mama Roma. As for the DVD, the image looks great, the audio is alright, the quality varies from scene to scene. Check it out if you're a fan of Italian Neorealism, it's worth at least one viewing.
Enter the Void (2009)
- Release Date: January 25th, 2011
- MSRP: 29.98 (Blu) 24.98 (DVD)
- Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
- Year: 2009
- Language: English
- Directed by Gaspar Noe
The first hour of Enter the Void is amazing. Though it gets slow in scenes, it's still incredible to watch Oscar go about his night leading to his death, and then getting to view his haunting past first person. After the first hour it starts the process of showing Oscar either fly around Tokyo watching over the people in his life or flying straight into something resembling, light, life, or death. This last hour and a half becomes so repetitive, with both visuals and story that it becomes dull, which is something hard to imagine with a movie like this. The visuals are stunning at first, but they get so overused. We get the some shots of flying over Tokyo over and over again to the point where they take up 1/4th of the last hour. The same goes for the shots flying into lights or holes as transitions. This begins to take up more time than the actual story itself. Maybe if it wasn't so overused I wouldn't mind so much.
The whole movies is basically summed up in a conversation describing the Tibetan Book of the Dead between Oscar and his closest friend. This along with the countless repetitive transitions leaves you knowing exactly how this is going to end. The transitions aren't the only thing repetitive either. During an incredibly powerful flashback sequence in the beginning we see the death of Oscar's parents which is very affective. This gets repeated along with several other images way too much.
Though it sounds like I may hate this movie, I still like it to an extent. It's not something I would watch over and over again, and while it may do something amazing style wise, to sum it up story wise, it's a re-imagining of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a Space Odyssey (Which Noe has admitted to taking major inspiration from). Like I said I love the first hour of this movie, but it started to lose me during the last hour. This also has one of the most tedious scenes I've seen in a while. There is a scene in a motel towards the end that lingers on longer than any other scene in this movie that could have been cut down to less than five minutes and still have kept the meaning. That's the case with most of this movie. It could have been cut down to an hour and forty minutes and still have been effective.
Overall, I don't exactly know how to rate this. I like Enter the Void, but not love it. If I can cheat and throw in a little fast forwarding action, I'd still rate it at a 7/10. It's on par with Irreversible; it's an interesting experiment, but as an overall movie it's only decent. Oh and as for a quick review of the US Blu-Ray disc, the movie looks beautiful but there are barely any decent extras.
Niku Daruma (Tumbling Doll of Flesh, Psycho: The Snuff Reels) (1998)
- Aspect Ratio: 4:3
- Year: 1998
- Language: Japanese
- Directed by Tamakichi Anaru
Niku Daruma is a 69 Minute long half porno, half torture film. The first half consists of a girl participating in a home made porno only to be knocked out, leading to the rest of the movie consisting of this poor woman:
- Having her tongue peeled with a potato peeler
- Having her arms and legs amputated, and then stumps raped
- Chest cut open, and raped
That's the movie for ya! It's shot and edited as if it were a fake snuff film. It's not even disturbing, the effects look realistic, but it's really just a bore. The only reason I'd imagine this would exist is for people who truly get off on these types of things. It has gone beyond that though, it has grown a cult status amongst the underground horror film fans (most of which spend great money for cheap bootlegs). I'm curious as to why I've never seen bootlegs of this at horror conventions because this is a very sought after video, most people not even knowing what the hell I was talking about when I brought it up. I guess now it's started to surface, and torrents (most of which are dead) have started to pop up on various pirating websites. It makes me curious though, if this film was once just a myth among hardcore horror fans, and then I start to wonder, do I really give a shit?
The main question I still wonder, does this really count as a movie? It's a fake snuff film, which by definition, a snuff film is a motion picture genre that depicts the actual death or murder of a person or people, without the aid of special effects for the express purpose of distribution and entertainment or financial exploitation [Source: Wikipedia]. So could that mean that this is a sub genre of film created for the underground market. But there really is no motive for this madness, there is no expression behind this. So I guess this really isn't a movie, just a gore filled porno for those people who really enjoy it.
So overall, this doesn't even deserve a rating, just go somewhere else. There is a reason that this movie's IMDB page doesn't show up on the search engine. Viewing this as a movie, it's crap, but I am not the target audience. For the audience that does enjoy sick and twisted shit with no motive, this is your Exorcist.
Score (1974) (Blu-Ray)
- Release Date: October 12th, 2010
- MSRP: 34.95
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Year: 1974
- Language: English
- Directed by Radley Metzger
The film follows Elvira and Jack, a young couple that makes a bet that they can both seduce a young couple during the following weekend. The specific couple they choose is one Betsy and Eddy. Betsy of course played by the wonderful Lynn Lowry, the most notable actress to appear in this flick.
The main difference between this and most of the other sexploitation films that were released around this time, is that this doesn't turn into anything pornographic until the third act of the film. We get all of this time introducing the two couples, getting to know them, and actually having a lot of fun while getting to know them. We don't just see these characters as sex objects which really makes this differ from most film of it's kind. That is why I consider this more of a sexploitation film, and not a straight up (lololololol puns) porn film. Though when it does get to the third act, the sex scenes are pretty climactic (no pun this time).
The film was also pretty daring for it's time. I'd imagine that full on gay and lesbian sex scenes were not seen often in cinemas back in the day and were seen as quite controversial, even in an industry that was already stirring up trouble. Looking at the character aspect of the film, it's pretty entertaining, mainly unintentionally funny. The characters are so in-your-face it's hilarious. Betsy, Lynn Lowry's character, is supposed to be an innocent girl, and they make a reference to it about every fifteen minutes. This includes her: never touching alcohol before, being disgusted when walking in on her husband masturbating in the background, smoking weed continuously asking if she's stoned yet followed by her thinking she's having a bad trip, and more. Added to that the two husbands in the films are so flamboyant from the first second you see them on screen int he beginning of the film, you can see the ending from miles away if you couldn't already guess it from reading the plot.
Overall this was actually pretty surprising. I'd recommend this to fans of exploitation film. I'd rate the film at a 7/10. The films transfer looks beautiful on Blu-Ray! The only problem is that the picture is zoomed in a tad bit. It's noticeable at first when you look at the opening and ending titles, but besides that you barely notice it through out the film. Generally, this Blu-Ray is recommended. You can purchase this at the Cult Epics website or on Amazon.com, on Blu-Ray or DVD.
Special Features Include:
- A behind-the-scenes Featurette with Claire Wilbur, Lynn Lowry, Cal Culver, Gerald Grant, Carl Parker, and Radley Metzger
- A new interview with Lynn Lowry
- Commentary track by Radley Metzger and film historian Michael Bowen
- Trailers
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
