ORGASMO -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 7/22/20

 

(ORGASMO is part of Severin Films' "Lenzi/Baker 4-Volume Blu-ray Collection" which also includes SO SWEET, SO PERVERSE, A QUIET PLACE TO KILL, and KNIFE OF ICE.)


Carroll Baker has been one of my top ten favorite actresses ever since the moment I realized that her performance in BABY DOLL was one of the best in the entire history of cinema. I find her fascinating to watch.

Needless to say, this greatly increased my enjoyment of Italian director Umberto Lenzi's 1969 giallo thriller ORGASMO (Severin Films), in which she stars as the widow of a deceased billionaire who now secludes herself in a lonely mansion in Italy until a handsome young free spirit named Peter (Lou Castel, A BULLET FOR THE GENERAL) suddenly enters her life and teaches her how to live again.

But even without the presence of the divine Carroll (BABY DOLL, GIANT, THE CARPETBAGGERS, HARLOW, CHEYENNE AUTUMN), this edgy exploitation tale would suffice quite nicely as lavish soap-opera trash of the kind that we can wallow in as if guiltily indulging in a Jacqueline Susann novel, with all the colorful ambience with which Italian exploitation cinema of the era can imbue such a story.

Bereft of happiness in her life save that which she derives from her devoted attorney and friend Brian (Tino Carraro, CAT O’ NINE TAILS), Kathryn responds eagerly to the spirited, almost satyr-like Peter, who moves into her mansion after his car breaks down right at her main gate. 

The lonely, repressed widow is easy prey to this charming, handsome, and, to her, irresistibly sexy young bohemian who so effortlessly insinuates himself into every aspect of her life and has her yearning for him even as his flippant, presumptuous attitude often infuriates her.

And when his beautiful young "sister" Eva (Colette Descombes, MONIKA) shows up, she's everything that Peter is but with the added guilty attraction of forbidden and maddeningly seductive lesbian desire.

It isn't long before the rich, spoiled, but emotionally vulnerable Kathryn finds herself as addicted to this intoxicating threesome as she is to the pills that Eva keeps giving her ("this will make you stop being tired") or slipping into her drink.

Where the story goes from there is what finally turns ORGASMO into the full-blooded giallo thriller that we've been expecting, complete with sudden violence (Paul and Eva aren't as devoted to "peace and love" as they pretend to be), blackmail, and other shocking developments that I won't go into, especially since the spoiler-y poster art itself is a strong indication of what poor Kathryn is in for.

Writer/director Lenzi (EATEN ALIVE) does some superlative work here (in what would be one of four collaborations with Baker), capturing a genuine mod 60s ambience in the threesome's wild nights of abandon and contrasting it with Kathryn's formerly staid, repressed existence within the walls of her mansion.

It's all deliciously cinematic, combining formal camera shots with a more free-form visual style that lets Lenzi's imagination run free. While the entire cast is fine, Baker in particular is a constant fascination and a joy to watch for a devotee such as myself, thanks in large part to several teasing glimpses of her in the nude.

The Blu-ray from Severin Films is scanned from the internegative of Lenzi’s Director’s Cut for the first time on Blu-ray. Audio is in both English and Italian mono with English subtitles. In addition to a bonus CD of the remastered musical score, the bonus menu is nicely stocked with choice features that are listed below in their entirety.

Lovers of Italian exploitation cinema and especially the wildly unpredictable giallo genre should have a great time delving into this frantic tale of a troubled woman trapped in a big shadowy mansion with frenzied tormentors inside and a mysterious club-footed stranger prowling around outside. ORGASMO gives us all that and Carroll Baker too, and it's freaky fun from start to finish.





Disc Specs for Orgasmo:

    Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
    Audio: Italian mono on Italian cut, English mono on English cut
    Subtitles: Subtitles for Italian audio / SDH for English audio
    Region A


 
Special Features for Orgasmo:

    Director’s Cut
    Audio Commentary with Film Critic, Author & Academic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
    US X Rated Version + SDH subtitles
    Audio Commentary with Mondo-Digital’s Nathaniel Thompson & Troy Howarth, Author of ‘So Deadly So Perverse: 50 Years Of Italian Giallo Films’
    Giallo Fever: Interview with Director Umberto Lenzi
    US Trailer
    BONUS CD SOUNDTRACK: Orgasmo Remastered Soundtrack

ORGASMO -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

OCEAN'S 11 (1960) -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 12/18/15

 

The skinny, earnest kid of ANCHORS AWEIGH and ON THE TOWN had already grown into a more worldly and somewhat cynical character by the time of GUYS AND DOLLS, but by 1960's OCEAN'S 11 we find a Frank Sinatra who has matured into the icy cool, cosmopolitan, and slightly shady Las Vegas megastar persona that would define the rest of his life. 

The quintessential "Rat Pack" movie, OCEAN'S 11 reunites Frank's former WWII paratrooper sergeant Danny Ocean with his old Airborne buddies played by Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Joey Bishop, in one of those scathingly brilliant heist schemes to relieve five major Vegas casinos of several million dollars at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve.

I didn't care much for this slow-moving, bland-looking heist tale with production values that sometimes resemble those of a Quinn Martin cop series from the 60s.  At least, not the first time I watched it. 

A second viewing, however--without the burden of my previous expectations blinding me to its modest charms, and with the advantage of Frank Sinatra, Jr.'s knowing commentary--revealed it to be a fun "hang-out" movie in which you get to spend some quality leisure time just palling around with Frankie, Dean, Sammy, and their cool friends.  And before it's over, that simple robbery plot which seems so pedestrian at first delivers a couple of nifty, nasty twists that are pretty neat.

We watch as Danny (Sinatra) and Jimmy Foster (Lawford) get the old gang together one at a time for the caper, which takes up pretty much the whole first half of the movie.  (One thing's for sure, this flick isn't in any hurry to get anywhere.)  There are a few detours, as we see Danny dealing with his neglected but faithful wife Beatrice (Angie Dickinson) and a hostile spurned lover played by Patrice Wymore. 

Jimmy, meanwhile, must endure the presence of his wealthy mother's new husband Duke (Caesar "Butch" Romero, who would soon play The Joker to Adam West's Batman) in order to hit her up for his usual "allowance."  Sammy, as usual, brings his own boundless energy and cool-cat appeal to his role of a garbage truck driver whose job is to collect the stolen cash from each casino. 

Not even counting some welcome cameos and bit parts by the likes of Red Skelton, Shirley McLaine, and George Raft, the cast is impressive.  Filling out the "eleven" are Richard Conte (Don Barzini in THE GODFATHER), Jerry Lester (of Jerry Lewis' THE NUTTY PROFESSOR and THE LADIES' MAN), cult superstar Henry Silva (of Lewis' CINDERFELLA), Norman "Mr. Roper" Fell, Akim Tamiroff, and other worthy character actors. 

The main stars, of course, are just fun to watch, especially Dean Martin in total "don't give a f***" mode and Frank effortlessly holding it all together without even singing a note.  (Dean croons "Ain't That a Kick in the Head" two or three times, while Sammy performs the theme song "Ee-Oh-Eleven.")

Directed by Lewis Milestone (ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, OF MICE AND MEN), OCEAN'S 11 has a relaxed, informal air and never takes itself too seriously, but it isn't a slapdash affair.  While some of the acting and direction may seem flat at times, this is one movie that just doesn't feel like breaking a sweat if it doesn't have to.  And that awesome ending shot is just the kind of thing Quentin Tarantino makes a mental note to copy later.

It kinda struck me as A HARD DAY'S NIGHT for the pre-Beatles generation--a day in the lives of our favorite hipster bad boys in their natural habitat, just being their narrow-tie-wearing, scotch-swilling, chauvinistic selves. 

It does get serious at times, though--as when Richard Conte's character Bergdorf, recently released from prison and estranged from wife Jean Willes, visits his little boy in military school for what may be the last time.  Or when his doctor gives him the bad news about his heart, leading to this pricelessly arch bit of dialogue: "Listen Doc, give it to me straight...is it the big casino?"

OCEAN'S 11 (1960) -- Movie Review by Porfle

JIMI HENDRIX: THE GUITAR HERO -- DVD review by porfle

Originally posted on 9/3/10

 

It's hard to mess up a Jimi Hendrix documentary as long as you include plenty of performance footage of Jimi doing his thing.  Which is pretty much where JIMI HENDRIX: THE GUITAR HERO (2009) goes wrong. 

What we get instead are plenty of talking heads telling us what was so special about the legendary performer and his music.  Granted, it's a pretty good gathering of people who either knew Hendrix or had fateful encounters with him, and they have some interesting stories and insights to share.  Stephen Stills, Dave Mason, Mick Taylor, Eric Burdon, Lemmy of "Motorhead" (who refers to one of Hendrix' albums as "Electric Landlady"), and Mickey Dolenz are among those who get the most screen time, backed by briefer clips (some consisting of old footage) of Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Paul Rodgers, Chris Squire, Alan White, Bev Bevan, and photographer Henry Diltz.  Slash, lead guitarist of Guns N Roses, narrates and offers his own comments about Hendrix' influence on him. 

Unfortunately, most of this is about as interesting as a documentary about NASA's Apollo program that doesn't have any footage of the moon landing.  Hendrix is seen mostly in still photos and silent film clips which, incredibly, are accompanied mainly by other people's music.  When a summary of his early life touches on his first trip to New York, we hear Nilsson's "Everybody's Talkin'."  A look at Jimi's freaky London-inspired wardrobe brings on the Kinks' "Dedicated Follower of Fashion", while his later downward spiral into drugs and career frustrations elicits, of all things, several minutes of Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man." 

When Dave Mason mentions playing acoustic guitar on the Dylan cover "All Along the Watchtower", we then see about two minutes of Mason onstage in 2002 playing the song.  Even during footage of Jimi performing at Woodstock, we hear Bob Dylan singing "Like a Rolling Stone."  And amidst the numerous scenes of other people talking about him, Hendrix himself speaks only a couple of times in some brief, hard-to-hear interview clips.
 

Only a few samples of Jimi Hendrix music are heard at various points in the film--one is a snippet of "Wild Thing", and another is a minute or two of "Hey Joe", which is included in its entirety in the bonus menu.  Other than that, the only Hendrix music I recall is an instrumental with Curtis Knight entitled "Level" which is heard over the closing credits.  The various commentators speak at length about the origins of Hendrix' style and the technical aspects of his music, but we hear precious little of it ourselves.  It's both puzzling and terribly disappointing.

The main reason for watching JIMI HENDRIX: THE GUITAR HERO (besides seeing what some of the old rock stars look like these days) is the presence of Jimi's younger brother Leon, whom Jimi helped raise after their parents' breakup.  The talkative Leon has endless anecdotes about his brother and how music became such a driving force in his life, most of which can be found in a lengthy interview segment on the bonus menu. 

Leon's reminiscences humanize Jimi more than any others in the film--we learn, among other things, that his boyhood nickname was "Buster" after his hero Buster "Flash Gordon" Crabbe, that he learned to play on a one-string ukulele found in a neighbor's garage, and that he once took his father's radio apart (and was soundly spanked for it) trying to find out where the music came from.  As Leon's stories indicate, this quest to experience music to its fullest was the driving ambition of Jimi's short life. 

The DVD from Image Entertainment is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo with no subtitles.  Extras include extended interviews, two photo galleries, the Jimi Hendrix Experience (with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell) performing "Hey Joe" live at the Marquee, and, for no particular reason, eight minutes of Henry Diltz' silent 8mm home movie footage of the Monkees on tour.  Of special interest is the beautifully-illustrated 20-page booklet included with the disc, with detailed liner notes by Diltz and Laura Rojko.

For fans already familiar with his recorded legacy, JIMI HENDRIX: THE GUITAR HERO should prove somewhat interesting for its historical details and personal accounts.  However, if you don't know much about Jimi Hendrix' music before watching it, you won't know much about it afterwards, either.  You'll be aware of his techniques, inspirations, and life experiences, but as far as the music itself is concerned, you might as well read a book about it.

Buy it at Amazon.com

JIMI HENDRIX: THE GUITAR HERO -- DVD review by porfle

ROGER WATERS THE WALL -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 11/29/15

 

Roger Waters has mellowed over the years.  No longer the self-described "grumpy person" of his bitter youth who was "disaffected with rock'n'roll audiences"--he once reportedly spat in the face of a beaming Pink Floyd fan caught basking in the "space cadet glow" of the bombastic opening number from "The Wall" instead of appreciating it as a sour stadium-rock parody--Roger now freely basks in that glow himself, and seems to be having the time of his life just being happy while his art channels his anger into the ether like a lightning rod.

Such is the Roger we see in the 2014 concert film-slash-mockumentary ROGER WATERS THE WALL (Universal Home Video, 2-disc Blu-ray + HD Digital Copy), still restaging his magnum opus from the waning days of Pink Floyd for wildly enthusiastic audiences filled with people who weren't even born when the original double-album hit the record racks in 1979. 

The film is an impeccably shot and directed record of this landmark performance intercut with other material featuring Roger as Roger, mainly during a road trip through Europe to visit the memorials of his father and grandfather, both fallen war veterans.  He's sometimes accompanied on this trip by a school friend with whom he shares faded memories, and sometimes by his own grandchildren.  In one sequence he has a few weary late-night drinks in a secluded pub while filmmaker Peter Medak recounts his harrowing escape from Nazi-occupied Hungary.

As deep and revealing as these passages are, they tend to intrude somewhat on the concert's overall effect and disrupt its momentum.  I realize this is necessary if we're to learn the true meaning and origins of The Wall's fervently anti-war message and how they've shaped Waters as a person throughout his life.  But it's nice when finally, at the gravesite of his grandfather on a lonely French hilltop, a pensive Roger takes a trumpet out of his bag and plays those first plaintive notes that will begin the concert. 

The venue is vast and so is the stage, upon which a wall will be gradually constructed during the concert (symbolic of the main character Pink's walling himself off mentally and emotionally from the world) which will also serve as a screen for a spectacularly elaborate projection show that will threaten to overload the senses.  The audience of tens of thousands of escstatic fans (each of whom seems to have the lyrics memorized in their entirety) ripples and writhes like an ocean of bodies, reacting in fits of rapture to every song lyric and musical nuance from the bombastic to the exquisitely subtle.

Roger, to the surprise of pretty much no one, takes full credit for all the words and music here (as he's been known to do on his other solo tours, even on the Pink Floyd songs he didn't write!) but I think it's pretty much recognized that The Wall is his baby, and, as it has turned out to be from the perspective of time, universally associated with him as he keeps on revising and restaging it over and over.  

Waters himself seems to evolve with each new reimagining, and seems happier and more at peace with himself than ever before when he isn't shedding a bitter tear over his fallen father and the state of the world in general.  Indeed, the whole thing seems to be deeply cathartic for the latter-day Waters who is obviously allowing himself to relax and have the time of his life during this concert--and is, at this point, a million miles away from that angry young man who once held his own audience in contempt.  

It's odd that such a creative and expressive lyricist as Waters doesn't feel creatively stifled from repeatedly "running over the same old ground", but he seems content to have made "The Wall" his main creative focus for the past several years, imbuing it with a curious fusion of cynicism and sentimentality that translates into some powerful emotional moments.

The story of The Wall begins with "In the Flesh?", that anti-anthem which foreshadows the curdled tone of Pink's later descent into musical fascism.  Then we flash back to his birth and upbringing in war-torn England with such songs as "The Thin Ice", the enthusiastically-received "Another Brick in the Wall" parts 1 and 2, "Mother", and "Goodbye Blue Sky."

Pink's gradual alienation and withdrawal from the world are recounted as Roger and the band (with singer Robbie Wycoff and lead guitarists Dave Kilminster, Snowy White, and G.E. Smith filling in for the sorely-missed David Gilmour) take us through "Young Lust", "One of My Turns", "The Last Few Bricks", and "Goodbye Cruel World", which Roger croons while sitting alone in a livingroom set seen through a single gap in the now otherwise solid wall.  (Other strategic gaps will appear in the wall here and there to highlight various musicians.)

With Pink's final lapse into spiritual catatonia comes the iconic "Comfortably Numb", long a highlight of The Wall (especially when David Gilmour is on hand to perform  it), followed by his transition into a Nazi-like perversion of the typical rock star who now leads his lemming-like followers to ruin.  The final act consists of such harshly satirical songs as "Run Like Hell", "Waiting For the Worms", and "The Trial", with Roger marching about in Gestapo garb firing a machine gun until finally the wall comes crashing down and all that bombast shrinks back down to a single plaintive tune, "Outside the Wall", to end it.

During all this, of course, there are dazzling pyrotechnics that are staggering to behold along with the most elaborate multimedia light, SPFX, and projector show (featuring Gerald Scarfe's oversized puppets, the giant floating pig from the cover of "Animals", and that iconic round screen familiar to Pink Floyd fans at the heart of it all).  The sight of ultra-widescreen images being projected onto the wall is often utterly astounding, to which the profoundly emotional audience basks in every image, and every deeply-ingrained lyric, with what may accurately be described as utter ecstasy.

Roger himself soaks it all in, reveling in the old "space cadet glow" as much as the audience.  He knows this ultimate incarnation of The Wall (so far, anyway) is his finest hour and he's milking the experience for all it's worth--which is a considerable amount.  In fact, the magnitude of this overwhelming and incredibly impressive audio-visual experience is quite possibly unlike any other musical theater production ever staged.

Roger's limited voice is in fine form here (even his strident "character" voice that I find so grating on the last two Floyd albums has been toned down) as is his chunky bass playing, with all the familiar old songs and one or two newer ones that I didn't recognize from the original Floyd album.  There's hardly any need for backup singers with the thousands of people in the audience singing along and adding to the overall robustness of the sound. 

The 2-disc Blu-ray from Universal Home Video (instructions for downloading an HD digital copy are also included) is in high-definition 1080p widescreen and Dolby 5.1 sound.  Image and sound quality are, as one might guess, excellent.  A multitude of languages and subtitles are available.  Disc one extras (also present on the DVD) consist of Roger's visit to the grave of poet and soldier Frank Thompson, who died in WWII, and a time-lapse view of the construction of The Wall's elaborate stage.

Disc two bonus features (exclusive to the Blu-ray) consist of approximately thirty Facebook videos detailing every aspect of the stage production along with Roger Waters' philosophical musings on everything from why he loves New York to Man's inhumanity to Man, plus lots of insight into his creative processes.  There's also some more driving footage from Roger's road tour of Europe. 

For those who missed David Gilmour's presence during the concert, the disc features a special version of "Comfortably Numb" in which Dave makes a surprise appearance, along with the landmark reunion of Waters, Gilmour, and Floyd drummer Nick Mason during the concert's finale.  Here, geniality and good spirits prevail as Roger is clearly joyous to be in the company of his old bandmates again (save for the late Rick Wright). 

As for me, I'm equally glad the old animosity is gone and that I can like Roger Waters again.  Indeed, he comes across here as a nice, warm older gent in addition to being an ego-driven control freak, qualities necessary for anyone aspiring to create something as immense and staggeringly impressive as the event in which we're vicariously immersed with ROGER WATERS THE WALL.  It's an achievement that could aptly be described, in the words of Barry Fitzgerald in THE QUIET MAN, as "Homeric." 

Tracklist

    "In the Flesh?"
    "The Thin Ice"
    "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 1)"
    "The Happiest Days of Our Lives"
    "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)"
    "The Ballad of Jean Charles de Menezes"
    "Mother"
    "Goodbye Blue Sky"
    "Empty Spaces"
    "What Shall We Do Now?"
    "Young Lust"
    "One of My Turns"
    "Don't Leave Me Now"
    "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 3)"
    "The Last Few Bricks"
    "Goodbye Cruel World"
    "Hey You"
    "Is There Anybody Out There?"
    "Nobody Home"
    "Vera"
    "Bring the Boys Back Home"
    "Comfortably Numb"
    "The Show Must Go On"
    "In the Flesh"
    "Run Like Hell"
    "Waiting for the Worms"
    "Stop"
    "The Trial"
    "Outside the Wall"

Street date: December 1, 2015

ROGER WATERS THE WALL -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

BIG BOOBS, BLONDE BABES, BAD BLOOD -- movie review by porfle

(Originally posted on 7/18/13)

 

(NOTE: I reviewed a VHS tape of this movie by Shane Ryan of AMATEUR PORN STAR KILLER fame several  years ago for Bumscorner.com, and thought our readers might find it to be of interest as it was a pretty strange flick.  A search of the title will reveal places where it may be available online.)

If you're searching the video store shelves for the perfect exploitation flick to watch during a beer-fueled night with the guys, you can't go wrong with a title like BIG BOOBS, BLONDE BABES, BAD BLOOD (2006), right?  Wrong. 

There's plenty of bad blood, which we'll discuss later.  There's a couple of pretty big boobs for a few moments at the very beginning (covered with blood, that is--the owner of said boobs is knifing an unseen victim to shreds), which we never see again.  I kept expecting to see that particular short pop up somewhere along the way but it never showed up. 

Blonde babes?  There's a couple of ditzy blondes (Vanessa Ross, Rebecca Elizabeth Stevens) who appear intermittently as "hostesses" and wear out their welcome really fast.  Even shedding their tops and dropping their pants later on don't make Vanessa and Rebecca any less irritating, and you may find yourself fast-forwarding through the only thing resembling a "blonde babe" in the whole movie.  There are a couple of other unnecessary presenters as well (such as DAY OF THE DEAD:CONTAGIUM's April Wade) whose segments are equally unimportant.  Shane Ryan introduces most of the shorts himself anyway, so all that other fluff could've been trimmed.

It becomes pretty apparent right away that this should have been given a more descriptive title such as THE SHORT FILMS OF SHANE RYAN.  That way, less beer-fueled guys would be sitting perplexed in front of their TV sets saying "Gott in himmel, vas ist das?" and grabbing for the latest "Girls Gone Nuts!" DVD, and more people who appreciate watching imaginative short films by a talented indie director might actually end up watching it. 

If you're one of those people, you'll probably find a lot to appreciate in this grab-bag of shorts by Shane Ryan, who clearly loves filmmaking more than just about anything else.  There's a wide range of stuff here--some films have engaging stories, some are simply impressionistic montages of images, and some are just toss-offs where the closing credits appear about a minute after the titles and you say "huh?"  (I think Shane Ryan likes to make people say that.) 

The first one, "Lucifer's Mind", features a naked woman smearing herself with something (blood?  chocolate?) for about a minute in a frenzy of speeded-up shots intercut with clips of a rock band playing a driving tune (Boneshin provides some cool music for many of these shorts).  The titles pop in and out; when it says "Lucifer's Mind", there are a couple of shots of clouds, and then "The End."  Huh?  Okay, that was a pretty good mini-rock video. 

Next comes "Poison Cure", a high-school film which was shot in under 24 hours in order to reach a film festival deadline (it was rejected).  Ryan plays a strung-out, lovelorn teen throwing up in a bathroom while being comforted by his sympathetic gal pal.  She finally sticks him in the shower and turns on the cold water to keep him from passing out, then climbs in fully-clothed to snuggle and comfort him, and it's over.  Not much of a story--several of the films here are just brief, sometimes sensitive studies that leave you with a general impression, and it's pretty hit-and-miss--and a good example of why, despite the title, this isn't something that drunken frat guys will want to whoop it up to. 

Next up is "Sane:The Story Of The Boredom Killings", which is pretty self-descriptive, as two disaffected teens (Ryan and co-director Jeremy Williams, who call themselves "The Cousin Brothers") decide to relieve their boredom by killing people, which is seen from the POV of their video camera as they tape each other disposing of a few victims until they're caught and imprisoned (a postscript informs us of their eventual fates). 

I guess there's a message here, like "sometimes conscienceless kids horrifically kill people just for giggles", or something--Ryan claims it's about reality TV, though I didn't quite catch that--but, like many of these films, it's mainly an exercise in cinematic style (which seems to come almost effortlessly to Ryan, who can make just about anything interesting to look at) and shock value, mainly in the sequence in which the two rape and then gorily murder a young woman in her apartment.  Bad blood, indeed.

"Pinata" is one of eight short films (seven are in this collection) that Ryan salvaged from an aborted feature film project of the same name.  A shaking, drooling boy sits smoking a cigarette while a girl whacks baseballs in a batting cage, the end.  All together now--huh?

More bad blood and shock value are on hand next in another "Pinata" offshoot, "So, We Killed Our Parents", my personal favorite of the bunch.  Donnie and Denise Harris are brother and sister, and they're very close.  (Wink.)  Big Man is their big, mean, musclebound dad who looks and sounds like a cross between Popeye and a rabid bulldog, and his major joy in life is heaping all kinds of mental and physical abuse upon his kids all the time (the aptly-named Rex Cobalt is terrific, and somehow hilarious, in the role).  Their mom, "Bitch" (as in "Damn, bitch, git my belt!") wearily fetches Big Man's belt for him when he needs it to abuse the kids, complaining, "F*** you, why don't you WEAR one, a**hole?" 

That is, until one night when Donnie and Denise decide to grab a couple of baseball bats and turn the tables on Big Man and Bitch in a big way, gleefully pounding them into ground round right there on the livingroom rug as the dog looks on with a "what the hell?" expression.  Shane Ryan has a cinematic field day with sequences like this, combining regular, slow, and fast motion with quick cutting, wild camera angles, and cool music. 

Covered with blood, the newly-liberated teens celebrate by ecstatically going at each other like a couple of human ice-cream cones in an orgy of writhing, hot-blooded incest that ends up with a naked tongue-wrestling match in the shower.  Shocking!!!  (You might call the guys in for this scene, then dismiss them to return to "Where The Boys Aren't #13" or whatever.) 

Shane Ryan plays Donnie (no surprise), and Vicky Rodriguez is wonderful as Denise.  She may not be a "blonde babe", but she swings a mean baseball bat, among other things.  Again, this was my favorite film in the collection, which shows you how twisted I am, I guess.  After another short or two there's a series of bloopers and outtakes from it, highlighted by Rex Cobalt in a long-hair wig and bandana, playing a guitar very badly and croaking a song in which he complains about his unattentive wife ("Dumb cow won't scratch my nuts") and boasts, "I'm gonna be me the next Elvis Presley."

Skipping over a few more toss-offs from the unfinished "Pinata", we get to the two darkest and most finely-rendered of Ryan's shorts, both shot in black-and-white, a medium in which Ryan excells.  The first, "Isolation", is a painful portrait of a lonely, introspective boy named Billy (Ryan) who stalks the dreary streets of his hometown, forever yearning for the unconditional love of his mother who died shortly after giving birth to him in an alley.  Rex Cobalt appears again as the abusive father, a role he was apparently born to play. 

This film is followed by a "making of" documentary by Jason "I've never been more miserable in my entire life" Freeman entitled "More Than 15", which illustrates the grueling and often thankless effort put forth by everyone involved in the production ("Isolation" was screened at less than ten festivals but rejected by almost 100), and also lets us in on some of the cool ideas Ryan came up with to get certain shots (an overhead close-up of him lying in bed as the camera swirls in circles was done with a stationary camera shooting down on Ryan as he lay spinning on a merry-go-round in the park).

And finally, there's "The Cold Heat", which opens with a man and woman having joyless sex in a room that could very well be right next to Henry Spencer's apartment in ERASERHEAD.  Where "So, We Killed Our Parents" is light, colorful, and fun, despite the subject matter, "The Cold Heat" is nightmarish and disturbing.  The noirish black-and-white photography here is gorgeous and surreal--some of the images are rather stunning--making it, visually, the tour de force of the collection.  Ryan turns in one of his best performances here and Michiko Jimenez (AMATEUR PORN STAR KILLER) is memorable.  I won't tell you how it ends, but it's pretty cool.  This is Shane Ryan at his best, with imagination and style to burn.

I'm docking BIG BOOBS, BLONDE BABES, BAD BLOOD a tad because of the crappy hostess segments, misleading title, and shorts that weren't all that great.  But it easily scores three-and-a-half boobs for "So, We Killed Our Parents", "Isolation", "The Cold Heat", and other flashes of brilliance scattered here and there within this collection, which clearly show an exciting and wildly-imaginative cinematic talent at work.

BIG BOOBS, BLONDE BABES, BAD BLOOD -- movie review by porfle

ABSURD (aka "Rosso sangue") -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 9/24/18

 

Italian director Joe D'Amato's work ran the gamut from steamy sexploitation (THE ALCOVE with Laura Gemser) to graphic gorefests (ANTHROPOPHAGOUS, BEYOND DARKNESS and EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS, the latter also with Gemser).  But while his 1981 horror thriller ABSURD (aka "Rosso sangue") features an ample number of gory sequences, it has as much in common with John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN as with the usual wall-to-wall splatterfest.

The story begins with a family being menaced by an escaped madman (Luigi Montefiori, aka "George Eastman") who, as a result of a scientific experiment, is now both maniacally homicidal and practically indestructible.  Somehow making it from Greece to the U.S. with a priest (Edmund Perdom) hot on his trail, he suffers a serious injury and ends up killing a nurse before fleeing the hospital. 

"Absurd" is definitely the word when rumpled police detective Sgt. Engleman (Charles Borromel) finds out that he can't get anyone to help him look for the rampaging killer on the loose because there's a big football game on TV. Thus, in his words, the only people available to join the hunt are "a priest, a cop on the verge of retirement, and a rookie." He then gives the priest, whom he has just met, an unmarked patrol car and a gun.

The aforementioned family includes a mom and dad with a young son, Willy Bennett (Kasimir Berger) and a teenaged daughter, Katia (Katya Berger), who is confined to bed in some kind of highly-restrictive spinal traction.  When the 'rents run off to watch the football game at a friend's house, the kids are left alone with babysitter Emily (Annie Belle) until you-know-who shows up to turn ABSURD down the same alley where HALLOWEEN took us some years before.

The killer is even named Mikos after Michael Myers, but aside from that he has no distinguishing characteristics (mask, razor glove, personalized killing weapon) and is just a big, glowering crazy guy who's driven to homicide in a big way.  The priest character is similar to HALLOWEEN's Dr. Loomis, although once Mikos makes his way to the Bennett house the priest and cops pretty much disappear until the end of the movie.

Till then, D'Amato alternates the film's slower scenes with a nicely-wrought suspense that builds to some genuine thriller-level moments.  Again, the "babysitter protecting the kids from the madman" stuff is reminiscent of HALLOWEEN--some of the music even sounds as though John Carpenter might've written it--and when things get going nice and proper the tension is well maintained.

As for the more splattery moments, D'Amato doesn't let the gorehounds in his audience down.  While not quite Tom Savini quality, the effects are adequately effective when a nurse gets a power drill through the skull, a hapless janitor has his noggin pushed through an electric saw, and a nanny has her head fricaseed in a blazing oven. 

Various other blood 'n' guts moments pop up here and there as well, but not enough to qualify the film as a non-stop gorepalooza. (Still, ABSURD was one of the original 74 video nasties banned in 1984.)

The adult actors range from passable to good (prolific actor Purdom is a venerable presence), and the two kids deliver as well.  Much of the early action centers around Kasimir Berger as Willy, who's up to the challenge with his energetic performance.  Later, his real-life sister Katya comes through when the story hinges on her character's ability to tear off her restraints and struggle out of her sick bed. 

The 2-disc Blu-ray from Severin Films contains the film in two versions: the 94-minute English cut and the 88-minute Italian cut with English subtitles.  The amount of gore seemed about the same in both to me, so I couldn't really discern the differences between the two.  Both are 2K scans from the original negatives.

Bonuses include a new interview with Luigi Montefiori ("Mikos"), an archive interview with Joe D'Amato himself, an interview with filmmaker/extra Michele Soavi, and a trailer.  Disc two is a CD containing the film's score by composer Carlo Maria Cordio (first 2500 copies only).  The cover insert itself is reversible.

Although you won't mistake it for a Hitchcock flick, ABSURD has its share of chills and suspense along with the more giddily gruesome stuff.  It's D'Amato wielding his filmmaking abilities in fine form and entertaining us horror fans right up until the wickedly delightful fadeout. 


Special Features:Rosso Sangue: Alternate Italian cut (with optional English subtitles)
The Return of the Grim Reaper: Interview With Actor / Writer / Co-Producer Luigi Montefiore (George Eastman)
D’Amato on Video: Archive Interview With Director Aristide Massaccesi
A Biker (Uncredited): Interview With Michele Soavi
Trailer
First 2500 copies includes Bonus CD Soundtrack
Reversible Wrap
Available Sept. 25, 2018

ABSURD (aka "Rosso sangue") -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

BLAST FROM THE PAST -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 7/23/15

 

The "fish out of water", "stranger in a strange land" story has always been a favorite staple of both comedy and science-fiction.  BLAST FROM THE PAST (1999), while strictly a comedy, feels almost like sci-fi because it's about a man who's been thrust into a future that he doesn't understand and must learn to cope with.  But his present is our past, and his future is...well, us.

The story begins in 1964 when the Cuban Missile Crisis drives brilliant but paranoid scientist-inventor Calvin (Christopher Walken) and his dutiful wife Helen (Sissy Spacek) into their spacious and meticulously appointed fallout shelter, which Calvin seals up with a timer that won't let them come out for 35 years, by which time things should no longer be radioactive. 

Both Walken and Spacek tend to get pretty intense when they're playing serious characters, so they take this chance to be funny very seriously and the result is delightful.  Walken is a wonderful uber-nerd enjoying his climate-controlled life in their underground replica of a surburban dream cottage, while Spacek gives Helen an endearingly desperate quality as she juggles concepts like pot roast and prolonged captivity while tippling the cooking sherry. This entire sequence is loaded with wit and charm.

When their son Adam comes along, Calvin and Helen give him the finest upbringing which includes, of course, intensive home-schooling in the arts, sciences, literature, and etiquette--early 60s style, that is.  So when 35-year-old Adam (Brendan Fraser) is finally ready to leave the fallout nest, both he and his appalled parents are totally unprepared for what they find in the world of the late 1990s.

At this point, of course, the movie belongs to Brendan Fraser, who was born to play Adam.  Sent into downtown Los Angeles with $3,000 dollars and a huge shopping list, Adam does all the expected stuff--marvels at the sky, thrills to his first bus ride, glories in an ocean dip, is amazed and delighted by his fellow human beings--with Fraser skipping deftly between light farce and sentiment without getting either too silly or too sappy.

Naturally, what Adam really wants is to find a girlfriend, which is where Alicia Silverstone comes in.  Her "Eve" is the typical world-weary city girl whose seen-it-all attitude makes her skeptical of Adam's totally innocent nature even as she finds herself falling for him. 

Much fun is had watching her react to such things as Adam's joy at hearing Perry Como on the radio, or seeing him suddenly become the king of the dance floor doing the steps his mom and dad taught him.  While not exactly a comedy virtuoso, Silverstein is seen to much better advantage here than as Batgirl in BATMAN AND ROBIN, which pretty much goes without saying.

She's aided here by "Kids in the Hall" alumnus Dave Foley as Eve's gay roommate Troy, who takes Adam under his wing in matters of fashion, dating etiquette, etc. Troy also plays matchmaker when the burned-by-love Eve starts to worry that beneath his boyish charm, Adam may be some kind of wacko in need of serious psychiatric help.

The film is directed by Hugh Wilson of POLICE ACADEMY fame who also helmed Fraser's DUDLEY DO-RIGHT, so he's no stranger to lowbrow comedy that runs hot and cold.  He does some of his best work here, making the early fallout shelter scenes almost as comically stylized as an old Hanna-Barbera cartoon from the same period and giving the later culture-clash stuff the same nutty incongruity found in THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE. 

The Blu-ray from Warner Home Video is in 16x9 widescreen with Dolby 5.1 English and 2.0 Spanish soundtracks.  Subtitles are in English, French, and Spanish.  The sole extra is the film's trailer. 

Like Adam on the dance floor, BLAST FROM THE PAST only occasionally trips over its own feet.  Most of the time, it's a deft balance of romantic comedy and wacky farce, with some very enjoyable performances.  Best of all, it's like an entire season of a wonderfully offbeat TV series distilled down into a single movie.


Street date: August 4, 2015
Stills shown are not from Blu-ray

BLAST FROM THE PAST -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

ROBOWAR -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 6/23/19

 

Once again, prolific Italian schlockmeister Bruno Mattei (VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN'S PRISON, ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD, SHOCKING DARK) is loose in the Philippine jungle, but instead of cannibals or zombies, this time he's bringing us a slam-bang, bullet-riddled rip-off of PREDATOR, ROBOCOP, and RAMBO called ROBOWAR (Severin Films, 1988). 

This is actually one of his best films (judging from the ones I've seen, anyway), a good-looking production with lush settings, good camerawork, and some action setpieces that really deliver the explosive goods.

These involve a group of top mercenary soldiers who've been hired to go into the jungle in search of someone--or something--known only as Omega One. Mascher (Mel Davidson) is along as an unwelcome "technical advisor", although the others suspect him of being deeply involved in whatever their secret mission is really about and resent him for holding out on them.

The guys are known collectively as "BAM" (or "Big Ass Mofos", to put it euphemistically) and have such distinct and interesting personalities that we get to like them pretty quick.  Scripters Claudio Fragasso & Rossella Drudi (ZOMBIE 4) have given them some amusingly hokey and funny dialogue, the latter often delivered during the thick of battle which makes those scenes even more fun.

These guys are the usual tough-as-shoe-leather types, especially their leader Murphy (Reb Brown, who I know best as TV's first "Captain America"), but even they are aghast when they start stumbling over a succession of bodies that have been skinned, shredded, disembowled, cooked, etc. in some of the best makeup effects I've seen in a Mattei film.

All of which is due to their elusive prey, a mysterious cyborg who looks like he's wearing a black medieval suit of armor and a motorcycle helmet. Since this movie lacks a Schwarzenegger-sized budget, the cyborg's main features are pixelized robot vision and simple laser-beam weapons.  His constant mental chatter with some centralized computer sounds like those "Roger, Roger" drones in THE PHANTOM MENACE crossed with "The Addams Family"s Cousin Itt.

To increase the team's peril, they keep running into roving gangs of bad-guy guerillas who are gleefully massacring all the civilians in the area including the doctors at a local village hospital. 

Getting involved in the fray, the BAMs not only get a chance to blow away lots of these creeps (in what prove to be the film's most badass action scenes) but also rescue the fair maiden Virgin (Catherine Hickland, "Capitol", "Texas"), a jungle doctor who brings out the chivalrous side of these rough-hewn rogues.

Particularly fun is when the good guys descend on Virgin's former hospital, now used as a guerilla headquarters, and all fiery hell breaks loose. These hardcore mercenaries are armed to the teeth with giant machine guns which they shoot with one hand while feeding it bullets with the other, and they love to scream "YAAAAAA!!!" the whole time. 

When they aren't fighting, ROBOWAR becomes one of those steamy slogs through the jungle where every turn might yield a poisonous snake or a perilous booby trap.  They're being stalked by the cyborg the whole time, but surprisingly he turns out to be much less of a threat than one might imagine, and certainly nothing on the level of the famous "Predator."  Still, he's a fun character and there's a cool final-reel twist regarding his origin.  

There's enough amusingly odd characters and shoot-em-up fun to make ROBOWAR one of Mattei's most entertaining films, whether you're in it for the sci-fi stuff, the gore, or just the trigger-happy military maniacs gleefully shooting up everything in sight while screaming "YAAAAAA!!!"



Scanned in 4k from the original negative
Street date: June 25, 2019

Special Features:

    Robo Predator: Interview with Co-Director/Co-Writer Claudio Fragasso
    Italian Rip Off: Interview with Co-Writer Rossella Drudi
    Violence She Wrote: Career Interview with Screenwriter Rossella Drudi
    Robo-Lady: Interview with Actress Catherine Hickland
    Papa Doc’s War: Interview with Actor John P. Dulaney
    The Robowarrior: Interview with Actor Jim Gaines Jr.
    War in the Phillipines: Interview with Actor/Stuntman Massimo Vanni
    Catherine Hickland’s Behind The Scenes Home Movies
    Trailer

ROBOWAR -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

HAIR -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 6/29/20

 

I've always had mixed feelings about director Milos Forman's colorful film adaptation of the 60s musical HAIR (Olive Signature Films, 1979), starting from the first time I ever saw it on cable back in the 80s. Or rather, the first five or six times I saw it, since I was a big rewatcher in those days even if I wasn't totally sold on the movie but liked certain parts of it while not caring for others.

The parts I didn't care for included, well, the characters. Or most of them, anyway. By that time, the allure of the hippie lifestyle had long since worn off for this boomer and I started regarding them as the manipulative leeches that they often were, rebelling against the "straight" life while begging members of it for money and eschewing possessions while doing their best to attain them.

Treat Williams' blustery hippie leader Berger is one of the worst offenders, a self-righteous manchild who's really an irresponsible con man at heart. When he and his "tribe" of fellow hippies encounter a young Oklahoman named Claude (John Savage) hanging out in Central Park before his impending induction into the Army, Berger thinks it would be funny to try and induct him into the ways of the hippie while steering him romantically toward a haughty debutante (Beverly D'Angelo as Sheila) who strikes Claude's fancy as she rides a horse majestically through the park.

Berger and his gang invade Sheila's fancy debutante ball with all that insufferable "free-spirited" attitude and delight in disrupting all its various proprieties to the point where he ends up stomping down the length of the dining table while shaking his ass at everyone (to the delight of Charlotte Rae, representing the open-minded oldie who finds such behavior giddily charming).

During this time we see John Savage giving a meaty performance as the confused Claude, who wants to do his military duty but is seduced into the seemingly "free" hippie life, especially after he's persuaded to drop LSD (the surreal sequence that follows is Forman's attempt to be Ken Russell for awhile, something he's not very good at).

With the pushy Berger amusing himself with the lives and feelings of Claude and Sheila, we also get to know the rest of the tribe and aren't always impressed. Jeannie (Annie Golden) is pregnant but doesn't know or care whether the father is blonde-haired Woof (Don Dacus) or the African-American Hud (Dorsey Wright), who also has a fiancee and a small son whom he seems to have abandoned.

It's to the credit of director Milos Forman (AMADEUS, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, MAN ON THE MOON) and screenwriter Michael Weller (who adapted the musical play by Gerome Ragni & James Rado and Galt MacDermot) that these societal outsiders aren't too overly romanticized even though we're often meant to find their antics funny and/or liberating.

There's also a certain veneer of realism that keeps things from getting too fantastical or stylized. Twyla Tharp's choreography is designed to look like a bunch of everyday people dancing around rather than a troup of professional, precision dancers. Real exteriors are used both in New York (mainly a rather grimy Central Park) and Nevada. The Army base where Claude ends up is a hellishly hot, dusty, joyless place.

Most of my reservations about the story were resolved with the stunning climax of the film, which contains a satisfying plot twist and a stirring rendition of "Let the Sunshine In" (a fitting bookend to the opening "Aquarius") which brings the film to a rousing conclusion.

Most of the play's familiar songs are reproduced in outstanding performances which feature the likes of Ellen Foley, Nell Carter, Melba Moore, and Betty Buckley, the latter soloing on my favorite number, the gorgeous "Walking In Space."

(On the non-singing front, keep a lookout for other such familiar faces as Richard Bright, Miles Chapin, and director Nicholas Ray.)

Even the Stylistics lend their voices to the incredibly strange musical number "Black Boys/White Boys" in which military officers inspecting naked recruits espouse their unbridled joy. Rivaling Betty Buckley's performance is Cheryl Barnes as Hud's spurned fiancee belting out the classic "Easy To Be Hard." Beverly D'Angelo handles the hit "Good Morning, Starshine." And of course the title tune is given a raucous, somewhat overbearing workout.

Strangely enough, it's my love-hate relationship with HAIR that has always made it interesting to watch.  Perhaps it's best that the film neither overly glorifies the hippies (when Berger goes home to beg money from his parents, we see what a phony he is) nor condemns them outright. And Forman's style is an uneasy juxtaposition of the real and the surreal, which pretty much represents that period in history as well as anything.


YEAR: 1979
GENRE: MUSICAL DRAMA
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH (with optional English subtitles)
LABEL: OLIVE FILMS
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 121 mins
RATING: PG
VIDEO: 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio; Color
AUDIO: STEREO

OLIVE SIGNATURE FEATURES

    New HD restoration
    Audio commentary by assistant director Michael Hausman and actor Treat Williams
    “The Tribe Remembers” – with actors Beverly D’Angelo, Don Dacus, Ellen Foley, Annie Golden, John Savage, and Dorsey Wright
    “Making Chance Work: Choreographing Hair” – with choreographer Twyla Tharp
    “Cutting Hair” – with editors Lynzee Klingman and Stanley Warnow
    “Hair Style” – with production designer Stuart Wurtzel
    “Artist, Teacher, Mentor: Remembering Milos Forman” – with director James Mangold
    Essay by critic Sheila O’Malley

HAIR -- DVD Review by Porfle

BOY, DID I GET A WRONG NUMBER! -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 1/21/17

 

I remember watching BOY, DID I GET A WRONG NUMBER! (1966) on TV two or three times as a kid.  I thought it was mildly amusing then, but it never really occurred to me how awful it was until it showed up years later as one of "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time" in that book by Harry Medved and Randy Dreyfuss.  So I couldn't wait to see what my reaction to a fresh re-viewing (via Olive Films' new Blu-ray and DVD release) would be after all these years.

Well, having developed a fierce affection for bad movies in the interim (it was always there but seemed to grow ever more keen over time) I now find this almost willfully mediocre and downright aggressively unfunny Bob Hope comedy to be a giddy joy from start to finish. 

This is a prime example of what I refer to as the "old fogey comedy", one of those colorful but dreary little backlot romps in which aging comics like Bob react with supposedly humorous chagrin to the changing mores of the 60s.  It usually involves the generation gap, as in the previous year's I'LL TAKE SWEDEN in which Bob co-starred with those crazy kids Tuesday Weld and Frankie Avalon.
 

 

But here, his comfortably conservative lifestyle is given a good shaking up by nothing less than the big S-E-X, in the form of a scantily-clad, perpetually way-hot Elke Sommer.  (Bob has a couple of teenaged kids in this but they don't figure that prominently.)  Since a more relaxed attitude toward sex was creeping into 60s cinema at the time, it was up to guys like Bob to step up and give their somewhat calcified take on it while keeping things family-friendly. 

Elke plays sexy starlet Didi, whose every film is highlighted by a bubble bath scene.  Her manager/director/boyfriend (Cesare Danova as "Pepe Pepponi") eggs her on when she begins to balk at such constant exploitation. (She wants to be a serious actress.) 

One day she escapes from the set in nothing but bubbles and disappears.  A few comic complications later and she's hiding out in real estate agent Bob's hideaway cottage by a secluded lake while a nationwide woman-hunt ensues.  (Bob's name in the film is "Tom Meade" but I think I'll just keep calling him "Bob" if that's okay.) 



Kindhearted Bob's attempts to help her hide from the world (while resisting overt carnal temptation) are thrown into disarray when his wife Martha ("Make Room For Daddy"'s Marjorie Lord) shows up at the cottage for a weekend love tryst with Bob, followed by Pepe and his strong-arm goons.  Meanwhile, Bob's sassy maid Lily, played by Phyllis Diller in full fright-wig mode, does her best to provide comedy relief to the comedy. 

The whole delightfully jumbled mess is like a deluxe episode of a bad 60s sitcom, with Bob and Phyllis lugging a drugged Didi from room to room so the increasingly perplexed Mrs. Meade won't stumble over her. 

Horny Boy Scouts peer through the windows, their hormones doing backflips at the sight of the elusive Didi in one of Bob's shirts. (Elke, needless to say, is well worth peering at.)  Martha, of course, eventually discovers Didi and goes into a fit of jealousy just about the time Pepe and the police show up thinking Bob has murdered poor Didi. 

 

Through it all, Bob just keeps firing off the really bad one-liners with the inimitable rubber-faced Phyllis giving him stiff competition.  (She has the advantage of being able to punctuate each of her cringeworthy gags with that trademark cackle of hers.) By now, Bob's zest for filmmaking had apparently started to wane as his performance, amazingly, seems hardly less perfunctory than the ones he gave during his many network TV specials. 

Marjorie Lord, bless her heart, not only has to act sexually aroused by Bob Hope but is cursed with one of the most god-awful "big hair" hairstyles ever to burst forth like Godzilla from a studio makeup department, while the whole film gives off a weary air of "what's with these crazy 60s anyway?" cluelessness. 

To top it off, the story ends with nothing less than a full-scale bad car chase, which means lots of stunt people driving around in fast motion while Bob, Phyllis, and the rest mug it up in front of rear-projection screens. (Phyllis Diller hunched over a dirt bike is a sight not soon forgotten.) 

Amazingly, the director, George Marshall, had a body of work that boasted such films as DESTRY RIDES AGAIN and HOW THE WEST WAS WON. Somehow he would later end up helming such relatively lesser fare as Elke's THE WICKED DREAMS OF PAULA SCHULTZ (Tarantino fans will recognize the reference to it in KILL BILL VOL. 2) and Jerry Lewis' less-than-stellar HOOK, LINE, AND SINKER, both of which make fitting companions for this resolutely unremarkable yet perversely watchable effort.

The DVD from Olive Films is in 1.85:1 widescreen with mono sound and optional English subtitles.  No extras.

To recap my two most important points: BOY, DID I GET A WRONG NUMBER is (1) a pretty bad movie, and (2) a delightfully fun experience.  Junk film junkies will understand.  As "old fogey" comedies go, it's one of the worst, which means it's one of the best.  And if that's too confusing, just sit back, ignore everything else, and peer at Elke for an hour and a half. 

BOY, DID I GET A WRONG NUMBER! -- DVD Review by Porfle

KILL THE IRISHMAN -- DVD review by porfle

 Originally posted on 5/27/11

 

It's not every day you get a mob movie as raw and violent as one of Martin Scorcese's gangster epics, but the fact-based KILL THE IRISHMAN (2010) will do until the next one of those comes along.  It's like GOODFELLAS Lite, but with its own vigorous, roughhouse charm. 

The first half of the story recounts burly Irish dock worker Danny Greene's "come-up", beginning with his brash, decisive handling of a sadistic Union boss (SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION'S Bob Gunton), whose position he usurps until corruption lands him in hot water with the Feds.  Danny goes free after agreeing to become an informant, then he and his gang of hardy Irish chums go into business as enforcers for a Jewish loan shark named Shondor Birns (Christopher Walken as his usual creepy-cool self) who has Mafia connections.

A meeting with current mob boss Jack Licavoli (gang-movie legend Tony Lo Bianco) lands him an even more lucrative deal that begins his ill-fated association with the Italians.  Eventually, he rebels against the greedy, controlling mobsters while also clashing with Birns over money, leading to a feud with none other than "Fat Tony" Salerno (an inevitable Paul Sorvino) of New York's Gambino family.  They put out a $25,000 contract on him and for the rest of the film Danny is forced to evade bullets and car bombs at every turn.



Unlike the typical cutthroat Mafia hood embodied by the likes of Joe Pesci or Robert DeNiro, Danny Greene comes off as a guy you could hang out with and not worry about getting whacked for looking at him wrong.  He's admirable (relatively speaking, anyway) because he goes after what he wants and doesn't back down to anybody while remaining loyal to his friends and gaining their undying loyalty in return.

I have to hand it to someone who can tell self-important Mafia kingpins to stuff it to their astonished faces.  In fact, it's pretty exhilarating to watch this two-fisted Irish galoot bustle his way through life and fearlessly take on anyone who wants to "dance", including a Union big shot's hulking bodyguard and a scary Hell's Angel whose rowdy gang is disrupting Danny's backyard barbecue (he thrashes them both within an inch of their lives). 

Director and co-scripter Jonathan Hensleigh has a lean, straightforward storytelling style unhampered by a lot of visual fluff.  He has assembled a hell of a cast here, with Ray Stevenson taking on the role of Danny as though born to it.  In addition to Walken, Lo Bianco, and Sorvino, Val Kilmer plays a Cleveland detective who has a love-hate relationship with Danny and Vinnie Jones appears as one of Danny's tough Irish cohorts.  Familiar faces such as Mike Starr (ED WOOD) and THE SOPRANOS' Steve Schirripa are on hand as well.

The female side of the cast is strong, with Linda Cardellini as Danny's long-suffering wife Joan, Laura Ramsey as his hot young girlfriend Ellie, and the venerable Fionnula Flanagan as a tough old Irishwoman who embodies Danny's Celtic roots and helps bring out his more human side.  Robert Davi (LICENSE TO KILL) plays the cold-blooded hitman hired to kill the Irishman once and for all.  FULL METAL JACKET's Vincent D'Onofrio is great as John Nardi, an Italian mob boss who partners with Danny after being screwed over by the Mafia.
 


While KILL THE IRISHMAN doesn't revel in violence, things get rough at times and some of the killings are pretty graphic.  The serial bombings that plagued Cleveland in the 70s are excitingly portrayed here--guys on both sides took their lives in their hands every time they started their cars as, in the words of a real-life news report, "the heirarchy of organized crime in Cleveland continues to violently realign."  The attempts on Danny's life keep things hopping in the second half, especially when a bundle of lit dynamite crashes through the window of his house while he's on the phone, building suspense until the film's inevitable conclusion. 

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound.  Subtitles are in English and Spanish.  In addition to a trailer, the disc features an hour-long documentary, "Danny Greene: The Rise and Fall of the Irishman", which I found fascinating after viewing the fictionalized account.  Some of the images are quite graphic--car bombings tend to make for messy autopsy photographs.

More than just a succession of violent and depraved setpieces, KILL THE IRISHMAN is involving because its lead character is such a dynamic and complicated figure with enough humanity to make him sympathetic.  Danny Greene must've been a real force of nature, something that this solid film version of his life makes the most of.

KILL THE IRISHMAN -- DVD review by porfle