Coffy, Giallo and Gluttony

I've been super lazy since Christmas. I always over extend myself during the Holidays. Between parties, huge banquets I assign myself to prepare, working retail, not to mention my crafty endeavors, by the time everything is said and done my ass is busted. I had some time off of work but I'm completely broke for the next week or so, that really leaves nothing else to do but watch movies! I spent the day after Christmas having my much needed Holiday Horror marathon. Originally I was going to spend yesterday watching some of my gift-movies, but at the last minute I decided to save them for the new year so they can make it to my 2013 list. It's not as if I have any shortage of dvds, bootlegs, videos and downloads to raid. So I tackled a few dust collectors from the vault, which makes way more sense considering I've had them way longer.

First, I decided to watch Jack Hill's "Coffy". I caught up on a lot of Jack Hill this year, mostly his Filipino Women in Prison films, but again with Pam Grier. Seemed like a good Hill film to round off the year. The thing that makes these movies so great is getting to stare at Pam Grier who is a pillar of strength and a most bodacious babe. Seeing her blow the heads off drug peddlers with a shot gun is illuminating. She plays a nurse whose 11 year old sister has been hooked on heroin. Fed up with all the pushing going on in her town, she seeks out revenge by picking the gangsters off one by one. A lot of similarities to Foxy Brown. I'm not sure why, but I liked Coffy a little better. Just a personal preference. Maybe just because it's fresher on my mind, maybe it was the Roy Ayers score, or maybe the super saccharine psychedelic furniture, clothes and wallpaper (although as I recall, there was plenty of that in Foxy Brown too), but it was all good. Oh, also. Linda Haynes. I love her. She's so very lovely, appeared in a handful of exceptional cult movies in the 60's/70's (Rolling Thunder, Latitude Zero and my favorite, the Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones) and has just has great cadence and screen presence. She worked well opposite Pam Grier which is no easy feat. Grier is a whole lotta' woman.


Next up I watched what was truly one of the most revolting movies I've ever seen. Those are some pretty big shoes to fill. I've watched some grossies but having finally gotten around to the 1975 film "Criminally Insane" aka "Crazy Fat Ethel", I'm really reaching to think of something more disgusting at the moment. Ethel is an obese woman who lives with her Grandma and is undergoing shock treatment for her fits of rage. What causes these rages? Anything or anyone who comes in between her and her food. Food is a powerful tool in a film. Certain films revolving around food make me happy and hungry (Tampopo coming to mind). Food is kind of universal in the language of film and for that reason I love to see it used at a plot point. As comforting as it can be, it can also be extremely unappealing.

Once gluttony, fetishism and digestion is involved, this thing that gives us nourishment has been corrupted. I was less affected by the violence in Criminally Insane as Ethel's insatiable appetite. The fact that the two were related gave it a bigger impact. We constantly see Ethel cooking and eating huge amounts of food. Never having enough, KILLING people that interfere with her constant consumption. It's a really ugly subject, and considering I chose to watch it while I and had just sat down (not really knowing what it was about) with big plate of Christmas leftovers, it effected me even more so. I couldn't eat my food and in fact, I didn't eat again for the rest of the day. I've always prided myself in having an iron gut in regards to grotesqueries. You develop a tolerance when pizza and graphic horror movies are a reoccurring factor in your life. THIS MOVIE, set me off my food in a way few have. Some may consider it cheesy, but I thought it was genius. Elements of a John Waters movie directed by H.G. Lewis or Andy Milligan. I recently found out that it was remade this past year. I can't help but wonder what a modernized Crazy Fat Ethel would be like. The dvd also came with a sequel made in 1987, which I anticipate watching...on an empty stomach.

After this I tried to watch Lucio Fulci's Murder Rock from 1984, but I downloaded it and the copy was in Italian with no english subs. Which is weird, because this is like the third time I've tried to watch it and something has happened. The first time, I rented it from netflix and the disc was scratched, the second time I was at a friend's house and I got called into work within the first 20 minutes and now this. It's like I'm not meant to see this movie that I strongly suspect I will love. Dammit.

This poster is out of sight! 

Moving on, I decided to stick with the Italian theme and go the Giallo route, although I didn't realize it at the time, the film I picked was actually French, derp. 2009's "Amer", a French tribute to giallo. I was a little daunted by this one. Someone, I can't even remember who, told me that it sucked. That comment mind-ninja'd me out of making the leap for a while. With Murder Rock being a busta-rooni, it just seemed like the next best thing. And it was! Very minimal dialogue so the story is more of a collage of visuals. There are maybe ten lines in the whole movie. The film is mostly about psychosis, but you don't really know that at first...so that's a spoiler, sorry. It unfolds in three acts, all revolving around a pretty girl in three stages of her life. The first, her as a little girl living in what seems to be a haunted house. The second part, her as a teenager going to town with her mother. There are a lot of hormonal sexual overtones in this entire sequence (the whole film really, but it really comes out in this scene). Then, her as an adult going back to the house she grew up in, the "haunted" house. The film takes some unexpected twists and turns all the while using beautiful lighting and cinematography which has been greatly influenced by giallo films. The music is spectacular as well. Stelvio Cipriani, Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai and they even threw in a pop song by Adriano Celantano. Nicely done. The ambiance is bewitching. Reminiscent of Suspiria and the work of Carmelo Bene. Tinges of Svankmajer's Alice in the that first sequence as well. It's worth a look if you're a fan of anything I've mentioned. Throw Backs are difficult to master. Take Argento's own film "Giallo" for instance. What a mess. This film on the other hand is a nice addition to your giallo collection and the best revivals of the genre I've yet to experience. I recommend it.

Despite my ambivalence toward the film, I dig the poster. I kind of want it.

Lastly in this quadruple feature, I decided to go back to Fulci and watch another I had on hand. Sodoma's Ghost. Yeeesh. I'd heard bad things but, I'd heard bad things about Amer too. I hear bad things about a lot of movies, especially ones I end up loving. So I watched it anyway. Ehh, not so good. It's about this group of teens who get lost and end up at house haunted by Nazi ghosts. It sounds cool and all, but there's a whole lot of nothin' going on. There's some extended footage of Nazi's partying (which Fulci re-used in Cat in the Brain), confused teens, and one good scene involving Russian Roulette and monster tits.

See?

It was watchable, barely, but very watered down for Fulci. I can say without hesitation it's my least favorite of his. The end of the movie felt very Scooby-Doo. No real consequences or death. I'm sad to say, it was just generally weak. Oh well...

Next time I post it will be 2013! yay! I may even post my top 12 of 2012.

See you next year!

End of the Month Mini-Reviews

I've been sick this past week with a yucky summer cold. I usually like to write blogs late at night so my high doses of Robitussin has kept me from being conscious during my peak writing hours. Not to mention the general crappiness I've felt. So I'm tardy on a few reviews I've been wanting to do. Rather than devote whole blogs on some of the great movies I've watched recently, I think I'm just going to summarize the highlights of the June.


I'm sure if you live near a Movie Gallery or Hollywood Video you know that (not so) sadly they're going out of business. I have mixed feelings about this. I was partially disappointed because in this area they are literally the last rental places around. Our Mom and Pop shops have almost completely disappeared so if I ever wanted to see something I didn't want to buy (or wait for an available slot on my Netflix que) I'd just pop into Movie Gallery on my way to the grocery store. On the other hand I often bitched about Movie Gallery. They were insanely over priced and had mostly terrible new movies that didn't interest me. Renting three movies costs somewhere around $20. I always felt ripped off and annoyed at the smug employees. Yet I still went about once a month. I guess I just felt sentimental about going to a store, browsing at all of my options and inevitably compromising my standards to rent something almost at cost. Netflix has been a life saver with it's endless options but the aesthetics of a shop full of movies can't be replaced by that jovial red envelope. But on the other hand, places like Movie Gallery couldn't evolve with the advancing technology so they were doomed to fail. Being an opportunist and also having a nasty addiction for buying movies, I've been taking advantage of their going out of business sale. I THOUGHT they had mostly shitty movies but with prices between $2-$6 you start to notice things you might not have before.

I finally saw the classic Jack Hill Blaxploitation movie, Foxy Brown. I only recently have made a special effort to get into the genre, this one really stands out as one of the best. It's so over the top and she's incredibly sexy! Everything about this movie is a perfect example of what it SHOULD be. I also saw Shaft for the first time. File both under "should have seen before now". I liked it a lot but not much could measure up to Foxy Brown and her infinite coolness. I also saw the Jamaican masterpiece The Harder They Come, which I guess also counts as blaxploitation though it plays out to me more like a foreign film. I always love seeing foreign cities in the 60's and 70's. Though I'm sure I've seen movies set in Jamaica, I'd never really seen a Jamaican movie as far as I know. The locations were interesting and the story was exciting and gritty. I always found out that it's almost single handedly responsible for bringing Ska, Rocksteady and Reggae to America. I thought the clips from Django and Jimmy Cliff's finale being an homage to those scenes was a really nice touch. I saw the 1977 version of the Sentinel which I quite enjoyed. It reminded me of Rosemary's Baby though I read that it was supposedly inspired by the Exorcist. I love anything with Burgess Meredith. I especially love the roles he played in the 70's. Old and absent minded, as apposed to his earlier roles where he's young and absent minded. Even more so than the Sentinel, I was enamoured by Don't Look Now. An emotional thriller written by Daphne Du Maurier. A brilliantly paced movie with a truly horrific ending. Beware though: LOTS of naked Donald Sutherland. I saw another underrated horror masterpiece called Of Unknown Origin directed by George P. Cosmatos. Peter Weller vs. a giant-fucking-rat! One of the coolest rat movies I've ever seen, and I'm pretty fond of the genre. Usually I find myself sympathizing with the rats since I used to own some rodent cuties. This rat however was anti-cute! Very slimey and creepy. One of the best creature feature of the month was the Howling 3: the Marsupials. Still trying to find any ozploitation available to me, I came across a cheap copy used at FYE and knew it must be mine. I'm not sure what was my favorite, the clip from "It Came from Uranus" or the creepy birth of the kangaroo were-baby.

I've never seen the second or any of the other Howling films, but I liked it much more than the first. In all it's cheesy glory!




So I finally saw Showgirls. I had seen it edited for TBS with half the movie cut out and animated bras overlayed on their bodies. I thought it was absurd and pretty entertaining. Like I said, $2 movies make you do strange things. I had the sudden urge to OWN Showgirls. As soon as the thought entered my head I couldn't NOT buy it. I thought it might not be as funny with an NC-17 rating. I was wrong. Oh how I was wrong. Seeing Jessie Spano flopping around like a dead fish mid-coitus was one of the greater moments of my life. It really is an epic disasterpiece of embarrassing proportions. It's Golden Raspberry award was well deserved!

The best movie I saw this month was Sammo Hung's Encounter of the Spooky Kind.
 

I love the way the Hong Kongers make black magic movies! This one combines horror, comedy and kung-fu flawlessly! King of Shaw Brothers-esque. Apparently he re-invented the vampire/kung-fu genre which had been done in the past but really gained popularity in the 80's. His comical fight choreography is unparalleled. I ended up watching this movie twice. It's just the kind of outrageous spookfest I love to see and NEED to see more of!

Ok, that's all for now! It's late and I still haven't fully recovered. Time for sleeps!