Ahoy Matey…shiver me timbers! I like pirate movies. 
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970)
In the end this Oscar winning political satire was just like I was afraid it was going to be, everything is in the starting premise and the movie then goes on for two hours hammering that same premise down your throat with little twists and turns. So it is a little bit overrated and dated. I think that other less well-known movie with Volonte and similar theme is actually better: Slap the Monster on Page One (1972). But I am Volonte and Morricone fan, so movie with those two is always worth a watch.
Reviewed Larisa Sheptiko’s excellent drama:
http://www.furiouscinema.com/2013/12/wings-1966/
I haven’t reviewed anything for two weeks, maybe it’s high time I reviewed a spag…
Presently watching Carry On Camping, classic-yet-crusty bit of holiday telly. It’s my favourite Carry On… film, and it still raises a chuckle even having seen it… oh, feels like a thousand times, now.
[i]“What’s a nice girl like you doing with an old cow?”
“I’m taking her to the bull”
“Couldn’t your father do that?”
“No, it has to be the bull!!”[/i]
;D
Something to read in the dark days between Christmas and the New Year:
[url]http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/62/b3ap.jpg/[/url]
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[size=12pt]http://www.furiouscinema.com/2013/12/bonnie-clyde-a-ride-from-happiness-to-hell/[/size]
[quote=“last.caress, post:10764, topic:1923”]Presently watching Carry On Camping, classic-yet-crusty bit of holiday telly. It’s my favourite Carry On… film, and it still raises a chuckle even having seen it… oh, feels like a thousand times, now.
[i]“What’s a nice girl like you doing with an old cow?”
“I’m taking her to the bull”
“Couldn’t your father do that?”
“No, it has to be the bull!!”[/i]
;D[/quote]Carry On Behind is my favourite one.
PORKY’S
I still die laughing at this film…
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug in 3D
Two days ago… 
[/URL] [size=12pt]DRACULA[/size] (Horror of Dracula - 1958, Terence Young)
Hammer’s first Dracula movie, and it wouldn’t be the last. It’s said to be closer to Bram Stoker’s original story. I once read the novel, but frankly, I don’t remember much of it. The film was more successful than the Frankenstein and Mummy movies Hammer produced around this time and put both Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing on the map. It’s easy to see why.
The movie was heavily censored upon its release and apparently some scenes - notably the uncut version of Dracula’s destruction - only survived in Japanese prints; these scenes were restored in recent Blu-ray releases, but some people pretend that there are still a few moments of brutality missing. I watched the movie on BBC Television, no idea if the version was cut or not. The movie does look quite bloody and gory considering the year of its production.
Most Hammer fans prefer the early outings, I’m one of the few who prefer the later, more daring, slightly tongue-in-cheek productions. This movie is beautifully made and fun to watch, but I still think those early movies were a bit too serious, too grave (if you know what I mean). Some of the material (for example a blood transfusion to save a girl infected by the vampire virus) may feel a little ridiculous now. But it’s still Doctor Van Helsing supervising the procedure …
[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/545/cfld.jpg/][url]http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/27/l3zp.jpg/[/url]
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“Ridiculous? Moi?”
I love Hammer’s DRACULA series. Lee and Cushing knocked these suckers out of the park.
And while I do lean more heavily on the earlier entries, I do thoroughly enjoy the later sequels, too.
J. Edgar…
Le Professionel (1981). Good movie, good score.
I’ve watched it last year or so. I found it ok, but although Morricone delivered an inspired score, this Chi Mai thing is used to often! I couldn’t hear it any more after one hour!
I love Morricone, but one thing I don’t like is the use of his composition in this movie.
Lovelace (Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman, 2013).
Meh. I thought I’d be writing more on this one but, alas, I can’t be bothered. I mean, the filmmakers couldn’t be bothered either, so why should I? Largely presenting specific events within a story already shrouded in half-truths and conjecture two ways - one portraying Ms. Lovelace (Amanda Seyfried) as a wide-eyed naïf in thrall to a snake-eyed charmer in Chuck Traynor (Peter Sarsgaard), one portraying her as an out-and-out victim of terrifying physical abuse - Lovelace manages to soft-soap both of the versions it wants to show us AND manages to omit lots of relevant detail: Many eyewitnesses claim that Ms. Lovelace was very happy with her lot, both at the time of Deep Throat AND beforehand, when she was shooting far, FAR harder short movies involving her in everything from watersports to bestiality; Lovelace would have us believe that Deep Throat was all Ms. Lovelace did in the field of adult cinema and that’s simply not the case; the movie also neglects to let us know that late on in her life - having spoken out by then against the anti-porn lobby of which she’d been a staunch part for so long - she’d returned to attending adult movie conventions and signing copies of Deep Throat, and even did a glam shoot for a softcore fetish mag. All of that is missing. And apart from that, Lovelace is also littered with lazy and unnecessary anachronisms, for those paying attention (which the makers appeared not to be doing).
I WILL say that the performances throughout were very good, especially from Ms. Seyfried and Mr. Sarsgaard. It’s just a shame that the story Lovelace wants to tell isn’t as brave as the actors prepared to tell it.
That’s what I brought away from it, too. The makings were there for a very good film, and the ball was fumbled. Still, as you mentioned, there was some decent acting. Just that it’s not enough to save this one…
Love this film, and the score is really great. A personal top favorite
Zombie Hunter (2013) - Another cheap, straight to video release with Danny Trejo (not as the lead despite being featured on the cover and named first everywhere). Terrible. Turned it off after 40min and deleted from my hard drive. Features some of the worst kind of music ever.
American Mary (2012) - kind of interesting horror film about a medical student that stumbles into underground plastic surgery/body modification. Also a bit of a rape/revenge flic. Worth a watch, but not sure how likely I’ll be to revisit it again
Galaxy Of Terror - well, Corman’s production, b-sf flick with very gigeresque pyramid with some astronauts trapped inside it and being confronted with their own fears, which are materialized in its dark tunnels
exteriers and interiers look pretty good, especially pyramid is great, worth a watch just for that
well, and for that famous scene, in which gigantic worm rapes a blonde astronautness bombshell of course
Eliminators - okay, i thought this is a proper time travel movie set in a Roman era, but guess what, it wasn’t
fuck, it wasn’t set in any other era either, so i was quite disappointed that it has just normal contemporary setup, but what totally pissed me off that this was one of the most idiotic movies i’ve seen
and they almost didn’t time travel
i dont know, i’ve just read about this movie somewhere and had big expectations for it, but it all went nuts - i should be more attentive and check out the director next time first - well, he did Arena, that would warn me for sure …
I guess I’ll have to give it a shot then…
An old Greek Finos Film! Μια Ελληνόδα στο Χαρέμι! ;D
Some of the things I watched over the last few days:
[/URL] COBRA (1986, George P. Cosmatos)
I had always avoided this one, but now somebody (guess who) told me it was one of the greatest action movies in history. Somehow this statement made me very curious …
Mwah, the best ever … there’s some decent action in it, but the story’s too generic and the flic has a nasty reactionary smell hanging over it. I don’t like political correctnes, but this movie pushes things too far, blowing up stereotypes to a degree that we arrive at a new kind of political correctness, that is: PC’s ugly face in the mirror, political incorrectness presented as an example to follow. Sly speaks in a slow-slow voice and is in his I-shoot-don’t-negociate mood. Sly’s script was intended for Eddie Murphy and his Beverly Hills Cop adventures. Reportedly it was also (loosely) based on a crime novel by Paula Gosling, but to me the movie felt more like a cheap Dirty Harry clone; actually there are at least two Dirty Harry veterans in the cast: Reni Santoni and Andie Robinson.
5/10
[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/689/m6y2.jpg/][url]http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/850/mmkn.jpg/[/url] ALLEEN MAAR NETTE MENSEN (2012, Lodewijk Crijns)
![http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/850/mmkn.jpg/[/url]](http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/850/mmkn.jpg/%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
Movie adaptation of a notoriously controversial Dutch novel, a would-be satire on Dutch multicural society. It tells the story of an eighteen year old Jewish boy, David, who should be the luckiest guy in the world: his parents are rich, his father is willing to pay his studies, he has a lovely, good-looking and slender 18-year old girlfriend who absolutely adores him, but … he has a weakness for slutty, fat, bootylicious black women, the bling-bling kind of ass-shaking bitches he watches on MTV …
Although it was written in a so-so style the novel was an interesting read and offered a quite revealing look at various minorities in Dutch society. The author (himself a Dutch Jew with a soft spot for Afro-american women) found out that all minorities hate each other even more than they hate the ‘white majority’. The author (and the actor impersonating him in the movie) has black hair and a fairly dark complexion, so most Afro-americans think he’s Moroccan, and despise him because Moroccans are even one step below Afro-Americans. When he tells them he’s not Moroccan but Jewish, they tell him that he wants to dominate the world.
The novel is tongue-in-cheek, in the end rather bleak, the movie opts more for comedy, but still some of the wry observations shine through. Not a great movie, but better than I expected, sometimes funny. The acting is not too bad, although none of the younger actors is a match for Jeroen Krabbé, who plays the boys’ filthy rich father. The title is a bit odd, the boy lives in a neighborhood where only decent people live = waar alleen maar nette mensen wonen)
6,5/10