Unfortunately, it’s a scantily stylised giallo flick, the murder sequences are solely notable on account of some gracefully looking ladies and the film offers a catchy soundtrack, but that’s all. The most prepossessing aspect is the overall trashiness that is irrefutably going to underpin the venture’s relish for those infatuated with the 1960s and the 1970s (including me), whilst everyone else is likely to be put off by the very lack of a solid execution.
My favorite Robert Shaw film, he was a fantastic villain.
An his best line,
Matthau: “The money has to be stacked, tied and transported uptown, it just isn’t physically possible”
Shaw: “… You’d be surprised what’s physically possible”
And a fantastic piece of old-fashioned actioner. I haven’t been entertained to this extent for a long time, great stuff, I love it.
Strip Nude for Your Killer :
- it’s a movie that almost seems to solely exist for its title, but for all that, I found it entertaining, even if the eventual reveal is something of a let-down. Better and much more professionally done than you might imagine.
Wish Martin Balsam had got away with the cash in The Taking of Pelham One To Three though.
…Gesundheit.
Last night: The Fly (Neumann, 1958). Obviously in the here and now it’s no more horrifying than someone forgetting to put sugar in your tea (well, the loud “static” sound made by the disintegrator as well as Andre “The Fly” Delambre’s slurping sounds from under his sheet as he eats his milk & rum are still a little disturbing tbh) but it remains a fantastic example of a fifties creature feature. The film looks fantastic on blu-ray, especially Andre’s laboratory; and Vincent Price as Andre’s brother François excels without chewing the scenery, which is nice.
Regarding giallo titles, authors that made giallo tribute Amer, have made another movie. I guess Amer is French for bitter and maybe it is nod to Amuck and some others similarly named gialli, but they gave absolutely great, 100% extravagant giallo title to their new feature. Check this out: The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears.
Body’s Tears
Giallo generator couldn’t have done it better.
[size=12pt]LE MANS (1971, Lee H. Katzin)[/size]
Le Mans is part of a short wave of movies about car races, which also comprises [i]Grand Prix /i and Winning (1969, starring Paul Newman); it was a commercial flop in the US, but over the years it has developed a loyal cult following, especially among fans of the sport.
McQueen (himself an excellent driver, he had taken part in - an almost won - the 12 Hours of Sebring the previous year) is Michael Delaney, a competitor in the famous 24 hours race in France, one year after he was involved in a fatal accident in which a friend and colleague was killed.
Filmed in almost documentary style, with minimal dialogue, the film has its dramatic flaws (the romantic subplot doesn’t really work because Anderson seems to have only one facial expression), but the racing scenes (actual footage of the 1970 race plus additional material) are very spectacular, occasionally even breathtaking.
From The Do-It-Yourself Giallo Kithttp://www.braineater.com/misc/giallo.html:
[i]The Aardvark with Iron Fingers Stained in Red
[size=8pt]Directed by[/size]
Matteo Bruni
A mute university student is kidnapped out of a seemingly-locked room. A frightned young man seems to know a little too much about the the disappearance. Ultimately he must use supernatural assistance to determine the identity of the perpetrator.[/i]
or
[i]My Heart is an Assassin with the Eyes of Jade
[size=8pt]Directed by[/size]
Umberto Umberti
An English female journalist is poisoned; her body then disappears, and turns up mutilated. An American female writer finds a letter that contains some unknown details about the the murder; and she is able to take control of her shattered life long enough to unmask the real criminal.[/i]
or
[i]A Golden Armadillo on the Etruscan Altar
[size=8pt]Directed by[/size]
Carlo Plagiarino
A blind child is found dead under a bridge. Her brother inadvertently picks up the one piece of evidence that will solve the the murder; and after decoding entries in a hidden journal, he discovers too late that the perpetrator has been close to him all the time.[/i]
;D
Chair de Poule (1963) Good crime drama with Robert Hossein. 8/10
Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958) Sublime comedy! 8/10
The Wide Blue Road (1957) Yves Montand is the man in this drama. 7/10
25th Hour (2002 Decent, but not great. 6/10
Conduct Unbecoming (1975) Decent cast, but this was a waste of time. 5/10
Need for Speed (2014) This was shit, even by car racing movie standards. 4/10
Getaway (2013) Made it 25 minutes in and gave up…complete garbage!
Oklahoma Crude - George C. Scott is employed by John Mills to help protect his daughter’s (Faye Dunaway) oil well from the greedy oil company, who just so happens to have Jack Palance on the payroll with his bunch of killers, and he will do whatever violent and dirty deeds necessary to take claim of the well. Good performances all round, some top notch cinematography too.
[size=12pt]TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA [/size] (1970, Peter Sasdy)
Three British snobs who have tried every vice, including kinky sex (boring!) are lured, by an expert of black magic, into a pact with the worst creature on the face of this earth, Mr. Dracula himself. During the initial rite, the black magician - a loyal Dracula apprentice - is killed, and now the master wants revenge.
A late entry in Hammer’s Dracula series, originally written without Dracula appearing at all due to Lee’s unwillingness to reprise the role. Ralph Bates (now playing the apprentice) was supposed to impersonate a man who was turned into a vampire during a fatal experiment, but the plans were changed after Hammer had convinced Lee to return as the infamous Count.
The result is a bit of an odd movie; it has the right Hammer atmosphere, but doesn’t really feel like a Dracula movie. When the Count is more concerned about revenge than the beautiful buxom women calling him ‘Master’, it’s time to call for a doctor, but there’s no Van Helsing in this entry.
Not in a great a tradition of family viewing, the kids are still young, and me and the wife have very distinctive tastes, let’s just say that the most admissible thing for her are romantic films, so if I appear with a …well almost anything, it’s a no go, so I’m used to watching things alone. But not this time, and I was the one who had to compromise.
[size=12pt]About a boy -2002 - Chris Weitz; Paul Weitz [/size]
Anything with Hugh Grant is romantic enough for wife, but actually not a bad film, I did had some sympathy for Grant’s character a bloke who didn’t had to work, living from royalties of a Christmas song he didn’t even had wrote.
I haven’t read the book, but not hard to think that the boy might be both the young and grow up one.
So much better than the Bridget Jones stuff (yeah I had to see those also, in family), really liked the sarcasm of our anti-hero, the rest of the cast was OK including the kid, Rachel Weisz is a good and versatile actress, and in the a funny and a pretty easy film to follow, without the usual maudlin stuff. The final scene is quite good.
[size=12pt]Before Midnight - 2013 - Richard Linklater [/size]
Here we are in totally different territory, I’ve watched both the other two films (one still single and the other already in family), and really those.
Confess was a bit afraid of this one, mostly because I saw the films with about the same age the two main characters had, and now with more than 40, the dialogues could be less interesting with a lot of middle age complaining.
Well the good thing is that there’s indeed a lot of middle age complaining but the dialogues even if not as fresh as in the first two films, are still pretty good, both Hawke (an actor I don’t like much) and Delpy (her I like) pretty believable in their parts. These films kind of reminded me, saving the distances, Rohmer cinema, even Oliveira (without the rigor mortis type of acting), I do enjoy the concept behind it. Just wonder how the next one will be.
The troubles I have to watch anything in family
Caged Women (1991).
Ok women in prison movie which updates things a little from the 70’s and 80’s ones. Lots of naked women on show which stops you getting to bored and Aldo Sambrell seems to be enjoying himself feeling all the womens bottoms 
.
[quote=“ENNIOO, post:11715, topic:1923”]Caged Women (1991).
Ok women in prison movie which updates things a little from the 70’s and 80’s ones. Lots of naked women on show which stops you getting to bored and Aldo Sambrell seems to be enjoying himself feeling all the womens bottoms .[/quote]
I guess not family time film Ennio
I guess you could say that 
.
[size=12pt]Il Deserto dei Tartari - 1976 - Valerio Zurlini[/size]
Never read Buzatti’s novel, which I been told is a great book, but in any case “Il Deserti dei Tartari” it’s a brilliant film, but certainly not for all tastes.
The screen adaptation seems to be a simplified but very close adaptation of the book, it’s basically an existentialism tale about human nature, with several allegory’s and open to interpretation. It’s about loneliness, isolation, meaning of life you name it. I think the film deals with all this issues at the same time, and also with sense of duty, nevertheless whatever the main issue is, it does it in a clever and sensitive way, the ending it’s almost cruel.
Funny enough a film like Jarhead deals with the same issues, but it doesn’t get near Zurlini’s masterpiece.
We do never know which country war or place the story takes place, it’s a mix of several European empires from the start of the last century, but that doesn’t matter. I won’t bother telling the story and characters there’s nothing much to tell, most of the characters spend most of their time looking from the fort walls to desert, waiting for an enemy that never comes, and the film deals with the way the different characters deal with the situation.
The acting is brilliant, some of the best European actors got together and acted almost in a competitive way, apart from Perrin, (who also produced the film) Max Von Sydow and Gassman are my favorite’s along with Gemma who brilliantly who portrays an officer who follows regulation to the extreme. It’s clearly a film set for actors to shine, in a similar way to Mallick “The Thin Red Line”.
On the technical departments Zurlini’s work also shine, fantastic cinematography with every frame looking like a painted canvas, Morricone score is also fantastic as usual. The dialogues are great and made me concentrate totally in watching the film. Most scenes where shot in location in Iran’s city of Bam, that was destroyed by an earthquake in 2003
Great film, a slow paced one, not an action film, but not one only made for the thinking man, it’s the kind of work that explains why I love cinema, and why there’s a kind magic in it.
I watched it in the 90’s, thought it was well made but a bit boring, now I’m older I really should revisit it again as I’m able to appreciate things like this more now.
Rigor Mortis (2013)
Produced by Takeshi Shimizu (Ju-On, Marebito, etc.) and directed by Juno Mak, Rigor Mortis is an homage to 1980s-era Chinese zombie/vampire movies, in particular, Mr. Vampire (1985); and perhaps to a much lesser extent, Encounters of the Spooky Kind (a.k.a., Spooky Encounters, 1980).
Chin Siu-Ho (best known to western audiences for his co-starring roles in the Jet Li movies Fist of Legend and Tai Chi Master), who starred in the original Mr. Vampire, plays a suicidal, has-been actor who moves into a room in a run-down, haunted apartment building for the purpose of ending his life. Oddly enough, some details of the character’s life match Chin Siu-Ho’s real life; some photos are briefly seen that show him posing with his Mr. Vampire co-stars; and he started making movies at age 16. His suicide attempt is thwarted by a resident Taoist exorcist played by Anthony “Friend” Chan (a.k.a., Chan Yau).
All of the main stars of this film were actors whose careers were at their peak in the 1980s into the '90s. Chin Siu-Ho and Kara Wai (Kara Hui Ying-Hung) both got their starts at Shaw Brothers studio in the late 1970s (Chin Siu-Ho under director Chang Cheh, and Kara Wai under directors Chang Cheh and Lau Kar-Leung). Anthony Chan portrayed a Taoist exorcist in a lesser, guest role alongside the late Lam Ching-Ying in the original Mr. Vampire. Richard Ng was a popular Hong Kong comedic actor. Chung Fat (Chung Fa) was a ubiquitous actor/stunt performer in countless kung fu and action movies from the early '70s into the '90s, including as one of Han’s ill-fated guards destroyed by Bolo in Enter the Dragon; here, he plays an evil black magic sorceror. And in a small role as a cook, Billy Lau Nam-Kwong was another comic actor who played an inept policeman in the original Mr. Vampire.
In spite of (or perhaps because of?) the retro cast, Rigor Mortis has a depressing feel to it. The characters appear sad, worn-out and resigned, in stark contrast to the lively, vibrant roles of the actors’ heyday. The entire movie takes place within the dim, dank apartment building, except for a few exterior shots of it. The original Mr. Vampire theme song, which is heard in echoey fashion a couple of times, and other references (glutinous rice, etc.) throughout the story, make it clear this movie is a tribute to it. Unfortunately, unlike Mr. Vampire, this movie takes itself way too seriously and lacks the humor and fun aspect. And although Rigor Mortis has some CGI that Mr. Vampire lacked, the latter’ effects are still the far sleeker, more effective, more beautifully-filmed. After watching the better-made films in the '80s, I often felt uplifted; expect none of that in RM.
For fans of old-school Hong Kong cinema, this can be an interesting watch. Many will like it, some will not. I give it about 2.5 out of 5 stars.