Phenomena (Dario Argento, 1985)

 For me Phenomena marks boundary of Dario’s masterpieces and just good ones. True, it was impossible for maestro to keep up the pace of Deep Red, Suspiria, Tenebre, … and Phenomena is not bad at all, it’s just … well … only good. 

It’s been years since I’ve last seen it so I didn’t hesitate for a second when I saw uncut Arrow DVD release in a local Tower Records selling for a mere 7 euro. Sometimes you find a cool new shit in a movie when watching it again after long time. Not this one and not this time I’m afraid – Phenomena is still just good :)

So what exactly is good? Without a doubt chimpanzee with a razor blade is a fucking winner, Jennifer Connelly is good as a cool and not at all cry baby like terrified brat, killing of Daria Nicolodi is (once again) great and it’s of course always nice to see Donald Pleasence.

Not so good: a little bit of Suspiria rip-off, definitely too long, story too weird and fairy tale-ish and surreal at the same time, uneven pace as it starts slowly as a Giallo and ends as bizarre and too violent/gory horror .

7/10

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Guillermo del Toro, 2008)

To be honest I don’t remember much about this one. And since it’s been only a month or so since I’ve seen it, I guess It’s fair to rate it as forgettable right?

But it was nice to see Selma Blair again. I really liked her in Waters’ Dirty Shame and she looks hot in this one also. Even without those giant tits :)

3/10

Le Voyage en Douce ( Michel Deville, 1980)

In my opinion Michel Deville is (together with Claude Miller) one of the most underrated French directors from the 80s. His movies have distinct style and bear his personal signature. I like most of his stuff, from light hearted comedies to more complex and often dark stuff he made later in his career before retirement. It’s just too bad that so many of those are unavailable with English subtitles. Damn French snobs!

This one starts totally Rohmer-esque. For the first 20 minutes or so we have our two main ladies protagonists just talking about everything and nothing. Both Dominique Sanda and Geraldine Chaplin are phenomenal and their acting is so effortless that it makes you forget you’re watching a staged movie. Story then moves “on the road” as they take a trip for a few days to countryside and through the conversations they revisit their childhoods and revive their friendship. It’s all very subtle and nostalgic (Google translates French title to “The journey quietly”) with more than enough sexual undertones to keep viewer interested. And frankly, those few nude shots of both of them do help as well.

Truly great stuff and kind of movie they unfortunately don’t make anymore.

8/10

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (Bob Gosse, 2009)

Have no idea why I’ve downloaded this piece of shit in the first place. Probably found the title intriguing and somehow funny or (more likely) just because my dear Traci Lords is in it. 

There are many good reviews on IMDB and they will all explain why this is shit. Believe it, they are all right.

2/10

Death Watch (Bertrand Tavernier, 1980)

Romy Schneider is one of my screen goddesses if not THE goddess. So I was sure I've seen this flick before and didn't like it much because couldn't really remember much about it. So when IFI put on the restored version for three days over the weekend screenings and (of course) publicized it as "re-discovered" classics I couldn't stay away. Not that I buy any of that propaganda crap but it is such a rare occasion to see Romy on the big screen that it was just no question about going to see it. And besides it might be good, Tavernier certainly made some decent movies.

Now I'm surprised I didn't remember it but for all the wrong reasons. Its main idea about media exploitation and real time TV may be before its time but it is put together very naively. Maybe the problem is that director tries to tackle too many of "grand" issues instead of taking his time to tell story more slowly and maybe intimately. So we jump from one scene to another and from one genre to another and pretty soon everything becomes just a mess which is hard to follow.

The biggest flaw is cast which one would never expect from the names like Romy Schneider, Harvey Keitel, Harry Dean Stanton and Max von Sydow. They just don't function, maybe because of poor dialogs written in some artificial language nobody in the real word speaks. The "weakest link" without the doubt is Keitel who seems to be totally lost and has zero chemistry with Schneider. His (famous NYC character?) acting is totally over the top and it reaches its idiotic peak at the end. He is blind and while sitting at the table he keeps shaking his head like an cretin. Hilarious but also painful to watch.

It has few good things too. Like gloomy suburbs of Glasgow and landscapes of Scottish coasts are beautifully shot and music during latter is not bad at all. And check out the poster! Really fuckin cool right!?!

But I'll of course remember it for "my" Romy. This was one of her last movies and seeing her playing the role of terminally ill woman brings back even more feelings of melancholia and sadness. What a babe she was and what a shame she died so young.

4/10

Tamara Drewe (Stephen Frears, 2010)

I'm a big fan of Frears and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid will always be on my top 10. But this was a big disappointment I'm afraid. And after watching recent Loach it just seems that another of the old masters is loosing his touch.

It starts okay with always good Teorema premise about the stranger coming into closed community and fucking up their already fucked up relationships. But this just isn't Miike's Visitor Q I'm afraid. Community in question here is a bunch of middle class writers (I hate movies about middle class intellectuals) living in English countryside (I also hate movies taking place in the countryside in general).

But sometimes in the middle this sleeper takes another direction, more into romantic comedy type of shit. Because you have bunch of people of all ages, genders and occupations fucking and deceiving each other and in the middle of all this there are our two innocent main protagonist and it is so clear they were "made for each other". And - voila! - after some drama we get our happy end.

It's just a typical feminine romantic crap made for women, there's not much of Frears there. If you want to see seriously critical stuff about bored, too rich and artificial middle class "struggling" go see recent Mike Leigh's masterpiece Another Year. If you want to see bitter-sweet English comedy there are endless choices of great stuff starting with Frears's own Snapper, Van and so on. And if you just want to see some mindless romantic comedy, go for H'Wood crappy stuff. Those movies too have usually good looking young and fresh actress like Gemma Arterton undoubtedly is. But she alone is just not enough to save this almost two hours long more or less pointless movie.

3/10

Red Blooded American Girl (David Blyth, 1990)

This movie starts the best possible way - with a hot naked chick lying on the bad with camera slowly zooming on to her. She then lights a cigarette and says something about how horny she still is. Very good!

It gets better because her lover is Kim Coates. Kim Who? you may ask. He is a Kim "mean bad guy who gets his ass kicked" Coates from zillion of good bad movies. But he's not really a star in this one because in the next scene we see Andrew Stevens. And you surely DO know him, right? He starred in zillion of those Jim Wynorski "erotic thrillers" with likes of Shannon Whirry/Tweed. So I was a bit surprised to see Christoper Plummer joining this duo of B movies mega-stars.

But these guys are all overshadowed by the hot and sexy Heather Thomas. She's really cool and seems to have lots of fun doing this movie. Some of the faces she's making are hilarious and right on the spot with the cheesiness of this flick. Must admit I had no idea who she was so I checked her filmography on IMDB. She has done mostly TV work for which I don't give a shit, but there is a flick however that sounds interesting. It's called Cyclone and her co-star is none other than Jeffrey "Re-Animator" Combs and I'm putting it on my to-do list!

Story is cool, it's a fresh approach to vampire genre. So who is who? Christopher Plummer is a mad scientist/vampire that needs a cure, Kim Coates is his horny and a bit crazed assistant, Andrew Stevens is scientist (hehe) and Mrs. Thomas is damsel in distress. It's not boring and it is moving forward pretty fast and straightforward with some memorable scenes like really erotic one with Mrs Tomas in the kitchen. And I particularly liked the ending because it doesn't follow this usual pattern of high action pursuit with mandatory slaying of the master vampire. Instead we get happy ending with everyone still live (for eternity of course).

The biggest flaw is the screenplay. Although some of the dialogues are pretty cool and funny, most of the scenes are totally disjointed and they don't make much sense so movie lacks some steady flow and pace. Direction is okay although some scenes definitely left me unsatisfied, especially one in body building gym! It has lots of potential (more blood!!!) but doesn't deliver anything special. Also erotic scene at the end sucks, they should/could use some advice from Andrew! There are usual continuity problems (day and night overlapping, raining on one side of the car while she is completely dry on the other) but what the hell. Things like that make movies like this such a fun to watch.

6/10