Cold Fish (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #30

They say that a good film shouldn't just tell an interesting story, it should have a character arc. This is the development of the main character from one person to another over the course of a film. Sometimes minor characters in a film also have a character arc, but the focus is on the main character. This could be a moral development, i.e. a bad person learns to do good deeds. More commonly, it's a heroic development, i.e. a person who's weak finds the courage to perform great feats. Think about your favourite film, and you can probably find a character arc. I'll just give one obvious example: in "Doctor Strange" the main character, Doctor Stephen Strange, starts the film as a self-centred man who only believes in what he can see with his own eyes. After a car accident he goes on a spiritual journey to become a selfless warrior who masters the mystic arts, the things that can't be seen.

Character arcs are usually an upward journey. The main character progresses on a journey of improvement. In "Cold Fish" the arc is in the opposite direction. Nobuyuki Shamoto begins the film as the hard-working owner of a shop that sells tropical fish. He loves his wife and his daughter. Over the course of 12 days he becomes a cold-blooded killer who beats his wife and his daughter. 

How can this happen? How could a good man sink so deep?

The more important question is, could this happen to me or you?

Shamoto is put under extreme pressure. His whole world is torn apart when he meets the owner of a bigger tropical fish store, Yukio Murata. He's forced to participate in deeds he would never have considered possible.

Would I break under pressure like this? I think not, but I'd rather not be put to the test.

A message at the beginning of the film announces it as a true story:

The expression "based on a true story" is vague. In some cases it could mean that the film is a completely accurate depiction of real events. In the case of Sion Sono, almost all of his films are based on true stories, but what he means is that he's taken something he heard on the news and has used it as a premise for a film. He wrote "Love Exposure" after hearing about the Japanese Aleph cult, which bears only a vague similarity to the Zero Church in his film. "Cold Fish" is inspired by a Japanese serial killer who owned a dog kennel.

In my review of "Ed Wood" I wrote that I intend to have a true story month later this year, but I didn't know if I have enough films for a whole month. Today I stood in front of my bookshelves and pulled out all the films based on true stories, in the accurate meaning of the word. I found 36 films: 17 DVDs and 19 Blu-rays. Impressive. When I came upstairs I remembered a few other films that I hadn't noticed. I'll reduce the pile of films to 30 or 31, depending on the month. I'll give priority to the films I like the most. I don't know yet how I'll order them. Maybe chronologically, based on the events in the film. Maybe alphabetically? Most likely I'll put them in random order, so I can't be accused of making mistakes.

Keep reading my blog. You know it makes sense.

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Graf Porno und die liebesdürstigen Töchter (3 Stars)

The 1970's were the decade German erotic comedies, most of which took place in Bavaria. However, there were a few erotic films made in the 1960's. "Engelchen" (1968) is usually considered to have been the first German erotic comedy. A year later in 1969 three Graf Porno films were made, directed by Günther Hendel and produced by Alois Brummer. As far as I know, they were never released in England or America. The title of this film is "Count Porno and the love hungry daughters". Could it get any sleazier? The count's full name is Graf Porno von Geilsberg, literally "Count Porno of Horny Mountain". This is the second film in the series. It doesn't matter that I'm watching them out of order, because they're all standalone films.

There are two men in the film referred to as Count Porno, father and son, so it's not certain who the title refers to. It doesn't really matter, because both men are played by the same actor, Günther Hendel himself.

This is Garibaldus Porno.

This is Peter Porno. It's remarkable how well the actor could be disguised in a film that's more than 50 years old. But really... Peter Porno? I'd be ashamed of a name like that. In the film he repeatedly introduces himself as Peter Porno, and I don't know how the other actors managed to keep a straight face.

The old Count Porno is in debt and fears he may have to sell his castle. He summons his son and asks him to save the family. They've been invited to a party by a rich millionairess, Susan Paleface, in 12 days time. She has six daughters, and Garibaldus wants Peter to propose to one of them at the party. The millionairess lives in Italy, but her daughters live all over Europe. Peter has to travel from country to country to meet them all and decide which one he wants to marry.

Mabel Paleface is in Stockholm.

Irene Paleface is in Amsterdam.

Sheree Paleface is in Oberaudorf in the Bavarian Alps, near the Austrian border.

Elisabeth Paleface is in Munich.

Delilah Paleface is in Paris.

Laura Paleface is in Venice.

Peter Porno lives up to his name. He seduces all six of them. He's helped by Harry Holtz, a private detective, who finds out what each girl is interested in.

Harry is played by the Italian Stallion, Rinaldo Talamonti. He went on to become a famous actor in the 1970's, but this was only his second film. Guess what his first film was? The first Graf Porno film! He appeared in all three Graf Porno films, playing different roles.

When the six girls meet in Italy for the party they tell each other they've fallen in love with a wonderful man. They're all in love with Peter Porno! What has he got that I haven't? 

Is it the way he kisses?

Is it his sexy swimming trunks?

Is it his cowboy hat?

Whatever it is, they all want him, but he can't decide between them. 

Luckily, Peter Porno doesn't have to decide. His father Garibaldus meets and gets married to their mother, Susan Paleface. The Porno family is saved. Now the girls are Peter's sisters, so he isn't allowed to marry them. Or is he? On Horny Mountain anything is possible.

The eroticism is very tame, even by softcore standards. Things didn't heat up in German sex films until the 1970's. I don't find the film particularly funny. To get a higher rating the film would need more sex or more comedy.

Mars Attacks (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #31

I just sat staring at the screen for the last half hour, and I can't think of a thing to write. It happens. I've saved 26 screenshots from the film to be used in my review, but I shan't use them now. I'll save them for use the next time I watch the film.

Here's an even better idea: I challenge my readers to write a review for this film. Write as short or as long a review as you want, and send it to me in the comments box. I'll publish your review using a selection of my screenshots.

Today I'll just use this one screenshot with Pam Grier. Maybe this beautiful picture is enough to make up for my attack of writer's block.

Tomorrow I'm finally going to get my first Coronavirus injection. Maybe that's what's put me off writing. I'll see how I feel tomorrow evening.

Success Rate:  - 0.6

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Playing With Fire (4 Stars)

Amazon Friday #2

This is my second week of watching a film streamed on Amazon Prime. I bet you thought I wouldn't keep it up. Yes, I will. At least for another 10 weeks. That's how many films I have in my Amazon Watchlist, unless I add any more films.

The film stars John Cena as the fireman Jake Carson. I don't consider him to be a great actor. He isn't capable of portraying deep emotions, but somehow I like him. He's able to play tough, rugged characters, especially in comedy films.

Jake isn't a normal fireman, he's a smokejumper. That's a fireman who specialises in the fighting of forest fires. Teams of smokejumpers are usually situated on the edge of large forests, ready to be deployed immediately when fires break out. In America they're employed by the United States Forest Service.

After watching the trailer I expected there to be a lot of fire fighting action. I was wrong. It was yet another example of a deceptive trailer. There are only a few short fire scenes at the beginning to set up the film's background. Most of the film takes place in the fire station itself. Jake Carson and his team rescue three children from a burning hut. The children are badly behaved and cause problems for a strict fireman like Jake Carson. Initially he wants to keep them in the station overnight until their parents can pick them up, but he soon finds out that their parents are dead. They've run away from their foster home to stop themselves being separated.

Jake refers to them as eight-year-old children. Really? We find out that Zoey (on the left) is two years old, a few days away from her third birthday. We're not told the ages of the other two. Will (on the right) could possibly be eight, but what about Brynn (in the middle)?

Brynn is played by Brianna Hildebrand, best known for her role as one half of the "Tragedy Girls". She's also appeared as Negasonic Teenage Warhead in the Deadpool films. She was 22 when she made "Playing With Fire", but I'm guessing she was supposed to be 14-ish. But eight years old? I'd never make a mistake like that.

She's beautiful, isn't she? It's a very different role to the one she plays in her other films. She also looks different with her long hair. More girly. But she still doesn't look like she's eight.

"Playing With Fire" is a lightweight film with a lot of silly slapstick humour. It's classified as a family film, but in truth it's more suitable for young children. It's the sort of film that would appeal to mischievous small children. I wonder what my five-year-old grandson Oliver would think of it. I'm an adult, not the target audience, but I enjoyed watching it, once at least. It's not a film I would return to, except possibly with Oliver at my side.

Success Rate:  + 0.3

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800 Bullets (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #32

I fear that this is a film that very few people know outside of Spain. It's been released on DVD in England and America, but it went unnoticed. I would never have heard about it if it hadn't been a strong recommendation from a Spanish friend. Thank you, Miryam.

I've reviewed the film a few times already, and I've concentrated on the chaos in the final scenes. Today I prefer to mention the beautiful coming-of-age story of 12-year-old Carlos. It's a story I can relate to. He's never met his grandfather. Neither his mother nor his grandmother ever mention him. It's as if he doesn't exist. When Carlos finally finds out about his grandfather, he runs away from home to be with him. That's when his life begins.

Julian Torralbo is a former stuntman who now lives in a fake western village putting on shows for paying tourists. It's a fantasy world, but his grandson Carlos loves it. It's more exciting than his dreary life in a Madrid suburb. That's one of the reasons Julian's wife divorced him. She wanted a man who lives in the real world.

Now Julian has a chance to do his duty as a good grandfather. He teaches Carlos the important things in life, like how to play poker.

Or at least, he teaches Carlos when he's not being distracted by the other players.

Is that a glass of beer in front of Carlos? He really is growing up fast.

Carlos learns how to shoot.

He's a good shot. His mother looks on disapprovingly.

Carlos goes to bed with a woman for the first time, a prostitute called Sandra. It's just preparation for the real thing. She takes her clothes off, but he doesn't. I wish I'd been initiated like this when I was 12.

It's a moving, deeply emotional film. The beauty of the story might be lost in the middle of the chaotic events that are typical for the films directed by Alex de la Iglesia. He's one of my favourite directors. I buy all of his films, because I know they'll be good without having to see them first.

The film has only been released on DVD in England and America, but the Spanish Blu-ray has English subtitles.

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Basic Instinct (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #33

Has it really been six years since I last watched "Basic Instinct"? Wow! I shouldn't have waited so long.

The Coronavirus has ravaged the film industry. Cinemas have closed for months on end, and films that should have been made last year are still stalled because of the danger of infection. It's a tragedy. Even when/if the virus has been defeated, the film industry will never return to the way it used to be. However, I thought about something yesterday while I was standing in front of my bookcases looking at my film collection: even if no films are ever made again, I have enough first class films on disc to watch and enjoy for the rest of my life. Why do I need something new?

I have the habit of calling films made since 1996 new films and films made before 1996 old films. That's not completely arbitrary. 1996 is the year when the first DVDs were sold. That doesn't mean that the production quality of films suddenly became better in this year. There were excellent films in the 1980's and poor films in the 2000's. All I'm saying is that from 1996 on films were made taking into account that more people would watch them on high quality discs at home than on a cinema screen.

By that definition, "Basic Instinct" is an old film, since it was made in 1992. It's an incredible film, one of the first erotic thrillers, and still the best erotic thriller ever made. It's a film that's loved for the wrong reasons and hated for the wrong reasons. It's infamous for giving a glimpse of Sharon Stone's naked vulva when she uncrosses her legs. Some people criticise this for exploiting a woman, but they just don't get it. It has to be seen in context. Sharon Stone plays Catherine Tramell, a powerful, self-confident woman. She's sitting in a police interrogation room facing four policemen and an assistant district attorney. This would intimidate any other woman, but not Catherine. She's already revealing a lot of leg in a short dress, keeping the men's minds off their work, but she gives the men a slow, deliberate flash in the middle of the questioning. I almost feel sorry for the men. They're sitting red-faced with embarrassment, trying to hide their erections while Catherine mischievously grins at them. She's turned the tables.

Power.

It's all about power.

Female power.

The film isn't really about sex. There's a lot of sexual interaction, but sex is merely a tool used by Catherine Tramall to remain in control. She flirts with the men around her, teasing them, intimidating them. Her main focus is the detective Nick Curran, played by Michael Douglas. Reading between the lines we can assume that she's had him in her sights for years, long before she commits the murder that he's investigating. She seduces him, but that isn't enough for her. She puts him in a situation where he thinks she's about to kill him. She wants to terrify him to keep him under her control.

Later in the film Nick tells Catherine he's in love with her. He isn't. It's pure lust, but by this point Nick is so mixed up that he can't tell the difference. Catherine is manipulating him, and he doesn't even notice.

The film is currently out of print in most countries, but I've read that a new remastered version will be released next month. The new Blu-ray should include the excellent commentary by the feminist critic Camille Paglia, which was only included on the DVD releases until now.

Success Rate:  + 5.2

Ed Wood (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #34

"They're driving me crazy. These Baptists are stupid, stupid, stupid!"

This film was made in 1994, but I didn't see it until at least 10 years later. I even remember a friend in Ludwigsburg telling me she was going to see it in the cinema with a few friends and asking me if I wanted to join her. I said No. It's possible that I didn't even know who Ed Wood was at that time. It's significant that the first film I ever bought on VHS tape was "Plan 9 from Outer Space".

As I've often said, I have a weakness for films based on true stories. I'm biased towards them, so I give them higher ratings than they deserve. In fact, maybe I should do a true story month later this year. That would be fun. Do I have 30 true stories on film? I'm not sure. I need to sit down and check.

Ed Wood was voted the worst director of all time, and "Plan 9 from Outer Space" was voted the worst film ever made. That puzzles me. I've seen five of his films, and they're all entertaining. It's true that they have poor quality special effects and ridiculous plots, but they're never boring. For me, a boring film is a bad film. Look at my alphabetical list of posts and you'll find a few films that I gave a one star rating. "Jupiter Ascending" is an awful film, despite the millions of dollars poured into it. "Plan 9 from Outer Space" cost $60,000 and it's a wonderful film.

Nevertheless, the worst director and worst film awards have been useful. They've given Ed Wood a notoriety that he would never otherwise have had. If a film is called the worst film ever made, people have to see it. This biopic would never have been made if Ed Wood had only been considered average.

The film deals with themes that are relevant today. Ed Wood was a transvestite. John "Bunny" Breckinridge (played by Bill Murray) was a transgender. All his life he wanted an operation to "become a woman", but he never had enough money.

Ed Wood, Bunny Breckinridge and the other actors who appear in "Plan 9 from Outer Space" are baptised. It wasn't until later that the Baptists discovered that Ed was a transvestite. What a terrible sin! They would never have baptised him if they'd known.

Martin Landau won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi. Bela wasn't baptised, because he was already dead.

Martin Landau's daughter Juliet also appears in the film as the actress Loretta King. She wasn't baptised either. Only the cast of "Plan 9 from Outer Space" was baptised. Loretta had no contact with Ed Wood after appearing in "Bride of the Monster".

Success Rate:  - 3.1

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Django Unchained (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #35

I don't hesitate to call "Django Unchained" the best western ever made. When Quentin Tarantino made the film in 2012 he was deliberately breaking the rules that had been implicitly set for westerns for decades. The lead actor is black, which had only ever been done in the comedy "Blazing Saddles". Even more significantly, westerns have always ignored the subject of slavery. Slaves are never shown in westerns, even though slavery was common in the years before the Civil War. Tarantino doesn't just acknowledge slavery in this film, it's the main subject.

Django is a slave who's given his freedom by the bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz. He's a German who used to be a dentist. It's been five years since he last practised dentistry, but he still uses his wagon with a wobbly tooth on the top. It's difficult not to laugh.

Schultz's attitude to slavery isn't completely negative. Even though he says in an early scene that he's "no friend of slavery", he still purchases Django and keeps him as a slave until he's succeeded in killing the Brittle Brothers. After this he releases Django, and the two men become friends. He trains Django to become a bounty hunter, although it seems that not much training is necessary. Django is a natural when it comes to shooting people.

Schultz is naive when it comes to racism. He doesn't expect or understand the negative reaction to a black man riding a horse or walking around free.

Today is the fourth time I've watched the film, but I picked up a few small details that I didn't notice in the past. Django (Jamie Foxx) is enjoying a drink at the bar. He's joined by an Italian slaver called Amerigo Vessepi. He asks Django his name, then asks him if he knows how to spell it. Django tells Amerigo that the D is silent. Amerigo is played by Franco Nero, the actor who played the original Django in 1966.

After this Django is joined at the bar by Dr. Schultz, who's drinking a beer from a Bügelflasche, commonly called a flip-top bottle in English. This sort of beer bottle is common in Germany, but its use in the film is a blunder. The film takes place in 1858, but this type of bottle wasn't invented until 1875.

Bam! The sight of this young woman carrying an axe gave me such a shock that I had to pause the film. Could it possibly be Zoe Bell? I ran to my computer to check, and yes, it's her. I'm surprised that I never recognised her in the past.

She appears again in a later scene, where it's easier to recognise her. There's no special significance to her scenes. They're purely gratuitous. It's no secret that Quentin Tarantino is a fan of Zoe Bell, so he wanted to slip her into the film.

Quentin Tarantino plays a small role as an Australian miner. Is his accent any good? It sounds okay to me, but only an Australian can judge his accent. I welcome comments from my Australian readers.

Samuel L. Jackson plays a very untypical role. He's a slave, in theory, but he has a special position as the head of the household at the Candyland Plantation. He's a despicable character. He can be considered a traitor to his race. He unquestioningly accepts white superiority and looks down on the black slaves around him.

His boss is the head of the plantation, Calvin Candie, who's excellently portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio. He typifies everything that people praise about the Old South. He's elegant, well-spoken and a perfect gentleman; and yet he's a bigoted racist.

I admit that I've never liked Jamie Foxx as an actor. He's usually bland and emotionless, but in "Django Unchained" he's wonderful. Somehow Quentin Tarantino can coax the best out of actors.

One of the things I like about all of Tarantino's films is the pacing. His films move slowly, with long periods of conversation between the action. I don't know any other director who can make this type of film so successfully.

Success Rate:  + 2.3

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