Yella (3 Stars)

"Don't dance with the Devil. When the lights go on and you look in the mirror you might find that you yourself are the Devil" (Dagbok Greymoon).

I watched this film a few years ago and didn't enjoy it very much. I recently stumbled on a review by Roger Ebert in which he highly praises it, so I thought I would give it another chance. It still doesn't appeal to me. Most of the film takes place in the dull world of big business and venture capital. Even the supernatural elements can't make it interesting. When we find out what's behind everything it's disappointing, a cheap way out. It's a powerful performance by Nina Hoss as she stumbles through a nightmare, but the story itself is too weak.

I've decided to dedicate next month, November, to watching my "30 films to watch before you die". It's the last 30-day month till April, so it's a good month. I'll try to watch one film each day. If I miss a day for any reason I'll watch two films the next day.

I've been planning to watch the whole of the Medina Collection for some time. I'll probably begin in December. It's a big collection, 32 films, so I might not watch them all on consecutive days. I might stretch the viewing over two months. I'll see how things go when I start.

Erotic Vampires of Beverly Hills (4 Stars)

Vlad Dracula and his girlfriend Morticia are living the good life in a well furnished castle in Transylvania. The problem is that Vlad can't control himself and keeps turning pretty girls from the village into vampires. This causes too much attention, and soon they're being hunted by Alexa Van Helsing. To escape they move to Beverly Hills.

The change of scenery does nothing to cure Vlad's lack of self-control. He's soon prowling the nightclubs turning girls into vampires, and Alexa finds them again.

This is a trashy little gothic film from Dean McKendrick. It won't win any Oscars, but it's fun to watch.

Suffragette (5 Stars)

"Never surrender. Never give up the fight".

The Suffragette movement in the early 20th Century was unique in the history of revolutions. All other revolutions were spearheaded by the suppressed workers. The Suffragette movement was a revolution of middle class women. It could be argued that they didn't need to revolt. They had comfortable lives, they had money, they could do whatever they wanted. But there was one thing they couldn't do. They weren't allowed to vote. They took a stand, fighting for something that most of the working class women didn't care about. Why would a poor woman want to vote when she was more worried about earning enough money to feed her children? In that respect, England's middle class women saw more clearly. They fought to give the working class women what they needed, not necessarily what they wanted.

Having said that, what I enjoy most about this film is that it doesn't concentrate on the fight of middle class women. The main character is Maud Watts, a woman who works in a laundry. As she says of herself, she started work part time when she was 7, full time when she was 12, and she was now a forewoman at 24, but she still earned less than the male employees. This makes the film more poignant. We see a woman suffering from issues other than not being able to vote. For Maud the right to vote is a means to an end, she wants women to vote so that new laws can be passed to achieve equality for women.

The film did make me question some of my personal ethics. I'm someone who believes in obeying the law. If I don't like what's happening around me I call upon the law to be changed to stop it happening. In short, I'm a good citizen. That wasn't the case with the Suffragettes. They weren't good citizens, they were rebels. They broke the law. They smashed shop windows and blew up houses. That was the right thing to do. If they hadn't taken extreme measures women still wouldn't be able to vote today.

"Never surrender. Never give up the fight".

Is the fight over? I think not. I'm not just talking about countries like Saudi Arabia where women still aren't allowed to vote. I'm talking about England. Women have equality in theory, but not in fact. Women are paid lower wages, as long as it isn't admitted that their gender is the reason for the discrimination. When women complain about it men point at the few top women who earn more than most men, trying to distract from the fact that they're rare examples.

Emmeline Pankhurst (who we only see briefly in the film) didn't accept the status quo and the breadcrumbs thrown to her by men. She was a revolutionary. She fought for something that the majority of women in England didn't know they needed. In the same way Valerie Solanas fought for the overthrow of male-dominated society in the 1960's, although most women didn't listen to her. I fear that the fight has already been given up. Women today have been brainwashed into believing that they've already won. It's time to take up the fight again, not stopping until all patriarchal structures in government and religion have been overthrown.

Pandora Peaks (2 Stars)

This is the 18th and last film in the Russ Meyer collection, made in 2001.

After Russ Meyer made "Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens" in 1979 nobody heard anything from him for a few years. When he was asked what he was doing, he claimed he was filming a mammoth eight-hour film which he intended to call "The Breast of Russ Meyer". That sounded exciting, so the film press left him alone. But the years dragged by, so he was asked repeatedly when he would be finished. He insisted that he was still working on his project, but it had changed direction. He wanted to make the film his biography, so he would mix in footage that he had filmed during his service as a photographer in the Second World War. In 1990 he released a few minutes of wartime footage. Fascinating. And the years rolled by. People were getting more and more impatient to see Russ's ultimate work.

Then finally, in 2001, "Pandora Peaks" was released. A film about a pretty girl? If it had been, I might have been happy. But closer examination showed that it's all that's left of "The Breast of Russ Meyer". It's a mash-up of Russ talking about his life and re-visiting locations where he served in the war, mixed with some archive footage from his previous films and the stripper Pandora Peaks dancing. Out of the promised eight hours, all we were given was barely 70 minutes of dull material.

This was a sad end to the career of Russ Meyer. If he had stopped making films in 1980 he would have ended on a high, after making three of the best films of his career. As it is, his career is rounded off by this awful piece of work, the worst film he ever made. I would have given it one star, but Pandora's beautiful naked breasts save the film from a rock bottom rating.

Russ Meyer
March 21, 1922 – September 18, 2004

This is a list of the films in the Russ Meyer collection, with links to my reviews.

1. The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959)
2. Eve and the Handyman (1961)
3. Wild Gals of the Naked West (1962)
4. Lorna (1964)
5. Mudhoney (1965)
6. Motorpsycho (1965)
7. Faster Pussycat Kill Kill (1966)
8. Mondo Topless (1966)
9. Common Law Cabin (1967)
10. Good morning and goodbye (1967)
11. Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers (1968)
12. Vixen (1968)
13. Cherry, Harry and Raquel (1969)
14. Blacksnake (1973)
15. Supervixens (1975)
16. Up! (1976)
17. Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens (1979)
18. Pandora Peaks (2001)

This is a list of the four films which he chose not to include in his official collection, whatever reasons he might have had for omitting them.

1. Europe in the Raw (1963)
2. Fanny Hill (1964)
3. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)
4. The Seven Minutes (1971)

There's some disagreement on how to pronounce Russ's last name. Some people pronounce it my-er, as in German, but most people say may-er, the typical American pronunciation. In the director's commentaries Russ occasionally says his own name, and he always pronounces it my-er. So that's the end of the discussion. Russ is right.

Russ Meyer was a great man, a true pioneer. It's ironic that his name has faded into obscurity in America, even though he's well known in other countries. I'll always remember him. Just not for "Pandora Peaks".

Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens (5 Stars)

"Gimme that old time religion, it's good enough for me".

This is the 17th film in the Russ Meyer Collection, made in 1979. It can be considered a sequel to the 15th film, "Supervixens", because a lot of the characters return.

In "Supervixens" Martin Bormann owned a petrol station. He's now come up in the world. He owns a Christian radio station, which earns him a lot more money, judging by the Mercedes he drives. The radio evangelist who works for him is Eufala Roop, who was briefly introduced as "Tom's other wife" in "Supervixens". So she was (or still is) in a bigamous relationship? That doesn't matter. God forgives everything.

The farmer Lute returns, this time as the film's narrator, together with his wife Super-Soul. I never mentioned Super-Soul in my review of "Supervixens" that I wrote yesterday. Silly me. How could I have ignored her? Super-Soul is played in both films by the Swedish actress Uschi Digard, one of the most beautiful actresses who has ever lived. She also played Soul in "Cherry, Harry and Raquel", but that was a different character.

The film's moral, if any, is that religion heals everything. In the case of this film the man in need of healing is Lamar. He can only find sexual satisfaction when he has anal sex, much to the disgust of his wife Lavonia. Let me digress for a moment. In the past few years pornography has become widely available on the Internet. Today's pornography isn't much different to the pornography 20 or 30 years ago. The difference is that it's easily available and discreetly available, even to young teenagers. In the past they couldn't have walked into a sex shop to buy it, but now they can download it for free. Pornography is the first sex education that many young people receive. One of the lessons taught by pornography is that anal sex is normal and all women like it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most women don't enjoy anal sex and would only do it occasionally to please a man. It's pleasurable to men, especially men with smaller penises, because the back hole is tighter than the vagina, but it only gives women limited pleasure. It's impossible to stop young teenagers watching pornography, but they need to be warned about the false lessons it gives them.

Back to the film. Lamar tries everything to cure his problem, including a visit to the local dentist who doubles as a marriage counsellor, but in the end the only thing that can heal him is being baptised by Sister Eufala Roop. Hallelujah!

The film's sub-plots are as important as the main story itself. In his usual satirical manner Russ Meyer presents the town as living the American dream. The biggest dream of aspiring entrepreneurs is to have their own junk yard, even if they have to kill the previous owner to get it. It's a world in which everyone fights everyone else to possess junk.

Instead of his usual brief cameo there's an extended scene with Russ Meyer at the end of the film. Lute the narrator goes home to his wife, and Russ takes over the narration, giving his own take on the moral guilt or innocence of the film's characters. Interestingly, his judgement of all is kind and forgiving. That's the film's message. Religion heals everything. Religion forgives everything.

Up! (4½ Stars)

"Poor Adolf, so misunderstood, so wrongfully condemned for ridding the world of the mongrels who would contaminate us all".

This is the 16th film in the Russ Meyer Collection, made in 1976. The film begins with the words, "This is not a fairytale". So what is it? It's a political satire which takes place in a world populated by American archetypes. There are the pilgrim fathers, the black immigrant and the Chinese immigrant. Then there's Adolf, who might not be American, but he's moved to America to enjoy the American dream.

In Russ's previous film, "Supervixens", we saw that Martin Bormann had survived the Second World War. In "Up!" we see that Adolf Hitler has also survived and moved to America. He's no harm to anyone any more. He's bought himself a large palace in the mountains, and he supports the local community by paying people to torture him in his dungeon. Everyone's happy, until an unseen assailant kills him by dropping a piranha in his bath tub.

The film develops into a whodunnit. Many things happen over the next two months, including a series of unrelated deaths, but the big question remains: Who killed Adolf? If you've never seen the film before, the answer will shock you when it's revealed.

As is usual in Russ Meyer's films, the characters are either good or evil, with no in-betweens. The women are kind and loving, the men are violent. Everyone is overseen by a Goddess who calls herself the Greek Chorus. She's characterised by boundless sexuality, writhing in ecstasy as she talks to the audience about the film's characters. She is the one who calls upon us to judge. There is no moral summing up in this film, no monologue explaining the good and evil. It's left up to us this time.

Watch out for Russ Meyer's cameo. He's in the bar during the big fight scene. It's also worth mentioning that this is the only film I've ever seen in which a policeman chases a villain with a chainsaw.

Supervixens (5 Stars)

This is the 15th film in the Russ Meyer Collection, made in 1975. It's probably his best film, a social commentary on America, law and order and gender roles. In the film all the women are super, and all the men are not super. America definitely isn't super, and neither is the American legal system.

Clint Ramsay doesn't have much of a life. He lives in a small house in the desert and works at a petrol station that belongs to the Nazi war criminal Martin Bormann. He shares his house with his girlfriend, Super-Angel. After a domestic dispute he's arrested by the policeman Harry Sledge, played by the magnificent Charles Napier. He's released from jail, but Super-Angel won't allow him back into the house because she's spending time with Harry. The evening doesn't go well. Super-Angel mocks Harry's lack of virility, so he kills her and frames Clint for the murder.

Clint flees across America, encountering superwomen wherever he goes. He tries to be a gentleman, refusing to have sex with them however much they insist. That's a mistake. By refusing the superwomen what they want he's punished, directly or indirectly. In a world where the women are super and the men aren't super, the men have to obey.

Eventually Clint meets a woman called Super-Vixen and moves into her luxurious cabin, pictured above. That's the American dream, a home to call your own. They have a few short weeks of peace, before Harry discovers them by accident. Harry is determined to kill Clint and anyone who's close to him. What follows is a fight to the death, overseen by the spirit of Super-Angel. It seems that she approves of Clint's new lover. After all, Super-Angel and Super-Vixen are played by the same actress, Shari Eubank.

As usual, Russ Meyer does a brief cameo, this time as a motel manager. Be careful, if you blink you'll miss him.

Blacksnake (2½ Stars)

"Woman, you have sinned. You are an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Harlot! Your evil is so unspeakable that even Lucifer must reject you until your malignant soul has been cleansed and purged by fire".

This is the 14th film in the Russ Meyer Collection, made in 1973. It's a curiosity among his films. Its style and cinematography are so different that it can hardly be recognised as one of his films. Only the Biblical morality and the rule of a powerful woman give it away.

The film takes place in 1835, two years after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. The small island of St. Christobal in the Caribbean has refused to accept this change. Lady Susan Walker is the owner of a plantation that still uses slaves to cut cane. It has to be stressed that this isn't a society of white rulers and black slaves. The black people on the island are divided into two castes. The French-speaking black people are free men, loyal to Lady Susan. The English-speaking black people are slaves, viciously treated by Lady Susan and her army of Frenchies.

Lady Susan describes herself as an ex-slave who was smart enough to find her own freedom. She used to be a prostitute on the streets of London, the slave of a pimp who used her to make money. She married a rich lord and killed him, inheriting his money. Then she married a second rich man, and a third, and a fourth. Now she has absolute power on the island of St. Christobal. Sir Charles Walker, the brother of Lady Susan's fourth husband, travels to the island under a false name to find out if his brother is still alive. He soon finds out that she is too much for him to handle. When he pleases her she has sex with him, when he defies her she whips him. She's never without her whip, whether she's riding around the plantation or lying in bed.

It's difficult to know who to sympathise with in this film. It might seem logical to those who have never seen the film to sympathise with the slaves who want their freedom. But when there's a rebellion and the slaves kill her servants, Lady Susan fearlessly faces more than 20 men, armed only with her whip. It's difficult not to side with the underdog.

Apart from this, the transformation we see in the preacher Isaiah is horrifying. He begins by using the Bible to teach his fellow slaves to be peaceful and accept their position. As the film progresses he uses the Bible to justify violence and murder. The final scene, in which Lady Susan is crucified, is rich in symbolism.

Ironically, Anouska Hempel, the actress who plays Lady Susan, has some similarities with her character in the film. She was born in New Zealand, then moved to London, where she lived in poverty. She starred in a dozen films, but never made the big time. Finally she married a rich lord and became Lady Weinberg. The main difference to the film is that she hasn't killed her husband. She bought the British broadcast rights to prevent "Blacksnake" ever being shown on television again. Evidently the story is too close for comfort.

The Intern (4 Stars)

Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro) worked for 40 years in a company that printed phone books, for many years as a chief executive. At 65 he retired, shortly after the death of his wife. He is trying to remain active, keeping a regular daily schedule, getting up at the same time every day and doing Tai Chi in the park, but he feels something is missing. He needs a purpose in his life.

He replies to an advertisement for an internship at an e-commerce company, About A Fit, that sells clothing online. He's assigned as the personal assistant to the company's owner/founder, Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway). The film's humour comes from the contrast between the two characters. Jules is a highly focused executive who has neglected her family to build a company up from nothing to 220 employees in 18 months. Her unorthodox leadership methods (which seem to be a parody of other successful company founders like Steve Jobs) clash with Ben's efficient common-sense style. Ben's lack of knowledge of the Internet age is presented humorously, especially in the opening sequences, contrasted with his younger colleagues' lack of knowledge of the pre-Internet age. For instance, Ben has to explain why people needed phone books. "Can't you just use Google?" It's a clash of two worlds.

The film has a very simple story, which has been criticised by other reviewers, but I consider that to be the film's strength. The film is character driven. It would have failed with lesser actors than Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway. They're so charming, both individually and in their interaction with one another, that we can't help but take them into our hearts. The same can be said of the minor characters, such as the other interns and Jules' secretary. The masterful directing by Nancy Meyers introduces the characters to us one by one, giving us enough details to know who they are, so that none of them are blanks. The only person I dislike in the film is Jules' husband Matt, who comes across as a creepy, over-polite character from the first time he appears on screen. Jules could do better than that!

The film has a multitude of sub-plots going on, which I won't describe in detail here. Spoilers! I'm not sure whether that's an advantage or a disadvantage. On the one hand they distract from the main story, but it's these very sub-plots that describe the minor characters to us. Ben's romance with the company's massage therapist seems unnecessary, but I understand why it was added. Without this romance the viewer might have suspected a romantic attachment between Ben and Jules, which the director wanted to avoid at all costs.

This is a charming feel-good movie. It's not a chick flick, it's a film for everyone. It's definitely a film that I want to watch again and ponder in more detail.

The Homesman (4 Stars)

Sometimes a film doesn't fit into a neat genre. On the surface "The Homesman" looks like a western. The posters even promote the image that it's a western, probably to draw people in who wouldn't normally go to see it. In actual fact, this film has nothing to do with westerns, apart from taking place in the same time and place as the traditional Hollywood westerns.

The film begins in Loup City, Nebraska, in the 1850's. Despite the pompous sounding name it was a town with only a dozen houses, most of the population being Polish and Norwegian immigrants. Loup still exists today, and it isn't much bigger. Mary Bee Cuddy is a reasonably wealthy 31-year-old woman who has moved from New York to buy land and start a farm. She does all the work herself, raising cattle and growing crops with only minimal assistance from neighbouring farmers.

The other women aren't as strong as her. It's a harsh land with very little comfort. Cattle die of frost, children die of diptheria. Three women are suffering from mental illness and have to be delivered to a mental asylum in Iowa. On the map it doesn't look very far, but it's a five week journey by horse-drawn wagon. Mary Bee volunteers to take the women to Iowa, because she considers herself more capable than the women's husbands. She sets off by herself, but as she leaves the town she finds an old man, George Briggs, who has been left sitting on a horse under a tree with a noose round his neck. She saves his life in return for his assistance.

Mary Bee Cuddy, played by Hilary Swank, is an awe-inspiring woman. She towers above the men around her, in both strength and intelligence. Her only weakness is that she feels lonely and wants a husband. She proposes to men, but they turn her down because she's "too plain and too bossy". What were the men thinking? I don't find her plain at all, and I like bossy women. She's a good, honest woman who would have made any man an excellent wife. George Briggs (Tommy Lee Jones) is different. He's a selfish man who always puts his own interests first. Mary Bee is an immoveable rock, but George slowly develops during the film, learning from her example. It's a tale of grace and redemption. First his life is saved, then he learns how to put his new life to good use.

Cherry, Harry and Raquel (5 Stars)

"Whereas science has not yet proved the harmful effects of marijuana on the human body, there is little question concerning the corrupting influence on its users and purveyors".

This is the 13th film in the Russ Meyer Collection, made in 1969. It's another tale of morality. Russ had too many ideas for one film. It's like he was bursting to tell us what was on his mind. The film itself can be divided into four sections.

1. Russ Meyer lectures us on the importance of freedom of opinion.
2. Russ Meyer lectures us on the evil of marijuana (or rather, the evil of the marijuana trade).
3. The film itself.
4. Russ Meyer analyses the moral culpability of the film's main characters.

The film's central character is Harry, the deputy sheriff of San Luis, Arizona. He's played by Charles Napier, in my opinion the most underrated actor ever. He died in 2011 without ever achieving the big Hollywood breakthrough that he deserved. Harry has been making money on the side by helping a politician called Franklin smuggle drugs into the USA. Harry used the income from the drugs smuggling to buy the luxurious mansion pictured below. Maybe the drugs trade doesn't pay so well after all?

Franklin is getting old and has decided to quit the drugs trade. Harry grudgingly agrees, but another of Franklin's employees, an Apache Indian called Geronimo, wants to continue smuggling drugs by himself. Franklin is worried that things might go wrong, bringing bad publicity for himself, so he asks Harry to kill Geronimo, aided by a Mexican immigrant called Enrique.

So who are Cherry and Raquel? Cherry is Harry's wife, and Raquel is a prostitute who regularly visits Franklin. They naively build a lesbian relationship with one another while the violent struggle with Geronimo is going on around them. In typical Russ Meyer style, the final scene shows alternating cuts of Harry and Geronino fighting to the death while Cherry and Raquel's bodies are writhing in passion. In a ballet of existentialist absurdity the motions of the two fighters and the two lovers are almost identical.

This is possibly Russ Meyer's most surreal film. The controlling force in the film is an all-powerful Goddess called Soul. In herself she's invisible, but she frequently co-exists with the main characters. It's not that she occupies the body of a character to control him, she simply takes the place of that person, visible to us, the viewers, but unseen within the film. For instance, whenever we see a close up of Geronimo in the early scenes he's a naked woman, Soul. Does that make sense? Not really. It's like a crazy dream.

In the moral summing up all the men are guilty, all the women are innocent. Harry is a man "no different from anyone else", not thankful for what he has. Enrique is a greedy young man looking to make a quick buck. Geronimo is a native American who has given up his pride for the sake of money. Franklin is the ringmaster of evil, tempting everyone around him to sin. Only Cherry and Raquel are innocents, living for love. But who will judge us? Soul is the all-powerful Goddess who will reward the women and punish the men.

There's one thing I've failed to mention in my previous reviews of the Russ Meyer Collection. In almost all of his films Russ Meyer appears briefly in a cameo. In "Cherry, Harry and Raquel" we see him in a swimming pool with Soul. How does Soul judge Russ? He created her, but that doesn't earn him any special favours. More importantly, she's looking directly at us, the viewers, observing us, judging us mercilessly.

Are those Soul's words, or Russ's own words? It doesn't matter. Think about it.

THINK ABOUT IT!

Macbeth (3 Stars)

This film, a big screen adaptation of Shakespeare's famous play "Macbeth", is the biggest disappointment I've experienced in the cinema this year. The trailers looked so spectacular, and Michael Fassbender is an excellent actor who has impressed me ever since I first saw him in the TV series "Hex".

The overall impression that I had was that the film was incomprehensible. The only reason that I understood it was that I already knew the play well. I knew the plot, and my previous knowledge told me what was happening. What I saw on screen was no help. The picture is too dark for most of the film. Since all the men in the film have dark hair and beards, it was often difficult to distinguish them in the dark lighting. The woman sitting next to me in the cinema whispered to me a few times, "Is that Macbeth?" I wasn't always able to give her an answer. As a friend pointed out after the film, the trailer is different. The colours and visibility in the trailer are perfect. Why couldn't they have done that to the film as well?

Another problem is that the dialogue was often muttered. Maybe that was a problem of my cinema. If they had turned the volume up it would have been easier to understand.

It's a great story. After all, it's Shakespeare. Good acting by the main characters. The cinematography is good, apart from being too dark. I saw the play in the theatre last year. Despite being an avant garde performance, it was far superior.

Vixen (4 Stars)

"The entire western world is crumbling and rotting to its very foundation because of prejudice and decadence".

This is the 12th film in the Russ Meyer Collection, made in 1968. His last four films had been moderately successful, earning more than a million dollars each, but this time he hit the jackpot. "Vixen" was made with a budget of less than $20,000 but it earned $26 million at the box office. That would be about $400 million in today's money. Added to that, Russ says that he earned another $19 million when it was released on video 15 years later.

What happened? In my personal opinion, "Vixen" isn't Russ Meyer's best film, but when it was released people went crazy for it all over America. For instance, it was shown in Chicago's largest cinema for 83 weeks, at a time when cinemas weren't multiplex, they just showed one film each.

The film's setting is similar to that of Russ Meyer's other films, in particular "Common Law Cabin". Tom Palmer owns a small wooden shack in the remote north west of Canada. He runs it as a hotel for elite guests. The only local residents are Tom, his wife Vixen, Vixen's brother Judd, and an American draft-dodger called Niles.

First of all my criticism of the film. Russ Meyer's previous films were concerned with questions of morality. "Vixen" deals with politics. I'm not against political films, but in my opinion the subject isn't dealt with adequately. In matters of morality Russ's films go into thought provoking detail. In "Vixen" we're told that Communism means equality, and that's it. Bam! It's just a political slogan with nothing behind it.

Maybe it's the taboo subjects that attracted the public's attention. The main character, Vixen, played by Erica Gavin, is racist and incestuous. She has sex with anyone who isn't black, including her brother. The incest isn't even presented as something bad in the film, it just happens. It's a remote area with not enough men to satisfy Vixen's sexual appetite, so she uses her brother as well.

Erica Gavin in 1968.

Erica Gavin in 2004.

The DVD I watched today has a commentary by Russ Meyer. I love his films, but his commentaries are awful. He talks about everything except the film. He talks about losing his virginity in France at the end of the second world war, he talks about his first two wives, he talks about his friendship with Roger Ebert. All very interesting stuff, but I wanted to hear more about Erica Gavin.

Success Rate:  + 1298.0

The Walk (5 Stars)

When I saw this film advertised I thought I knew what to expect: not much of a story, but spectacular visual scenes that would make the film worth seeing. I was half right. Yes, the visual scenes are spectacular, but the story itself is just as amazing. Right from the opening minutes I was fascinated by the charm and personality of Philippe Petit, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Leaning against the Statue of Liberty he narrated the story of what he called the Coup of the Century in a series of flashbacks.

If anything, I'd say that the story leading up to the walk itself, which took place on August 7th 1974, was the most fascinating part of the film. It's a story of courage and determination. It's a tale of someone who has a dream and won't give it up, whatever the difficulties. The walk itself was illegal, so the whole story has the feeling of a bank robbery. We see shady characters meeting in secret, forging plans, hiding from the law.

The act of walking on a wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center was crazy, utterly crazy. Only a madman would do it. But this madman became famous for his madness.

From what I've read, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's dedication to the project was phenomenal. He took lessons in tightrope walking from Philippe Petit himself, who is now 66. He did use a stunt double in some scenes, but he became proficient enough to appear in many of the scenes unaided.

This is a spectacular film, and it'll be a must-have for my Blu-ray collection.

Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers (4 Stars)

"He's a man, isn't he? They all have problems".

This is the 11th film in the Russ Meyer Collection, made in 1968. It was Russ's first attempt at making a thriller, and he succeeded admirably. I have no idea what the reason for the film's title is. It sounds cool, but it has no relevance whatsoever.

Paul Lockwood owns a successful strip club in Los Angeles. In a role reversal to Russ's previous film, "Good morning and goodbye", Paul is a sexual stud while his wife Kelly has no interest in sex. He satisfies his sexual appetite by visiting brothels, but even that isn't enough for him. In the film we see him having sex with two prostitutes, then going home and raping his wife.

The film's main action concerns a robbery. Two men break into the club to steal the money. Paul, his wife and an employee are taken prisoner.

If I remember correctly, this was the last film in Russ Meyer's career that wasn't a moral fable. Maybe the moral lessons are there, but they're not pushed at us with long speeches and Bible quotes like they are in his other films. We still have lashings of religion though. In a bizarre scene the prostitute Christiana first explains the religious significance of the Karma Sutra to Paul, then she talks about Mennonite clothing while shaving his pubic hair with a cutthroat razor.

The men in the film are all unpleasant. None of them have any likeable qualities. They're all violent and abusive to women. Even Paul's employee Ray, who first comforts Kelly, insisting like all good men that he likes her mind not her body, becomes aggressive when she turns down his advances. The women in the film are all kind and loving, even the frigid Kelly.

Solace (3 Stars)

A serial killer is murdering people by a single stab wound in the back of the neck. It's an immediate, painless death. The head of the FBI calls in the retired psychic investigator, Dr. John Clancy, played by Anthony Hopkins. Usually Dr. Clancy is successful, having psychic flashes that show him where the killer is, and, more importantly, when he will strike next, but he soon realises that he's met his match. The killer is a clairvoyant who can see the future.

The film has some very good ideas, but it doesn't deliver. The psychic flashes, often gruesome, sometimes random images like neon crosses, are more akin to the jumps that are common in horror films. The imagery doesn't fit well in a detective film, even if it's a supernatural detective film. There's a sub-plot about the killer being a benevolent mercy killer, who only kills those who have terminal illnesses that would cause them great suffering. Rather than weighing the pros and cons of euthanasia, which would have given the film more moral weight, Dr. Clancy just dismisses it. "I don't care why you're killing people. Murder is wrong".

The best thing about the film is Colin Farrell's excellent performance as the killer. It's a pity that he doesn't appear until the last half hour of the film. Anthony Hopkins is superb, as always, but not even his skill can overcome the film's weaknesses.

Good morning and goodbye (3½ Stars)

"What's worth owning is worth fighting for".

This is the tenth film in the Russ Meyer Collection, made in 1967. I don't consider it to be one of his better films, despite an outstanding performance by Stuart Lancaster. The film is presented as a morality fable, but it's difficult to understand the message Russ wants to put across. It's clear where the guilt lies, but the problems are solved by an outside force.

As is typical for Russ Meyer, he makes films with similar characters, as far as their backgrounds are concerned, but he distributes the guilt differently. In that respect, "Good morning and goodbye" is a companion film to "Common Law Cabin". Burt Boland is the only rich man in a small town. He plays the stock market and wins, while everyone else works hard shovelling salt for poor pay. Burt's wife has died for reasons that we're not told, leaving him alone with his teenage daughter, Lana. He marries a younger woman, Angel, who only wants him for his money.

Angel is the epitome of evil. She mocks her husband for not being able to "get it up". To be fair to Burt, if I had a woman who constantly mocked me and compared me with other men I wouldn't be able to get it up either. Angel goes out at night to find herself men, telling her husband where she's going. In the daytime she's still hungry for sex and looks for other men. She even seduces Lana's boyfriend, because she thinks that all men exist for her pleasure.

A Goddess lives in the woods. The Goddess is a mystical spirit who watches everyone, but remains invisible. One day she reveals herself to Burt. Burt is lured by her beauty, and he follows her into a trap. The Goddess seduces Burt, and over the following week he returns to her every day. He tells Angel that he has a new lover, but she doesn't believe him. On his final day with her Burt drinks a goblet of the Goddess's blood. He returns home as a man of such great virility that Angel never wants another man again.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Do you see my problems with the story? Angel is the evil person, but she isn't the one who changes, it's her husband who has to change. The good have to change to be accepted by the evil? Apart from that, I have to question the story's resolution. If Burt has suddenly become a super-stud, why doesn't he kick Angel out and find a new women who is worthy of him?

It could be possible that Russ Meyer's ideas of morality were developing with the passage of time. In "Lorna", made three years earlier, we have a purely Biblical morality. The wife who sleeps with another man is an adulteress, and she is punished with death. In "Good morning and goodbye" the superior being is a Goddess who rewards female sexuality. If a woman wants sex she is good and is rewarded. If a man doesn't give a woman the sex she needs he's evil and is punished. Unless, of course, the man is willing to change. Burt might seem like the story's winner, but he's really just taking the place he should have had all along. Angel is the winner, because she finally receives the virile sex slave that she has always deserved.

Common Law Cabin (4½ Stars)

"Everybody's doing it. If you don't somebody else will".

This is the ninth film in the Russ Meyer Collection, made in 1967. After Russ's commercial failures with his Gothic Quartet the rest of his career was a steady upward climb, from one success to the next. "Common Law Cabin" was his new beginning. It has a dark, serious plot, like his previous films, but he made the choice to use bright vibrant colours. That's what the cinema audiences in the psychedelic sixties expected. The film also begins the trend of ridiculously bawdy music that became typical of the next ten years of his career.

Dewey Hoople is a retired sailor. He's spent his life savings on a hut on the bank of the Colorado River in Arizona. That's it in the picture above. Wow! He saved all his life for that? To make money he markets it as a luxury hotel called Hoople's Haven. Tragedy strikes. His wife passes away, we're not told why, and he's left to bring up his teenage daughter alone. Dewey finds comfort in the arms of the hotel's maid, Babette, who becomes his lover. There's a natural jealousy between the two women in Dewey's life. His daughter Coral doesn't like another woman taking her mother's place. Babette thinks Coral dresses too provocatively for a 16-year-old.

The film begins with the arrival of three guests at the hotel. Two of them are a doctor and his wife. The third is a mysterious stranger who offers to buy the hotel. The sexual tension is high. The doctor's wife flirts with everyone. The stranger seduces all the women, and even tries to rape Coral when she resists his advances. Before long the stranger's secret agenda is revealed, resulting in the outbreak of violence.

One of Russ Meyer's skills was to discover non-actresses and teach them how to act. Babette Bardot, who used her real name in the film, was one of the strippers that Russ discovered for "Mondo Topless". Very little is known about Adele Rein, who plays the part of Coral. All that we know is that Russ said that she was a 16-year-old girl he discovered while he was in Germany. Obviously she had qualities that attracted his attention.

Today "Common Law Cabin" is one of Russ Meyer's lesser known films. He's best known for his Gothic Quartet and his later films. It's still a very good film which compares favourably to the other films in the Russ Meyer Collection.

Soundless (4 Stars)

This psychological thriller is a cops and criminals film with nuances and plot twists that would be impossible in an American film. As a fan of German cinema I would like to say that it's typically German, but that's not true either. The film's slow pacing and moral ambiguities give it a very Scandinavian feeling. If anything, I would compare it with the original version of "Insomnia", the Norwegian version.

The film is set in Germany in a deliberately ambiguous city. The director says in his commentary that the outdoor scenes were shot in a mixture of Berlin, Munich and Stuttgart in order to disorient anyone trying to identify the city. The cars in the film have license plates beginning with "T", a letter not used for German cars. The central character is Felix, a man whose parents were murdered in front of his eyes when he was nine. He was adopted by an ex-army friend of his father's, now working as an arms dealer, who trained him to be a professional killer. Felix changed his name to Viktor and now lives off the grid, with no bank account or property in his name to identify him. As far as the authorities are concerned he doesn't exist.

As a highly trained killer he specialises in doing impossible jobs which are too difficult for other hit men. He kills people who are under police protection or surrounded by bodyguards. That's where the film starts. He's hired to kill a crooked policeman, even though the policeman is under 24 hour surveillance by an obsessive detective called Lang. When the policeman is shot practically in front of him, Lang becomes determined to catch the killer. But there's a complication. On the night before his murder the policeman picked up a girl called Nina in a bar. When he found her asleep Viktor spared her because she "wasn't the target". Both Lang and Viktor tail Nina on the following day, Lang because he suspects Nina is somehow involved in the murder, Viktor out of boredom because he has nothing to do between jobs. Lang gives up at the end of his shift, but Viktor is persistent, and when he sees Nina attempt to kill herself he saves her and brings her to a hospital.

Nina and Viktor fall in love. Nina doesn't know that Viktor is a killer, but she suspects something and follows him on his next job. Lang is still following Nina. Add the further complication that Viktor discovers his new job is a setup, intended by one of his adopted father's enemies to capture him, but Viktor decides to go ahead with the assassination regardless.

This excellent film has been released in America with English subtitles. I highly recommend it. I just hope that it will never be remade in Hollywood. A film of this quality doesn't deserve to be ruined.

Mondo Topless (4 Stars)

"It's my thing, I like aggressive women" (Russ Meyer, 1982).

This is the eighth film in the Russ Meyer Collection, made in 1966.

Evelyn Turner married Russ Meyer in 1952, after which she became better known as Eve Meyer. Their marriage lasted 14 years, but their business relationship lasted up until her death in a plane crash in 1977. Eve was the perfect partner for Russ, as far as business was concerned. Russ Meyer was an artist, a dreamer, someone who lived to create things of beauty. Eve's interest was in making money.

Russ Meyer's first few films were moderately successful. They allowed him a comfortable lifestyle. After that he turned his thoughts to serious film making. He made his Gothic Quartet, culminating in "Faster Pussycat Kill Kill". Despite their notoriety and popularity today, they were financial flops at the time they were released. Russ would have continued making films like them, but Eve saw things clearly. She told Russ, who was at that time living with the German actress Renate Hütte, that he had to do something to make money before he landed on the streets. That was the kick that Russ needed. He knew what to do. He said that if his good films didn't make money he'd make a piece of crud.

This piece of crud was "Mondo Topless". First he went into clubs in San Francisco to find topless dancers. He picked six dancers, then drove them into the desert to film them dancing. He interviewed them on their careers and their lives. Then he went back to the studio, mixed together the desert dances with the interviews, added a narrative spoken by his friend John Furlong, and the film was finished on a budget of $12,000. It was the right film at the right time. The piece of crud made millions, and Russ never had to worry about money again for the rest of his life. He could make the rest of the films in his career in comfort.

Russ hated "Mondo Topless". He never took it seriously. He made it because he thought audiences were stupid, and when they flocked into the cinemas to see it he knew he was right, the audiences really were stupid. I like it, so I must be stupid as well. I'm thankful to Russ for making this piece of crud, I'm thankful to his wife Eve for convincing him to make it, and I'm thankful to Russ for including it in the official Russ Meyer Collection.

The Martian (4½ Stars)

This is one of the 2015 summer blockbusters that I approached with caution. Late summer, I ought to say. It's been presented in the media with a lot of hype, as the must-watch film of the year. From the trailer and the brief synopsis it seemed to be a re-imagining of last year's "Gravity", which certainly didn't live up to expectations.Then I read an article on the film's making in which it was said that on the first day of filming that everyone involved with the film would win an Oscar. I certainly hope that was misquoted. If they were told "Let's work hard to get Oscars for everyone" it would be more acceptable, but in the form I read it it sounded awfully conceited.

I needn't have worried. The film's director is Ridley Scott, someone who can be relied on not to make a million dollar turkey. There are a few of his films that deserve to be in my "30 films to watch before you die" list, but since I was restricting myself to one film per director only "Thelma and Louise" made the cut. "Gladiator" was just as deserving.

The film is about a manned mission to Mars in the near future. Thank you for not specifying the year, it's always embarrassing when watching the film after the year has passed and we still haven't got that far. Due to a storm the mission has to be aborted and the ground crew has to leave the surface in a hurry. In the chaos of the storm one of their crew, the botanist Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, is assumed to be dead and left behind. The next Mars mission is four years in the future and there isn't enough food to sustain him that long. Being a botanist he knows how to grow crops on Mars, so he makes the best with what he has -- potatoes only -- and settles in for the long haul.

The obvious film to compare "The Martian" with is "Gravity", and it compares very favourably. The main problem with "Gravity" is the credibility and scientific accuracy of the story. Even to me as someone who has never studied astrophysics, "Gravity" seemed very artificial, and Sandra Bullock's return to Earth seemed like dumb luck more than skill. In contrast "The Martian" is easy to believe, and it's obvious that Ridley Scott did his homework before making the film.

This is a film worth watching again. Wait for my next review when I have the Blu-ray Disc in my hand next year.

Will it win Oscars? Somehow I doubt it. Science fiction films rarely have success at the Academy Awards, except for technical categories like cinematography. The Academy prefers films about films, or films about actors, so "Trumbo" is a more likely film to win the major awards next year. Let's wait and see.

Aaaaaaaah (4 Stars)

On the surface this is a comedy, but underneath it's a commentary on humanity. Where are we? What are we? Are we men or animals?

The film was shown today at the Electric, England's oldest cinema. The director Steve Oram and the leading actress Toyah Willcox were present to answer questions after the film. The film has no dialogue, but that's not how it began. The actors were given a script. After they had internalised the script they had to perform their lines in ape-like grunts instead of English. The final result is one of the most bizarre films ever. The characters act in ways that we recognise from the animal kingdom. The alpha male rules the pack, he deals with challenges, he marks his territory, etc. The females deal with the males in whatever ways they can.

As expected, Toyah filled the room with her charm. After all these years she's still so tiny. I'd be afraid I would knock her over. She was supported by her husband Robert Fripp, also in the audience. He supplied a large amount of the music for the soundtrack. I was happy to hear that she's returning to acting in a big way, including "The lies we tell", an upcoming film with Gabriel Byrne and Harvey Keitel.