Tag Archives: Movies

Action/Adventure, Imaginary US Cinema

#161 – Operation Oracle

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(1989, US, 105 min) Dir Hector Malevich. Cast Roddy Piper, Malcolm McDowell, Rae Dawn Chong.

In a part of Iran that looks suspiciously like Arizona a Navy SEAL team headed by “crack infiltrator” Cole Baskins (Piper) lands under cover of night. Their target – the top secret lab where Dr Rodney Deems (McDowell) is believed to be working on a super weapon for the Ayatollah that could wipe out the United States. The nature of the weapon is unknown but the threat is very real. The raid goes awry, an Iranian Army brigade waiting for them – obviously a tip-off. Baskins makes it out and recuperates thanks to the kindness of some passing Bedouin, falling for one of their kind in the shape of Fallah (Chong). Once he’s fit enough he can return, defeat his enemy and root out the mole that has infiltrated his team and it will be a battle to remember. Only then will the nature of the super weapon be revealed… Knuckleheaded doesn’t really cut it – the script is beyond laughable, the cast uniformly bored and the casting of obviously not Middle Eastern Rae Dawn Chong is questionable at best. The whole thing plays out like a child’s retelling of a Rambo marathon without the enthusiasm or geopolitical nuance. How Malevich, once one of the titans of Soviet cinema, came to this is beyond me.

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Twitter: @MadeUpFilms

Comedy, Drama, Imaginary Turkish Cinema, Science Fiction

#160 – Kuyruk, Bir (Tail, A)

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(2011, Tur, 99 min) Dir Ahmet Şen. Cast Nuri Kesal, Yılmaz Erdoğan, Cansu Demirci.

A whimsical, surreal little film in which everyone in the world wakes up one morning to find that overnight they have grown the tails of  animals – some have big green lizard’s tails, some have brightly feathered birds tails, some have twitching cat tails and some have a prehensile primate tail (which seems to be the least problematic and most useful of them all). The problem is that this kicks off a vast restructuring of the existing social norms – for example the President, who woke that day with a giant squirrel’s tail, is ousted from government by a cadre of monkey tails within his own party. All of this is seen from the perspective of young Nuri whose mother, a seamstress, is making a lot of money in the crisis from altering trousers. Previously a small fish in his school he has found his stock rising mightily now that he is in possession of a ferocious looking and potentially deadly scorpion’s tail. Of course if we learned anything from Spider-Man it’s the whole great power/greater responsibility thing and it’s the relationship between these two that guides Nuri’s story. A well-played, beautifully shot little film with surprisingly good practical effects for the tails, it’s only downfall is that it’s a little obvious in its allegorical intent. It was well received when it premiered in Sundance a couple of years ago but a wide release seems sadly unlikely by now. Worth tracking down.

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Twitter: @MadeUpFilms

Comedy, Horror, Imaginary British Cinema

#159 – Back Again To Be Bad

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(2012, GB, 100 min) Dir Christopher Smith. Cast Reece Shearsmith, Peter Serafinowicz, Alexi Sayle, Julie Andrews.

Supernatural comedy. The Grand Order of the Everlasting Night had a foul plan – they were going to raise from the dead the most nefarious, bloodthirsty tyrants that history has to offer to wreck the most profound and unimaginable havoc on earth. From the four corners of the earth they summon Hitler, Stalin, Genghis Khan, Elizabeth Báthory and, by accident, Jim Morrison. The trouble is they have no idea what to do with them now that they have them, all five seemingly unable to raise dread armies at the drop of a hat and also a bit depressed at being reanimated. The solution? Bung them all in a remote Scottish cottage for the time being while a Plan B is hashed out. So Stalin and Hitler are continually fighting over the bedrooms, Genghis is making all sorts of odd smells in the kitchen, Báthory’s taking forever in the bathroom and Morrison refuses to tidy up. An equilibrium has yet to be reached when there is a knock at the door. It’s only Churchill, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, a not dead Julie Andrews and, by accident, the Big Bopper and they’re there to sort out the tyrants once and for all. Cheap, slapdash and hilarious with a very unexpected good sport cameo from Andrews.

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Drama, Imaginary Canadian Cinema

#158 – Jellyfish

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(2007, Can, 105 min) Dir Ben Roy. Cast Anton Yelchin, Mark Rendall, Susan Sarandon.

True life inspired tale. Todd Waugh wants to get out of his family’s house while his parents argue their way through their divorce so he replies to an ad for a maths tutor. When he turns up at the house he finds that the local boy confined to his upstairs bedroom is Eric Battersby, who made worldwide news when he was born due to his inability to form bones and thus a skeleton. “He should have died when he was a baby,” Eric’s mother tells Todd, “But he just kept living.” Initially Todd is freaked out but when he tells his parents about not wanting to go back they manage to agree on something for the first time in years – that Todd should go back and help him. So he does and over time he becomes friends with the kid who calls himself ‘The Jellyfish’, inspired to help him make the most of his life rather than being stuck in his bedroom learning maths… Probably the most positive aspect of the film is the irreverent characterisation of Eric who is no saint alternating between his enjoyment of gross out humour and tantrums of petty peevishness, all guided by a fine performance from Yelchin.

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Comedy, Imaginary Norwegian Cinema

#157 – Djevlene! (Devils!)

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(2000, Nor, 98 min) Dir Tomas Dakk. Cast Olaf Minger, Ballhammer, Alan Danielsson, Alvus Binghauser, Totes Felching.

Norwegian mock-doc about the black metal group Djevlene decamping from the city to record their new album among the trees and mountains of the north. The film opens with a typical Djevlene performance – pounding, down tuned and fronted by agonised screaming – intercut with the quartet being interviewed, pledging their allegiance to Satan and intimating the dark deeds that they’ve done unknown by the media. Cut to their minivan opening in the dark, in the woods, in the snow, to much complaining about the cold and the cramped, dilapidated accommodation they have to stay in. Before you know it they’re fighting over the top bunk and the last sausage and jumping at the wind outside. In the night, following a strange creaking, their drummer Vic finds a hidden door that leads to the basement and in the basement is a grave, its headstone reading: Satan. Then, from under the ground, a blood curdling howling begins. The rare horror comedy that manages both with fine performances from the titular band as played, with admirable good humour, by real life band Snørr.

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Drama, Imaginary US Cinema, Thriller

#156 – This Burning Rock

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(1978, US, 120 min) Dir Arthur Penn. Cast John Travolta, Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms.

Appalachian set eco-thriller based on mountaintop removal mining and the opposition thereof. Frank (Bridges) and Joe (Travolta) are buddies that went their own ways after high school – Frank to University and Joe to work. It’s been a few years but Frank’s back in town on unknown business. He and Joe go out for a few drinks to catch up on old times. Now Joe hasn’t told Frank but he’s working with the crew that are going to blow the top off Eagle Rock Mountain to mine it for coal but that’s okay – Frank hasn’t told Joe that he’s there to monkeywrench the operation. Of course we know what’s going on and we know at some point that the two of them are sure to collide. In the meantime the film winds itself ever tighter with the mechanics of the mountaintop removal as nail-biting as Frank’s nocturnal recces and basement bomb building. A fine example of that Seventies brand of gritty thriller, like a French Connection in the wild with plenty of time to lay out its characters along with the action. Produced after the megaflop of The Missouri Breaks, this taut, economical thriller didn’t do much better despite also having a stellar cast but it’s reputation has improved with age.

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Twitter: @MadeUpFilms

Imaginary Canadian Cinema, Science Fiction, Western

#154 – Death Trip, The

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(1972, Can, 100 min) Dir Herbert Yates. Cast Mel McKenna, Virginia Barbeau, Alain Stopkewich, Molly Pilbrow.

Grey skied acid western from Canadian director Herbert ‘Head’ Yates. Mel McKenna (yes, Peterson from TV’s Peterson & Son) is the wild haired, black clad Mansonesque wanderer named X who drifts near dead into the peaceful community of proto-hippies that is Small Preston. Nursed back to health by young Adrianne he seems to pass onto her strange visions of lust and the greater universe, her naked body melding with some strange being of pure light from behind the moon. Soon enough he is championing her as, in his words, “a prophet of the New Religion!” With her blindfolded in advance the whole village follows out into the wilds in search of the new Jerusalem “where the New Gods will descend from the heavens and touch our hearts with their pure light.” Of course half of them starve or die of thirst but the other half make it to the mountains where they find their New Gods and pass through a totally trippy initiation where the world, and the film, becomes pure abstraction. Not bad, if totally hippy dippy, with some astonishing effects considering it was 1972 and they had no money.

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Twitter: @MadeUpFilms

Erotic, Imaginary Japanese Cinema

#153 – Burakkurōzu (Black Rose)

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(1988, Jap, 70 min) Dir Helmut Durmou. Cast Setsuko Tanaka, Hiroshi Somai.

In 1986 Francois Fleider accidentally asphyxiated in whilst trying out a new modified harness/pillory post made by famed ‘device’ maker Jan Flugel-Flugel which left the previously secure Durmou without a steady patron. Thankfully his fans leapt to the rescue in the form of his Japanese fan base, the surprisingly well organised Helmut Durmou Appreciation Society, populated by various titans of industry. In honour of his new backers Durmou relocated to Japan for what was supposed to be a brief engagement but lasted until his recent death and was where all his subsequent films were made (barring Hard Light which was made in Italy but with an all-Japanese crew). Black Rose acts as a kind of low-budget aperitif in this respect, focussing on two people in one anonymous room, the kind typical to the average Tokyo apartment block which immediately sets it apart from his previous films which were always set in the opulent past, whether an imagined one or clearly defined era. The reason for this becomes immediately clear when the female lead is presented with the what is the centrepiece of the film – a Flugel-Flugel pillory post of the same ‘Black Rose’ design that ended the life of Durmou’s patron. He’s obviously working some stuff out here and as such he has, unusually, made a slow, mournful film for completists only. Nonetheless it remains a fitting tribute to his indulgent benefactor. His next film, Demon, was him back to form.

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Twitter: @MadeUpFilms

Erotic, Imaginary Belgian Cinema

#152 – Château, Le (Castle, The)

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(1975, Bel, 91 min) Dir Helmut Durmou. Cast Hal Normand, Lisa Beit, Howard Messinger.

Dormou’s debut Elisa Lees had many fans, among them the middle-aged Belgian millionaire Francois Fleider who adopted the Swiss director as a kindred spirit and supported him with not just the money to make his films but also, for the making of Le Château, the use of his impressive residence in the South of France to film in. Fleider didn’t even ask to be featured in the films he funded, the usual vain request made as part of such a deal – all that he requested was to be present at the filming which Dormou allowed. The first result of this partnership, Le Château is set in an unnamed lush countryside where, once a year, the occupiers of the nearby hilltop castle audition for playthings among the local population and, more than that, said locals line up to be judged. The structure of the film allows for agonisingly long foreplay where what awaits those deemed worthy is hinted at but not fully revealed until the end. Not that this is a tip to those unwilling to wait – steady your fingers on the remote control, press ye not the fast forward button for the build up is the point and half the pleasure for Dormou now betrays a mastery of the suspense of film, of suggestion and denial that makes the release of the films denouement all the sweeter.

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Erotic, Imaginary French Cinema, Imaginary German Cinema, Imaginary Spanish Cinema

#151 – Elisa Lees

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(1972, Fr/Sp/WGer, 82 min) Dir Helmut Durmou. Cast Lisa Beit, Howard Messinger, Peter Feebler.

Serious Seventies kink from Swiss director Helmut Durmou, the man who quietly amassed a fine oeuvre of very personal and highly specialised films over his thirty year career and who sadly died in the first week of this year at the age of eighty-one. Elisa Lees was his first film, made at the age of forty-two with privately sourced funds and follows the awakening of its naïve title character as she is inducted into a new world. So far, so generic as far as these things go but about halfway through the film the dominated becomes the dominatrix and she returns to discipline the men who once held mastery over her. This isn’t done in a mean, revengey kind of way though – Durmou’s films frequently kept their eye on the ball with regards consent and roleplay and the men are all very grateful once she’s done with them with the suggestion floating about that we’re merely bearing witness to a kind of ‘edited reality’ and that there is a larger story at play that we are only glimpsing. It’s a little rough around the edges but Durmou’s classical staging and clear, sharp photography are already on display – he clearly knew what he wanted from the outset.

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Twitter: @MadeUpFilms