Sadomania
I know Franco has his legions of fans, and he certainly seems like a nice enough fellow, but every time I watch a Franco film, I ask myself two questions. Why, after all those years, did no one ever explain to him how important it is to focus the lens? Similarly, why did no one ever tell him that the light source should generally be kept behind the camera?
Be that as it may, Sadomania seemed to have a lot going for it, at least for viewers of a certain demented sensibility. The 1981 "Women-in-Prison" film, according to Franco, was based on an unused script from the popular Ilsa series. It starred Ajita Wilson, the black transsexual porn star. And virtually all the women in the film?and there are a bunch?spend the entire movie topless, if not completely nude.
Along with all that nakedness, you get everything else you'd expect from a WIP film and more: sex (lesbian and otherwise) that pushes the limits of softcore, S&M, naked catfights, rape, white slavers?Sadomania even features a woman in chains getting screwed by a German Shepherd.
The "plot," as it is, goes something like this: A young couple on their honeymoon in Spain take a wrong turn and is seized by guards at a mysterious, isolated women's prison. Wilson (in the Pam Grier role) plays Magda, the cruel warden. While the young bride is thrown in a cell, informed that she will never leave again, the husband is tossed out (no men allowed, you understand).
After that, the plot doesn't really matter. It's just boobs, boobs, boobs, a rubber crocodile, more boobs and those other things listed above. There are some amazing editing gaffes and continuity errors, but somehow I get the impression they won't really bother anyone watching.
And who's watching? If I were 12, this movie might well be a mind-warping godsend. But I'm not 12. And Franco has always had a way?lord knows how he does it?of sapping all that nudity, all that sex, all that strange carnality, of anything even vaguely erotic. In the end, it's not sexy, it's not shocking (except maybe for that dog scene), it's not even terribly funny. But maybe I'm just a jaded party pooper.
Despite that, Blue Underground has done as fine a job as they could with it. It's a nice package. The disc includes all the usual extras, together with an enlightening new interview with Franco.
?Jim Knipfel
A favorite parlor game for devotees of the film is to choose a favorite from among the eight competitors. I will refrain from participating, but a large part of the pleasure sustained from Spellbound is in seeing the world through the eyes of the immigrant families of some of the competitors. In their intense dedication to their children's success, and their barely suppressed joy for their offspring's achievements, they are a reminder of the virtues of the American dream. As the film points out, spelling has long been seen in American life as a primary symbol of education, and as such, the spelling bee is a stand-in for the larger realms of opportunity into which these striving parents hope to usher their children.
What's so poignant and compelling about these competitors, however, is their short-lived status. Blitz shows a number of former spelling champions, and what is intriguing about them is their utter ordinariness. None of the spark visible in the 13-year-olds, their sheer zest for the minutiae of existence, has remained in the former champs. The inevitable tragedy of adulthood lurks around the corner for each of these master spellers, and the glow of their youthful exuberance in its final moments is as bright, and as fleeting, as the Aurora Borealis.
The best of the DVD's bonus features is the "Where Are They Now?" page. It is a shock to realize that these children are now mostly college students. Having gotten to know them so well, it is astonishing to realize that more than four years have passed since the spelling bee. Most of the profiled spellers have gone on to similarly challenging post-secondary experiences?Angela (the daughter of Mexican immigrants) a pre-med student at Texas A&M, Nupur (the eventual champion) a double major in molecular biology and economics, Ashley (the DC champ) a student at Howard University. The one big surprise is that Ted, the diffident, slightly gangly speller with the appealingly shy personality, is engaged to be married.
?Saul Austerlitz
Before he made the 2002 sleeper hit Secretary, director Steven Shainberg made what is certainly one of the best Thompson films to date. And by that I mean that more than most, he maintained both the gallows humor and the dingy, paranoid atmosphere of Thompson's novel A Swell-Looking Babe.
The plot, of course, is a bit complicated. The great Elias Koteas plays Sonny Rose, who works as a bellhop in a two-star hotel while trying to care for his obese, retarded brother (Jay Leggett). Circumstances have left him understandably a little bitter and frustrated. Then, almost simultaneously, he saves a beautiful French woman after she attempts suicide in her hotel room, and runs into an old co-worker Del (Bruce Ramsay). Del, it turns out, needs Sonny's help in robbing an illegal high-stakes poker game set to be played at the hotel.
That's all set up in the first half hour, but it's about as far as I dare go without giving too much away. Being a noir film, things just aren't as easy as they should be.
Hit Me received precious little distribution around the time of its release, and many of the reviews I've seen weren't particularly kind. But most of those reviews missed the point. Some said the film was too bright, others that the acting was over the top. Although the film is well-lit (it's mostly indoors, after all), it also has an appropriately grimy, claustrophobic air. The script, instead of relying on voiceovers to explain what's going on within a character, uses the actor's expressions and body language to do that for them. If at times the gestures and expressions seem comically over the top, well, blame Thompson's original characters.
Koteas brings to the role of Sonny a sort of wild desperation, an unbelieving, madcap despair at his ever-changing circumstances. There's nothing cool about Sonny, and Koteas captures that perfectly. The movie really is as funny as it is grim (again, as you find in Thompson's novels). William H. Macy has a great walk-on as a detective, and Haing S. Ngor, in his final role, plays a desk clerk who meets the same end Ngor himself would meet before the film was released.
I'm happy the success of Secretary has resulted in Hit Me's release on video. More than being just a fine Jim Thompson film, it's a fine film all by itself?downbeat, hopeless and cruelly hilarious. Plus, it's about bellhops!
?Jim Knipfel
Giuliano jumps between past and present, depicting the judicial inquest into Salvatore Giuliano's death and the search for the perpetrators of the massacre of May Day marchers at Portella della Ginestra, as well as the lives of those affected by Giuliano's banditry. Rosi's film is a bit mystifying for those lacking an intimate familiarity with Italian history, but nonetheless is a compellingly raw cry of outrage at the galling corruption and grinding poverty that characterized postwar Italian life. The unique insight of the film is that the supposedly populist bandit Giuliano is just as brutal and uncaring toward the mass of farmers and working men as the authorities.
Salvatore Giuliano is shot primarily with a long lens, giving the entirety of the film the impression of being glimpsed from an overlooking apartment window, or through an adjacent door. Giuliano manages to pull off the strange trick of being a humanist film without much in the way of intimate characterization. It is a wide-scale portrait without any corresponding close-ups.
Rosi, who began his career as an assistant to Luchino Visconti on his films La Terra Trema and Senso, maintains Visconti's dedication to telling the stories of Italy's downtrodden, but replaces Visconti's operatic, swooning, melodramatic style with a pulpier, earthier format that is less like a Verdi aria and more like The Sopranos. Like La Terra Trema, though, Rosi populates his film almost exclusively with non-actors, and through this technique achieves a high degree of verisimilitude. The presence within the film of individuals who personally lived through the events depicted lends Salvatore Giuliano an authenticity that cannot be faked. Every frame of Salvatore Giuliano is crammed with activity, the product of Rosi's desire to inflame the passions of viewers. Uniquely, though, Salvatore Giuliano is a subtly angry film, one that allows its message to seep out between the lines of dialogue.
?Saul Austerlitz