Middlebrow author. Occasional podcaster. Bill Paxton’s my hometown hero.
A hacky, self-congratulatory blur somehow makes its spiritual predecessor Mad, Mad World look hip and hilarious. The all-star cast is supposed to impress us, and it should, except the vast majority feels like a procession of debaucherous reactionaries who (save for the humble Jack Elam) would probably find themselves in the Epstein files today.
Wardh is the one to push onto newcomers. It’s just as dreamy and perverse as any first-tier Bava, but way less of a spectacle than the granddaddy of ’em all, Blood and Black Lace, which is so heightened and inspired it’s nearly a distraction, and arguably belongs more in conversation with the uncanniness of Peeping Tom or What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? High art dressed to the nines in B-movie drag.
Plus, and I don’t think I’m alone here, it’d be rude to introduce someone to the genre without Fenech’s breakout role.
Of course Jess Franco turns a messy soap opera into Get Carter. I also love how badly his audio syncs to musical performances, like the guitar lady here or Emma Cohen’s jazz gigs in The Other Side of the Mirror. It’s totally deliberate, imho, as if he’s saying Oh, is that what’s important to you? Are you not entertained? You can watch Robert Redford any time, see if I care.
Lina Romay also ditches her waifish figure, and I do wonder whether she was pregnant at the time (like her character), or if life even catches up to our Euro trash immortals.
Another slightly off-putting fixture in these otherwise harmless and occasionally charming sex comedies: now and again we’re “treated” to a cameo by the hulking Salvatore Baccaro, a seldom-speaking actor better known as the hormonal medical experiment in The Beast in Heat, a vulgar nazisploitation that I haven’t the courage to watch.
I’ve seen clips in a documentary and that’s plenty. It’s too many circles into the inferno for moi. I feel the same about King Frat and the supposed farting contest.
If memory serves, Bret Easton Ellis has done multiple podcasts about why he loathes The Breakfast Club. Here he comes up with some nice things to say about it—doing a solid for narrator/director Andrew McCarthy, whose Brat Pack doc thirsts for substantial material. It really does hang by a thread. He offers a lot to discuss, but doesn’t delve deep.
Another alum could have directed a more interesting version. Rather than being headed up by the one who distanced himself…
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
“Edgy” but not edgy. The close-ups and slo-mos don’t shock or impress me. I’m maybe a little offended that the movie thinks I ought to be? The technique is such a distraction, feels so dated, almost like it’s giving cover for what’s lacking. I tried to watch Revenge last year but never finished for similar reasons.
Fred sure dodged a bullet, though.
