Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 20th, 2007
If it’s 1977, this must be softcore, and so it is. Vanessa is a another lush sexual travelogue, dug up from the archives and given a rather spiffy release from Severin. Yet another product cast in the Emmanuelle mould, Vanessa has its titular heroine leave her convent home (gee, what sort of nonsense do you think we find out happened there?) after she comes into a large inheritance. Flying to Hong Kong, she finds out that this inheritance consists of a chain of high-end brothels. Cue the exotic locations and varied sexual encounters. There’s nothing hugely striking or original about any of this, but as an example its type, it’s quite handsomely mounted, makes some eyebrow-raising use of classical music, and has a couple of scenes that (almost) reach a (kind of) frenzy (all proportions maintained).
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on September 4th, 2007
Sometimes when you sit down to review a dvd, you are treated to a fantasy. However, sometimes that fantasy isn't all it seems and leaves you with a blank expression and curious feelings of being unfulfilled (kinda like that marriage I had). Anyhow, I took the dubious task of reviewing Lesbian Sex & Sexuality, a television show that is on the here! network who also bring you such fine shows such as Dante's Cove. (okay; so I gave Season 2 a 2 out of 5, who's counting?) The show is very simple and has a very provocative premise. That premise is to take a mostly uncensored (I'll explain later) look at the secret and rarely explained world of lesbian sex. All kinds of subjects would be explored from fantasies to erotic dancers to the ever popular porn films. No stone and no position would be left untouched. No girl either. Men, well...anyhow the show is broken down into six half-hour episodes across two discs.
The initial problem that most people realize is that this show very much has a documentary premise. Sure there is skin and plenty of it but any male or female who is looking for a good time should probably consult their partner or an escort service (I don't know anything). However, the show succeeds on many levels; the main one being to inform the viewer on all of levels of lesbian sex. An example episode might take you along with Cinnamon, Molasses and Sugar (Tarragon ended up finding a gig in Brookshire) as they take you on a tour of the world of Go-Go Dancing. While another episode might take you behind the scenes of SIR Video (who were initially famous for their Bend Over Boyfriend series of porno films (*drums fingers and sighs*)). There are aspects of lesbian sex that are very different from heterosexual sex or even gay male sex. This series helps to exploit that. Once you get past the first two episodes, the show seems to run out of gas. The rest of the shows are essentially uninteresting and while staying on subject; do little to further entice the viewer.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on June 2nd, 2007
I must really love this job. That's the only explanation as to why I keep reviewing for this site. Then I get across my desk a copy of Dante's Cove - The Complete Second Season. (I guessed I missed the first one). On the cover they show three quite buff men (in the background two women, hey that's Tracy Scoggins), all with pants being a little too low. Uh-oh. *flips to the back*; oh geez is that two men kissing, *sigh*, it is. From the here! network for openly gays and lesbians comes the guilty pleasure show; Dante's Cove, a soap opera that let's just say really pushes the envelope. The backdrop or the events to season one are as follows.
One hundred and sixty years ago, Ambrosius Vallin (played by William Gregory Lee) had been imprisioned by Grace Neville (played by Tracy Scoggins) after she found him fraternizing with a man (they were engaged to be married). Okay, they were doing it doggy style. (if I have to live with the image, so do you). So Grace gave Ambrosius advanced age and threw him in the basement. He is returned to his former self by a kiss from Kevin (played by Gregory Michael). Naturally Ambrosius becomes obsessed with Kevin who is really in love with Toby (played by Charlie David). By the way, Ambrosius and Grace use the powers of a mystical religion called "Tresum". However in order to satsify this religion and keep their youth they have to fufill certain rites and passages. It's a blend of fantasy, soap opera, and really really open gay people in a beautiful island setting (second season was shot in Hawaii).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 19th, 2007
Cupt Epics here presents five films identified as "underground" (a fluid term at the best of times). Certainly, they are all deliberately transgressive, though not all are equally successful. Two are by Nico B. - the perviously released "Pig" and "Hollywood Babylon." The former has been reviewed here before, but briefly, its catalogue of murder and S&M horrors, working out a killer's fantasies, is rather too self-conscious about its own transgression. The latter is a 4-minute tribute to Kenneth Anger, taking in exhibits at the Museum of Death. It's not a bad little piece, but it is interesting to note that its existence confirms once and for all that now even the underground film community has an established history to look back on. "Dislandia" is a half-hour, plotless portrayal of a little girl (whose face is covered in a mask) doing odd things and moving through a gritty, disconnected landscape. Interesting visually, the film is sufficiently obscure in its goals that one's mind does begin to wander. "Adoration," on the other hand, is gruelling, brutal, intelligent and effective. Based on an actual case, we see a young man invite a woman to his apartment, record her reading poetry, then kill and eat her. All of this is seen through the eyes of a camera he has place on a wall. The unblinking gaze is explicitly equated with the audience's own, and many uneasy questions about art and voyeurism are thus raised. Finally, "Le poéme" is the one that most viewers will find hardest to deal with: we watch an actual autopsy while listening to the poem "Le bateau ivre" by Arthur Rimbaud. Difficult though the film is, it is also, like "Adoration," quite beautiful.Audio
The sound is 2.0, and the actual sound quality depends primarily on the source material. In fact, "Adoration" is largely silent. But at any rate, the overall audio quality is perfectly satisfactory. There isn't too much by way of surround, and what emerges from the rear speakers isn't always perfectly placed, but the job is generally quite effectively done.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 9th, 2007
In a New York forever conscious of the shadow of 9/11, we follow the sex lives and tribulations of a group of gay and straight characters. There’s the gay couple whose relationship is hitting a rocky patch. There’s the professional dominatrix who is finding it more and more difficult to face her work. And there’s the sex therapist who’s never had an orgasm. Her quest for same brings her into contact with the other characters, and to Shortbus, an eccentric sex club.
In the making-of featurette, writer/director John Cameron Mitchell describes where the idea for the film came from. He’d noticed the spate of serious European movies that featured real sex scenes, but also that they were all very dark. He wanted to make a sex-positive film. The intent is laudable, the performances are all convincingly natural (and CBC Radio host Sook-Yin Lee is very funny as the therapist), and there’s a wonderful conceit involving a CG table-top model of NYC through which the camera flies. And yet, one might be forgiven for longing for the explosive savagery of the likes of Baise-Moi. When the characters aren’t having sex, they talk about it. And talk, and talk, and talk. Half an hour in, both the action the discussion begin to grow tiresome. Characters that are supposed to be eccentric are annoyingly flaky, and one can’t help but wonder whether all these people don’t have anything better to with their time. So the film is earnest, sweet, and worthy, but needs something more to truly hold the viewer’s attention.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 12th, 2006
Nervy enough to claim to be an updating of the classic 1950 film La Ronde, this late-night-cable-fodder does borrow that film's structure as we move from one erotic anecdote to another, with a character from one story taking us into another, and so on, creating a chain of narratives involving rich people gettin' it on. I used the word "erotic" because everybody gets nekkid, but the charge the film carries is negligible. Thinks of it as a bad Robert Altman film with worse dubbing.Audio
Both good and bad aspects to the mono. The music (which is exactly as cheesy as you might expect) sounds surprisingly good, especially in the bass. The dialogue, however, is pretty harsh, and since it's already badly dubbed, listening to it is a real chore.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 12th, 2006
Jewel Shepard is Christina Von Belle, "The Playgirl of the Western World," which means she takes her clothes off a lot and has plenty of sex. She jets around from one European location to another, engaging in the previously mentioned activities. Something of an adventure plot kicks in when she is kidnapped by guerilla lesbians, and is subjected to rather odd bondage games (what's with the toy cars and trucks being driven over her body?).The plot isn't enough to actually make the film interesting, though, and Shepard might be willing to take her clothes off, but isn't so willing to act. I've seen planks of wood deliver more passionate love scenes.
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 7th, 2006
In a live action sequence, Mother Goose (Hal Smith in drag) is hauled before the court to account for herself. She proceeds to inflame the passions of those present with a series of raunchy tales. These are animated, and we find out what Jack really found up on that beanstalk, how Cinderella really impressed the Prince, and what sort of, er, encounters a not-so-Little Red Riding Hood had on her way to Grandma's house.There is some wit here (see the coda to Cinderella's story, for instance), but for the most part, the film is (surprise, surprise) crude in every sense of the word. The animation is roughly on the caliber of "Rocket Robin Hood," though given the nature of the acts depicted, limited repetitive motion isn't as much of a handicap as it might be, and seeing something like this in the Hanna-Barbera style is seriously weird. The characters are for the most part engagingly drawn, and as a curiosity, this is absolutely priceless. This had theatrical dates (albeit limited) in 1976. Hard to imagine the same thing today.
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 28th, 2006
Four young women (including Lina Romay in her Candy Coster persona) arrive at beach resort. They plan to pick up plenty of men for sex, but if none are available, as they're in a Jess Franco film, they'll make do with each other. They see no one else around, except for the odd manager (Robert Foster) and the even more bizarre gardener. At first they think nothing of the town's deserted nature, but gradually they realize something is wrong, and it has to do with the nearby monastery, where undead Cathars vent their frustration with their cursed state by raping and killing our heroines.The plot is rather more confusing than I've laid out here. The inspiration for the film is pretty clearly Amando De Ossorio's Blind Dead series, though these are pretty talkative bunch of living dead. Silly sexploitation (the first half of the movie is like a depopulated sex comedy) mixes with jerky camerawork, some very nicely spooky shots in the hotel and a completely bizarre amour fou subplot involving a woman chained up in another room. This is far from Franco's best, but it is a film that still has ideas in its head, and the scene set in empty, windswept streets are quite eerie.
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 27th, 2006
Alice (Lina Romay under her blonde pseudonym "Candy Coster") is haunted by erotic nightmares involving the Princess Obongo (the Amazonian Ajita Wilson). She therefore has her misgivings when she is ordered by her boss to travel to a remote island and sell some real estate to that very person. Doubts notwithstanding, off she goes (got up in an outfit I've never seen a real estate agent wear before) to play Jonathan Harker to Obongo's Dracula. On the island, she falls under the Obongo's spell, and becomes emmeshed in a web of sex, rituals and magic.Director Jess Franco here is reworking the plot from his Vampyros Lesbos, and even reuses some of that film's sun-bleached supernatural-by-daylight tricks. The zoom lens isn't quite as badly overused as in some of his other work, though it definitely makes its presence known. Some of the camera placements are decidedly odd (did he really want us to see Wilson's fillings as she writhes in orgasmic frenzy?), but there are plenty of very lovely shots, too, that manage to conjure a real sense of surreal beauty and mystery on a ridiculously small budget. The studied pace might well put off fans of either sex or horror, but then, that's typical Franco for you, but the film does have an oddly mesmeric effect.
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