The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum at Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade

1967 Movie Club Selection

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum at Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade.

First things first--I don't remember the character's name, but there's a guy in this thing who has the best hair ever.

There are a great deal of words in this thing. Some, especially a lot of the ones that were sung, were incomprehensible. And a lot of them flew right over my little head. I was in bad need of subtitles to help me out. Even with subtitles, I doubt I'm intelligent enough to attempt swimming in the various layers of Marat/Sade. Freewill vs. predetermination, the power of the individual vs. the community, equality, freedom, justice, censorship, nihilism. Heavy stuff, and this is a challenging and intense experience. Draining even. The style instantly draws you in, almost makes you feel trapped in there with the inmates of the asylum. The single setting is sparse, but I like how some of the features of the bath house are utilized. The camera's definitely not afraid to get right in there, allow you to get intimate with the crevices of the actors' faces. At times, this is almost a movie you can smell. There are a couple of scenes that I just loved. First a "Marat Nightmare" scene with steamy effects, demonic silhouettes, and disorienting music. The second was a scene that started with a chant (in rounds) about "general copulation" and ended with some hot dry-humping orgy action. The ensemble cast is excellent. Patrick Magee is haunting as the Marquis, and I also liked Ian Richardson as the other titular character. My favorite characters, other than the hair guy, were the clown-make-upped chorus that would pop up and sing the weird little songs. Marat/Sade is heady stuff, but it's impossible to take your eyes off the screen as the camera maneuvers through all those crazy mo-fos. It's intoxicating and exhausting, and I wish I was enough of an intellectual to fully appreciate it.

So, fellow Movie Clubbers, what did all y'all think?

Bob Roberts

1992 political satire

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Ultra-conservative folk singer Bob Roberts wants to be a senator. A film crew follows him on his campaign while reporter Bugs Raplin tries to uncover a story of corruption.

As I've here stated ad nauseum, I love the mockumentary format. Generally, you don't 100% buy what's going on in your typical mockumentary, but you forgive them because they're hilarious. Bob Roberts isn't your typical mockumentary. It's not laugh-out-loudly hilarious, but it's got the realism. The cast, including all the extras, is gigantic, but they step on each other's lines like they would in real life and none of their actions seem extraneous or unnatural, helping me buy every inch of what was happening on the screen. That's actually pretty scary when you think about it. Bob Roberts is like a mockumentary that Robert Altman would have made. And although I didn't exactly laugh, the biting satire made me nod in appreciation more than any movie I can remember. It's an impressive achievement for first-time director Tim Robbins who also wrote the thing, starred as the titular right-winger/singer, and co-wrote the songs. It must have been exhausting. After all, tongue-lashing a nation for its hypocrisy, shortsidedness, and naivete is tiring work. This wouldn't click with everybody, and like a lot of great movies, it'll offend some people. Giancarlo Esposito as the reporter, Alan Rickman as an advisor, and Gore Vidal as the incumbent are all very good. I also dug all the Bob Dylan references, some album covers and the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" thing.

Planet 51

2009 pedestrian cartoon

Rating: 9/20 (Dylan: 6/20; Emma: 8/20; Abbey: 15/20)

Plot: It's an alien invasion! Only instead of the little green guys invading our world, it's Earthlings doing the invading. American Chuck Baker, a less-than-heroic astronaut hero, comes in peace, but he isn't exactly given a welcoming reception and has to find a way to retrieve his confiscated space ship and escape the titular planet.

OK, I'm officially tired of these CGI things that try to appeal to both children and adults and end up failing to appeal to either. The forced pop culture references in this (Thanks, Shrek) are cringe worthy, and the characters are as flat or personality-free as characters can get. The aliens, not helped by the fact that they all looked the same (apologies if that sounds racist), were indistinguishable, and the 1950's Americana influence for the setting was an idea that probably worked on paper a lot better than it ended up on the screen. It didn't take very long at all for me to completely lose interest in everything that was going on here. But my biggest problem, something that bothered me on multiple levels--a penis joke. "That's a funny place for an antenna." C'mon, Ilion Animation Studios. That's not necessary and unfunny on any planet.

Devil Doll

1964 evil ventriloquist movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Loosely based on the life of Edgar Bergen, this one's about The Great Vorelli, a stage hypnotist and ventriloquist with a dummy capable of leaving the lap and walking around before saying one-liners like "Who are you calling a dummy, dummy?" or "Morning wood? It's morning, afternoon, and night wood for Hugo!" Vorelli spots a chance to inherit a fortune and hypnotizes the lovely and wealthy Marianne Horn. Marianne's boyfriend Mark doesn't approve.

Any time Hugo is on screen, this reminded me of The Twilight Zone (in a good way) and was effectively spooky. Whether Hugo's in his cage, "performing," or walking around on his own, he has this ability, like all ventriloquist wooden men probably, to make you a bit uneasy. The problem is that The Twilight Zone is about twenty minutes long while this thing was movie-sized, stretching the plot mighty thin. Bryant Haliday--an actor with only six, mostly B-pictures on his resume (How did I miss The Projected Man during my infamous "man" streak?)--does everything he can with a pretty lousy script and is really pretty good. He's at least good enough to have a career longer than six movies. I liked the scenes with Vorelli on stage, mostly because they seemed nowhere near natural. It seems like a lot of the extras should have walked out during the weird hypnosis stuff--making people think they're being executed or getting women to dance. If not, the stuff with the dummy would have cleared the house. A walking ventriloquist dummy, although a novelty, wouldn't necessarily be entertaining, would it? And the interaction between Hugo and Vorelli was so intense, the latter barking these orders with an odd threatening edge in his voice. This movie really isn't very good, mostly because of a weak story and poor writing, and it's not bad enough to be funny. In fact, it's the type of movie you'd forget about completely if not for the image of Hugo walking around on his own with that goofy smile on his face. It's not the worst way to spend eighty minutes though. Here's Hugo:

Ip Man

2008 Hong Kong Phooey

Rating: 17/20

Plot: The tale of Yip Man and why he lost his Y. Loosely (I imagine very loosely) based on a real-life tough guy in Foshan, a town packed with martial arts schools, who single-handedly-and-footedly beats up every single Japanese person and teaches China the art of Wing Chun. Bruce Lee, according to the poster, learned from him.

Not only is this an action-packed kung-fu film stuffed with lots and lots of images of guys getting kicked in the side of the face in slow motion (a modern kung-fu movie idea that will likely be beaten into the ground), it's a great movie. The cinematography is impressive, and the 1930s Foshan they've created is very realistic. The acting's good, especially the stoic Donnie Yen as the titular Yip, a guy whose got that gift of having such a presence even if he's not doing anything, reminiscent, I think, of the commanding screen presence that Bruce Lee had. And the scenes when he actually does do things on screen? Electric. The fight scenes are terrific--intensely exciting and often even emotional. There's a scene near the middle of the film where Yen fights Japanese soldiers for the first time, and from the moment he says, "I'm going to fight ten of you mo-fos" (that's my paraphrase) to the last strike, I was all goose-pimply. It's one of those fight scenes that, if you enjoy martial arts movies, you just have to rewind and watch again. You never really get the sense that Yen's character is in any danger at all though; in fact, I wondered if it was in his contract that he was not to be struck on screen or something. Still, regardless of whether or not there's any suspense about who is going to win any of the fight scenes, it's great fun watching Yen's quickness and fluid movement and there's nothing going on that makes it unrealistic or fantastical like some other modern kung-fu classics. With flying fists, swinging axes, dancing long poles, and busting bones, this has enough to please both old school kung-fu aficionados and fans of all those beautifully photographed, more mature martial arts dramas that have been made this century. I'm not sure about the historical accuracy. I'm also pretty sure that Ip Man is really a glossy action-oriented propaganda film. But who cares?

A confession: I may have watched this only to prevent it from being Kairow's movie-of-the-month selection for March because it would mess up the movie I want to pick in a few months. He can have credit for the recommendation though.

Damned--The Strange World of Jose Mojica Marins

"I'm Coffin Joe, and I'm about to eat your amygdala!"

2001 documentary

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Director and actor Marins discusses the ups and downs of his life and career.

This opens with some amazing footage of what I guess was a mass hypnosis. It looks like something straight out of a documentary about a Pentecostal church though. Coffin Joe tells a congregation that they are on a plane, a plane which begins to shake and eventually go down. The people scream and weep uncontrollably. Then, Joe tells them that they're all going to hell and grins madly and deviously. I'm not sure what exactly it adds to the Jose Mojica Marins story, but it sure was interesting to watch. Flash-forward to '99, and Coffin Joe's let himself go a bit. He looks like an ordinary out-of-shape Brazilian guy, balding and pot-bellied, and I'm not sure if I was surprised or disappointed that he isn't completely insane. I did learn some interesting tidbits about the guy:

1) He was born, of course, on Friday the 13th.

2) He loved and was inspired by comics, but surprisingly, to me at least, not Batman. He didn't care for Robin apparently.

3) As a boy, he actually lived in a movie theater.

4) His "studio" was an old chicken barn.

5) The first shocking film that he saw was an educational film about venereal disease.

6) He had a bodyguard named Satan.

7) As a kid, he knew a guy who sold potatoes on the street. He and the other children loved the guy. But as all potato men must eventually do, he passed away. Then, at his funeral, he came back to life again and freaked everybody out. This would have an impact on young Marins' life.

8) When working, Marins rarely slept or ate, sometimes working for 96 straight hours without stopping. He had to be hospitalized after taking 20 amphetamine pills.

9) While filming a movie called God's Sentence, he decided he was cursed due to all kinds of problems. Two actresses died, another actress lost a leg, the producer died. An assistant camera man asked Marins, "Who's next?" Marins answered, "You are." Of course, four hours later, the assistant camera man died.

10) Marins used snakes, spiders, and vivisepulture to test his actors and make sure they had the courage to appear in his movies.

11) The banning of Awakening of the Beast (this one will be on my blog soon enough) ruined him. He funded his next movies with the earnings from the previous movie. Since Awakening of the Beast wasn't allowed to be released, no next movie. Marins had to turn to an Ed Woodish pornography career.

12) Unlike Ed Wood's work, Marins' often involved bestiality. At least one had a talking dog, played by a non-talking dog that Marins said was the best actor he worked with.

For those of you who are bored with my write-ups of Coffin Joe movies, be glad to know that I've only got one to go. For the rest of you, here's a picture of Marins at work:

Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind

1978 film that just ain't right

Rating: 20/20 (Yes, there's a new Coffin Joe Rule. If you don't like it, take it up with him and more than likely have your face eaten off.)

Plot: A psychologist is troubled by nightmares in which the movie character Coffin Joe fondles his wife. His colleagues try to convince him that Coffin Joe is only a character and even call Jose Mojica Marins to speak with him. Then, on the back of a fish truck that unloads, his conscience explodes.

"Flesh will be blood, blood will become water to bathe my eternal legacy and glorify the pleasure of pain in the bodies of the damned. So shall it be from one galaxy to another from one existence to another. The little forever midget and the great eternal giant."

If God called the Audience of One guy to make the science fiction Joseph movie, I think Satan was probably responsible for this one. Or a buttload of hallucinogenics. This starts with a drumming, spinning hunchback, an image that in a normal movie would probably be the weirdest one. But this is a Jose Mojica Marins movie, not a normal movie, and the hunchback is just a precursor to about eighty minutes that can only be categorized as an unhinged barrage of nightmarish visuals, mostly censored scenes from his other movies that he's recycled. Bugs crawling on people, wind-up toy snakes, really really bad naked dancing, devil figurines, a bridge made out of people, a mustachioed spider puppet, waving feet, snakes and the women who laugh at them, Coffin Joe shooting fuckin' lasers out his fingers like Emperor Palpatine, shots of colorful test tubes and beakers with frothy foaming liquids, walls made of tarp and naked women, laughing and then exploding black guys in Speedos, those curling fingernails, that ominous unibrow, Erik Estrada, people in animal masks, a magically appearing top hat with pyrotechnics, naked guys tumbling down staircases, Satan poking the half-buried with a pitchfork, fire-breathing topless women, nude posteriors with goofy faces painted on them, finger-eating pasty guys, a lot of shots of half-buried people, what appears to be a cannibalism game show with an upside-down guy and a smiling man in a tuxedo beside him, demons with claw hammers, laughing skulls, random shots of frogs, white mice danging in front of bare breasts, severed hands, gelatinous head walls, tongue yankin', and that guy with two different-sized ears I've seen in Marins' other movies. And yes, that's all as badass as it sounds. Low-budget insanity art, toxic and mystifying. I've seen my share of weird movies, and I can tell you with confidence that there's not much out there that is this relentlessly weird. And I know what you're wondering, so I'll go ahead and answer the question for you--No, you can't handle this movie. Sadly, you would probably have trouble finding it anyway.

Audience of One

2007 documentary that my brother will be pissed I watched without him so I'd better hurry up and type a bunch of entries with the hope that he won't see this

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Because Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat wasn't quite amazing enough, God speaks to Richard, a Pentecostal preacher from California, and tells him he needs to make a science fiction movie based on Joseph's story. His congregation helps fund the project while Richard works hard to find other investors to help raise the fifty million dollars the first-time director wants to work with. Unfortunately, God doesn't seem to like what happens in pre-production and decides not to support the project any more. But Richard and his congregation, still convinced that they've been called to make the film, keep trying to do everything they can to make Gravity: The Shadow of Joseph a reality.

On the one hand, you almost want to commend Richard for his faith and for his creative spirit. He's a man, for better or for worse, who is bursting with ideas. But that one hand is so far away from the other hand, a much larger and more conspicuous and screaming hand. And on that hand, you want this guy to be punished for biting off far more than he can chew, ripping off a flock that really doesn't look like it can afford to be ripped off, and for being about as delusional as an individual can be. Don't get me wrong--I have nothing against delusions. But Richard's delusions are potentially harmful, the best example in this film probably being where one of his crew asks if it's safe for kids to be around some horses and getting the answer "Don't worry about that." There's a wonderful moment in the movie when, after spending a nice wad of movie to film in a neat spot in Italy, they encounter problem after problem. One of the problems is that their camera stops working. Oh, snap, right? Not if you're Richard who announced, "God called us here to shoot this movie, and we're going to shoot this movie--camera or no camera." It's not a leap of faith as much as it's a triple-jump of faith or a pole vault of faith. Later, after the church rents a San Francisco movie studio that they eventually can't afford the rent on after shooting what seemed to be zero hours of footage, Richard starts to get really paranoid, even setting up security so that nobody will bust in and steal their ideas. "It's either God or I'm crazy," he claims at one point, and you'll come away from this believing it's definitely one of those. By the end of the movie, Richard's completely lost his mind, promising his congregation that God has sent him a vision in which they'll be making forty-seven films a year, own eight TV networks, have their own airport, and (believe it or not) colonize another planet. Got news for you, Richard. It ain't God. Since this is a documentary about Pentecostals, you know you're going to be treated or creeped out by some scenes showcasing their religious practices, and there's a nifty scene where they're sanctifying the studio, a process that involves a great deal of shouting and these really strange horns. A lot of the cast is entertaining. The guy who plays the "horned captain" (I went to a Bible college, but I don't remember a "horned captain" in the Joseph story.), actor Daniel who plays Spirf, and a tubby and high-maintenance trippin' stunt man could all be in any movie that God tells me to make.

Don't tell Anonymous that I watched this.

Hukkle

2002 new favorite movie contender

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A very old, very wrinkled man has the hiccups or, as some people spell it, hiccoughs. Meanwhile, life and death go on around him. Pigs have sex. A shepherdess is leered at. Insects do insect things, and a policeman urinates. And oh, snap! Redrum! Redrum! Hiccup. Hiccup. Hiccup. Hiccup. Hiccup. Hiccup. Hiccup. Hiccup. Hiccup.

Sometimes I take notes on the movies I watch, especially when I get behind and know I'll forget something when I finally get around to writing about it. I wrote "Fahrtmester" in my notes for Hukkle, and apparently that was important enough to draw a box around. Fahrtmester. I don't know what that's about.

I do know that I loved this movie. I tried to watch it about a week before I did, but my wife was annoyed with the repetitious sound of the hiccuping guy. The titular hukkle, I guess. And you do get to see this heavily-wrinkled, half-grinning old man hiccup more than you can probably tolerate it. But that hukkle is just one of a flurry of sound effects. I can't remember a movie I've seen like this where the sound effects are at least as important as the visuals. There's this musicality or rhythm to the sounds going on in this nowhere village, and although there's almost no dialogue in this movie, there's plenty to listen to. Not to say the visuals aren't important or impressive because they are. There are a lot of "special effects" in this movie, things that made me wonder how the heck they pulled it off. There are lots of bug close-ups, recalling Microcosmos actually, and a whole lot of scenes where animals are in places where I don't think the animals would want to be. And there's that aforementioned pig sex scene if that's your thing. There's one scene during what I initially thought was an earthquake--it wasn't--that was really cool despite some dopey CGI. I also liked some stylish scenes involving an x-ray and some gyrating foliage that I liked even though they kind of clashed with the simple nature of the rest of the film. This is a sneaky film, one where nothing significant seems to be going on. You've got the hiccuper, a ladybug flying from a shepherdess to her stalker's nose, a bunch of insects, some guys bowling, that large-balled pig, a dying cat, a urinating policeman, a frog, somebody watching a soap opera. You almost just give up trying to find a plot, but then there's a striking imagery that reminds you that big things usually happen in movies and you start to piece together the clues and it's all so quietly shocking that you almost poop in your pants. I loved it, and the parts of me that loved it are the same parts that love the work of Jacques Tati and Twin Peaks. And movies with close-ups of insects.

See this one, Fahrtmesters! And when you do, stick with it and let it seep into your pores.

The Eye Creatures

1965 Larry Buchanan sci-fi remake

Rating: 3/20

Plot: Titular eye creatures (see below) invade earth and interrupt necking teens. One of the teens, a thirty-year-old one named Stan, hits one of them with his car because he's driving without his headlights on. He and his girlfriend try desperately to get the police to believe their story, but he's arrested for hitting a drifter instead. They return to the scene of the accident to look for evidence of aliens. Or maybe just to make out again.

Larry Buchanan, director of the Manos Award winning It's Alive, sure knew how to make bad movies. The silliest thing about this Z-movie is the whole night/day continuity error thing. The story takes place during a single night; however, half the scenes are being filmed in obvious daylight. It almost seems like every other scene switches from day to night or back again, and if I didn't know better, I'd think they did it on purpose to be funny. Or maybe the silliest thing about this is the acting. Lots of Torgo contenders here. The guy who plays "Jim" is really great, especially that moment when he spots a wildly spinning UFB (unidentified flying hubcap) and spitting out, "This one was green!" with far too much excitement. The old man who, although he only gets one line (essentially "Get off my lawn, kids!"), gets to say it over a thousand times. The pair of Peeping Tom surveillance dudes were also impressive. I can't find any of these thespians names because the cast list doesn't show that the characters even have names. But I know that guy's name was Jim! The scene where Stan hits one of the aliens with his car should be used as a "how not to" in an editing course in film school. The girl screams, Stan looks over at her, there's a screech, the girl says, "Oh no!" or something, and then there's a thud, all with this comical choppiness. The alien monsters themselves, eye creatures apparently, were obviously dudes in hastily-assembled costumes. Here's what they look like:


Not quite as embarrassing as the monster in It's Alive, of course, but still pretty dopey. Watching one of their severed rubber arms prowl around was about as embarrassing though.

Here's my favorite tidbit about this movie though:

Apparently, this was shown on television and the producers wanted to jazz up the title a bit by adding "attack" in the title. I guess it makes it seem more menacing. Problem is, as you can see above, they didn't bother proofreading their work and ended up with Attack of the the Eye Creatures as the title. That is awesome. And so is Larry Buchanan who, as I examine more of his work, might have a body of work that is more inept than even the great Ed Wood.

The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave

2000 straight-to-video comedy

Rating: 5/20

Plot: The titular stuntman decides to call it a career after he survives yet another failed stunt. He retires to his compound with his posse where he trains the future stuntmen of America including young D.J. who he takes under his wing and treats like a son. In fact, D.J. takes the name Super Dave Jr. before double-crossing his "father" with a shady promoter named Gil Ruston. Retirement isn't going well until Super Dave falls for the equally clumsy Sandy. But when her son Timmy aggravates his heart condition while trying to attempt his own stunt, Super Dave finds that he has no other hope of raising money for his operation than to come out of retirement for one more potentially deadly stunt.

This has about as much sophistication as the work of Jim Varney as Ernest P. Worrell. About the same amount of laughs, too. I gave this a shot because I like Bob Einstein's work on Curb Your Enthusiasm as Marty Funkhouser, and mockumentary veteran Don Lake is also in this. But had I known a bit two minutes into the movie featuring Ray Charles driving a bus was the funniest thing in the entire movie, I probably would have stopped watching. At about 90 minutes, this is a test of endurance, especially since about 40 of those minutes are made up of one seemingly endless series of fart jokes that made me embarrassed for everybody involved in the production of The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave. Predictably plotted, mind-numbingly idiotic, and devoid of any entertainment value whatsoever, it's not difficult to figure out why this movie was never released in theaters. Recommended for Bob Einstein completists only.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

1970 Russ Meyer movie

Rating: not rated

Plot: The Kelly Affair, an all-gal rock 'n' roll trio, travel to California with the hope of making it big.

I don't know if I'm just missing too much context or what, but I just didn't get this. The flash-flash quick editing style and frequent nudity initially intrigued me, and I liked a montage with some voice-over narration that seemed like a commercial for Hollywood. But really quickly, I just got bored and then irritated and then bored again. Eventually, I stopped playing close attention, my mind wandering enough that I don't really feel comfortable giving this a rating.

Who's seen this? Do I need to give it some time and try to watch it again? Roger Ebert, I know you wrote the screenplay for this, so if there's something I need to know before giving this another shot, let me know. Do you even read this blog, Roger? I really dug Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, so I feel like I should like this Russ Meyer major studio release, too.

Hour of the Wolf

1968 Ingmar Bergman horror movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Troubled artist Johan shacks up with girlfriend Alma on bleak island. His insomnia worsens as his past haunts him and the other inhabitants of the island pay him visits. A 216-year-old woman tells Alma to read Johan's diary, and after she does, she realizes how tormented he is.

The most baffling thing about this baffling little gem is that the title screen doesn't appear until forty-seven minutes into the movie. This isn't your traditional horror flick. It's more disorienting than scary, more surreal than terrifying. And although there aren't monsters or ghosts roaming the island our protagonists are staying, it just doesn't feel like the other inhabitants of the island are entirely human. This is a movie that seems like it takes place not just in the subconscious but in the subconscious of a ghost. It's a stark glimpse at a mentally-disturbed mind, one troubled by a past we only get some peeks at. The artist's female companion is along for the ride, and the story unfolds in a way that puts us in her shoes. Put Hour of the Wolf in that category of movies that you feel more than you comprehend. And although it isn't traditionally scary, it is something I'd avoid watching alone at night. The brooding atmosphere, the way Bergman makes this expansive island with a sky that never ends feel claustrophobic and suffocating, the haunting imagery during the encounter with a boy on a rocky shore or the desolate castle corridors, the insane scene with the woman taking off her hat. Nightmare time, kids! This is thick with typical Bergman symbolism and has a sleepy structure, but it's well worth attempting to unwrap. Even without any werewolves in sight.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

2009 black comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: This is the story, loosely based on a true story, of Brad, a guy who loses his mind after his mother serves him Jello one too many times and ends up killing her with a sword. He barricades himself in their house with a pair of hostages while a pair of detectives work on piecing together possible motives and look for a way to get to him.

This isn't a true collaboration exactly, but it certainly feels like one. And for this viewer, it's a David Lynch/Werner Herzog collaboration is a collaboration made in heaven. Or in the subconscious of a schizophrenic maybe. Lynch apparently had very little to do with this, but Herzog pays homage to the producer with a few scenes--a random gas mask, a couple really strange scenes where the actors freeze and break the fourth wall by staring into the camera for a long enough time to make me kind of uncomfortable, conversations about coffee, and a little fellow in a tuxedo. Oh, wait. Herzog uses little people, too. The acting reminded me more of Lynch's characters than Herzog's, speaking in those slightly-off cadences, stilted almost, and somewhat unnatural. I'm not sure if this works as a drama, and anybody watching this as a Law and Order type thing might be disappointed. I caught on quickly enough that this is more dark comedy than crime thriller/drama, more a glimpse at the world as seen through the eyes of somebody with a damaged mind than anything realistic. And who better to show us that world than Werner Herzog? Flashbacks, especially anything having to do with Brad Dourif's Uncle Ted, seem so insubstantial and too dopey to be real, but they work to add up to what gets to the heart of the crime--that Brad is one cuckoo mo-fo. Could that have been explained more naturally? Of course, but it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun. At times, I'll admit, this almost seems like a parody of both Herzog and Lynch's work. Those Uncle Ted scenes, the use of animals, the aforementioned unnatural acting, a character losing his mind in South America, chickens doing something crazy, God as a canister of oatmeal, all those conversations that seem so detached from anything that matters, and so on. I suppose folks who enjoy a chunk of either directors' filmographies will find something to dig in this one. It's probably not essential, more like a limerick or some other nonsense verse written about insanity rather than the poetic look at insanity that Aguirre is. But it is very entertaining. The title, a full sentence by the way, still makes me laugh. I don't see how a person can read that title and think that this is a serious attempt to make a crime drama.

The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasure

1975 Coffin Joe morality tale

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Coffin Joe is resurrected (I think) by some scantily-clad women and some male dancers with plastic breasts. His top hat magically appears, and he sulks off to an inn. A variety of guests arrive to escape a thunderstorm. Coffin Joe accepts some while turning others away. The guests engage in a variety of nefarious goings-on--biker orgies, gambling, an affair, shady business dealings, jewel thievery. At midnight, the clocks stop and some bad stuff happens.

I have to admit something--I think I'm terrified to give any of Coffin Joe's movies anything less than a 14. I almost want to make a Santo-esque "20" rule for Coffin Joe; then again, I'm terrified Santo will have an issue with that. The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasure might not be as good as its title. As a horror film (or whatever the hell it is), it's really bizarre. The freeform weirdness of the opening scene sets the oddball atmosphere--a train track rhythm, some of the worst dancing you'll ever see, people in masks, one guy wearing the neck-down part of a gorilla suit, those men with fake plastic breasts, wobbling shirtless men, silk-clad dancing girls. And, the piece de resistance: a guy who is wearing a giant plastic fake butt on his front. After that insanity, you get the opening credits, a hypnotizing asteroid field, and some terribly incoherent poetry. Things slow down, almost to a screeching halt, as some sort of story threatens to develop. For about forty minutes of so, it's just people arriving at the hotel and Coffin Joe saying some cryptic things ("Why are objects important if the goal is for eternal existence?"). Ad infinitum. The biker orgy scene is especially nutsy though. For the longest time, it's just this packed room of unattractive biker guys and biker chicks undulating on top of each other while, for what seems like forever, chanting, "Everybody naked, great! Everybody naked, great!" The juxtaposing scenes of the dealings of the strange hostel's inhabitants is a lot to endure, but thankfully, things get really bizarre again. Stop reading now if you want to avoid spoilers. Coffin Joe, seemingly ubiquitous, pops in everybody's room, does his weird eye thing, and watches flashbacks where nasty things happen. All with some squiggly, howling, squelching Moog accompaniment and omnipresent screams. Oh, and an off-sounding "Auld Lang Syne". One guy puts a gun to his head. Suddenly, the screen is filled with superimposed fireworks before becoming drowned in blood. It's a sick effect. There's also some nifty fire effects that showcase Marins' ability to do a whole lot with just a little. Another favorite scene is where a couple are having a splash fight in a bathtub when the husband walks in with flowers. He pulls a knife and the flowers fall before, if I remember correctly, Marins decides to show us some insects or rats or a close-up of a creepy clock. Even more than the other two Coffin Joe movies on this blog (here and here), this has the feel of outsider art. It's not exactly the most coherent movie I've ever seen, but like any other Coffin Joe movies (there are two forthcoming), I'd recommend this to weird film enthusiasts.