What's New, Pussycat?

1965 comedy

Rating: 9/20

Plot: Michael, a hedonist, wants to settle down and live faithfully ever after with Carole. He finds it nearly impossible since every woman seems to fall for him. Oh, snap! His psychiatrist, a womanizer himself, isn't much help either.

Whoa-a-whoa-a-whoa. This movie sucks.

The Pornographers

1966 Japanese drama


Rating: 15/20


Plot: A maker of erotic films lives with a woman and her two children. He occasionally sleeps with the woman although she becomes increasingly paranoid when her late husband, reincarnated as a large fish she keeps in a tank beside her bed, gets antsy. The son's a jerk, and the fifteen-year-old daughter, who could somehow be the protagonist's daughter as well, is a whore with a drinking problem. Or a drinker with a whoring problem. Regardless, he develops sexual feelings for her. The mother gets sick, and then everybody in the world gets sick.


Interesting imagery--scenes shot through water and fish and odd-angled cinematography--keep this visually interesting even when the plot gets bloated and overly complex and really pretty dull. A large number of scenes are shot from the outside through cracks in the doors or windows. That got annoying after a while, but it does make the experience more voyeuristic and uncomfortable. Conversations between off-screen characters starting to watch a movie at the beginning (they ask, "What's that fish doing there?") and finishing at the end bookend the film. Like a perverse soap opera at times, this was filled with interesting moments but at times tried my patience. I wonder how shocking this would have been to Japanese audiences in '66 though? Good final scene.


In a former life, I was a pornographic fish:

Tuvalu

1999 German nearly-silent futuristic fairy tale

Rating: 15/20

Plot: An ugly blind man, his ugly wife, and their uglier son try to save a dilapidated bath house from demolition and the threat that it could be replaced by something that isn't a bath house. Anton, the ugly son, falls in love with the smell of Bjork's undergarments and eventually gets to see her swimming naked with a fish. Ostensibly, there is a woody (i.e. hard-on). Unfortunately, tragedy strikes and Bjork seeks the thuggish and more than likely shaggy arms of a slippery-lookin' devil named Gregor (also ugly), and Anton has to simultaneously fight for the love of the pop star and for the survival of his family's bath house.

Tuvalu is quirky, gorgeously filmed, and almost too precious for its own good. The set design, with a multi-storied bath house with crumbling walls and a labyrinth of rusting pipes looked like something straight from a Mad Max movie, apocalyptic and at times nightmarish while somehow always remaining whimsical and beautiful. The feel of the set was further enhanced by the use of both old school black 'n' white and old school color, lots of sepia tones for the indoors scenes and lots of off-blues for the water and outdoors scenes, both used as an homage to silent movies. Both the colors and the set, the herky-jerky plot, the use of ugly European actors, the lopsided cinematography and weird close-ups of the ugly actors' faces, and the dry humor were all reminiscent of Delicatessen, so much in fact that I probably should have deducted points for the blatant rip-off. Oh, and the overly-exaggerated sound effects--lots of creaking and squeaking. The film had no dialogue other than various grunts and squeals and the occasional uttered name, and this, with all the sepia and the Chaplinesque slapstick, recalls the silent film era. Parts of this cross the line into way-too-silly territory, but it's a fun, very French little fairy tale of a German movie that I'm glad I got to see.

Here's a picture of an ugly person with Bjork followed by a picture of an ugly person watching Tuvalu:

Barbarella--Queen of the Galaxy

1968 Science Fiction

Rating: 13/20

Plot: A whore is given the task of saving the universe. A robot makes innuendos, and Jane Fonda writhes and moans. Several wardrobe malfunctions and explosions later, Barbarella saves the galaxy while simultaneously giving me an erection.

Psychedelic and goofy fun with special effects that make Star Wars and 2001 look like movies that have much bigger budgets. They ain't got Jane Fonda, however! Jane Fonda's legs should have won an Academy Award, and if there was some kind of award for best sex scene ever, the stimulatingly spicy scene between the title character and Dildono (I've actually spelled his name wrong here, but this is how it should have been spelled) would win without question.

I really did enjoy this movie and not just because of the spiciness. It was visually interesting and since it never even thought of taking itself seriously, remained fun throughout. I also noted that both Duran Duran and Matmos got their names from this movie although I did see that the character and weird watery substance in the movie had names that were spelled differently.

Special note: This makes the second movie in a row that I've watched with Marcel Marceau in it. Complete coincidence.

Here I am becoming aroused: