Black Swan (2010)

An expressionist horror film currently in wide release, Black Swan deserves recognition for dealing with such heady subjects as the duality of human nature, the fragmentation of personality by mental illness, the projection by stage parents onto their children, and the uniquely impossible demands placed on women in modern society. Conceptually audacious, and drawing on such varied sources as All About Eve, Suspiria, Repulsion, and, of course, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, the film suffers from too many baroque flourishes and brushes with the garish. Also, its highly visual style, reminiscent of Hitchcock’s idea of “pure cinema”, might be taken as “operatic” in how it deals with these themes, or maybe just superficial. As with nearly all of Darren Aronofsky’s films so far, there does seem to be something missing in the storyline- a hole that gets papered over with stylistic daring.

Expressionist drama frequently depicts a central character’s spritual suffering as they go through a series of painful events quite often modeled on the stations of the cross. Our martyr here is Nina, played by Natalie Portman, a self-sacrificing ballerina whose perfectionism facilitates neurosis, bulimia, scratching her skin bloody, and finally breaking with reality. Ultimately, her stations of suffering will lead her, we are aware, to either transcendence of selfhood through dance, a mental breakdown, or death; and probably all three. It becomes clear fairly early in the film that her grasp on reality is weakening, partly because we suspect that her new friend/rival Lily, played by Mila Kunis, is just a projection of the darker aspects of her personality, particularly the sexual, and partly because Arronofsky introduces classic images of the uncanny early on, such as Nina passing herself on a sidewalk. A later scene, with Winona Ryder stabbing herself, is fully in line with the logic of nightmares. And at times, Aronofsky’s visual sense, for as refreshingly risk-taking as it is, verges on symbolism for dummies. Having Nina dressed in white as often as Lily is clad in black is a bit like hammering us over the head, not to mention a borderline-goofy late scene in the film in which a character literally transforms into a swan.

Similarly, Barbara Hershey’s overbearing stage mother is a great portrayal of a one-note character. Aronofsky uses the character partly to convey the short careers of professional ballerinas, but he also uses Winona Ryder’s character Beth to do the same and her portrayal is much more interesting anyway. As in The Wrestler, the director is fascinated with performers who pour their lives into professions that are inherently limited by the aging of the human body, itself a subject of The Fountain. Here, as well, he takes great interest in showing the daily rituals that his characters engage in; asRequiem for a Dream was nearly a primer on shooting heroin, this film is a good guide to preparing ballet shoes for dance.Expressionism also deals frequently with the hypocrisies of the bourgeoisie and especially Father authority figures. Vincent Cassel, as the director of the dance company who sleeps with all his lead dancers, does a great job portraying the emotionally-distant father that dominates Nina’s psyche. He triggers a sexual awakening that makes her perfectionist character more relatable (Nina is, frankly, a bit of a prig) and is likely tied to her mental breakdown. Frankly, I think Cassel could read the phone book and make it compelling, but he’s especially good playing an asshole.

The one real problem I have with the film, and it’s a problem I have with nearly all of Aronofsky’s films (the exception being the perfect Requiem for a Dream) is that it’s not clear to me if Aronofsky is dealing with profound themes or just beckoning towards those themes without really engaging in them. A particularly over the top scene in which Portman masturbates alone in her room before recoiling in terror at a hallucination of her mother in the corner conveys the role her mother plays in the character’s psyche, but is also a little obvious. A later scene with Hershey painting image after image of her daughter verges on camp. It’s easy to imagine the film becoming a staple of drag queens and midnight showings.

But I suppose Aronofsky gets extra credit because so few general release American movies deal in any way with adult psychology anymore. The kiddie matinee so dominates the multiplexes now that we could be overestimating the handful of films that are made for adult viewers and all released in this month every year as Oscar-bait. It’s not to say that Black Swan isn’t a really good movie. But, if Arronofsky had a bit more faith in his material and his viewers, it could have been great.

Horror Safari (1982)

A low-budget Indiana Jones knock-off from Italy that works much better than it has any right to, Horror Safari (A.K.A. Invaders of the Lost Gold [a title that's even funnier than Horror Safari- how in the hell does one invade gold, especially if it's lost?]) begins with a Japanese platoon during WWII stealing a chest of gold and hiding it in the jungles of Japanese-occupied Philippines. In the process, the natives pick off most of the platoon via decent gore f/x. I also like the costumes in this sequence. I mean, sure the film is cheap. Hell, if you took all the movies I watched last year and added up their budgets, you still couldn't finance Avatar! But this one works because it looks a lot like one of those B-movies Hollywood used to make in the 40s- in other words, the very movies that Raiders of the Lost Ark was ripping off, this Raiders rip-off evokes- it's the cycle of cinematic life!

Anyway, three Japanese soliders survive the massacre and they swear to return someday. 36 years later, Rex Larson (Edmund Purdom), a rich bastard, shows up asking the survivors about the gold. He kills one of the ex-soldiers in a shootout and the next commits hari-kari. Luckily, the third, Mr. Tobashi, is willing to go along on the rich bastard's planned expedition to retrieve the gold. Along for the ride are Larson's partner, Mr. Jefferson (David DeMartin), Jefferson's daughter Janice (Glynis Barber), Tobachi's wife Maria (played by Laura Gemser, naturally) and the American adventurer Mark Forrest (Stuart Whitman), who has a drinking problem, did jail time, and has a dark secret in his past involving the rich bastard, but is the best there is at leading these expeditions. Whitman's character, incidentally, is introduced during a bar brawl that seems to suggest that American sailors are astoundingly racist and go to the worst titty bars in Japan.

Off they go into the jungle and Forrest hits it off with Janice, which is a bit disappointing for Maria, his ex-lover who wants to start things up again. The strangeness of Laura Gemser not having a sex scene in the film does not tear a hole in the time-space continuum, thankfully, and probably because she does have a nude scene. Her nude scene, incidentally is very brief, and her part in the film is minor; but you'll notice how central it is to the film's advertising! It's also sort of weird because she goes skinny dipping and then cries out in pain for no apparent reason and we're to understand that her character has been killed. I'm really just amazed that the film was never entitled "Emanuelle Goes on a Horror Safari".

As you might have guessed, characters are gradually picked off one-by-one in creative ways that eschew continuity or plot coherence, and at the end we find out who was doing it. This shouldn't be much of a surprise- after all, it is a horror safari. But, you might be surprised to find that the film doesn't become a cannibal epic. It's still got some decent gore, a few thrills, and some brief nudity. Other reviewers have complained that it's not very exciting. But I liked the throwback aspects of it and found it more competant than most of the films I've seen lately. Maybe I do need to stop watching so much crap though.

Sister Emanuelle (1977)

A nun?! It's pretty hard to see how they were going to sell this movie as part of the "Black Emanuelle" series, since it's difficult to figure out how Laura Gemser's character transitioned from being a slutty photojournalist to a nun. Apparently, however, this is not an "official" Black Emanuelle film (which, themselves, aren't official Emmanuelle films), but a knockoff, according to Mondo Esoterica. Glad I've got that straight. It probably also goes without saying that this is not a religious film.

Nevertheless, Sister Emanuelle is actually a very entertaining movie, thanks to the incorporation of some much-needed (intentional) humor. The story concerns Monica, played by the lovely Monica Zanchi (who made out with Gemser in Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals in front of a waterfall and behind a smoking monkey), a trampy young girl whose rich father and equally trampy new young wife have her put in a convent, but not before new mom French kisses her goodbye in front of the nuns!

Gemser plays "Sister Emanulle" (or 'Sister Manuelle' occasionally) who spends the first bit of the film transporting the girl to a secluded convent via motorboat through the canals of Venice and a train, where the young harlot slips off to blow the conductor before getting nude and coming on to the Sister in their cabin. This provokes the following, awesome, exchange: Gemser: "You're a lost soul!" Zanchi: "That's alright by me as long as I have a body." This is my kind of girl.

There is also a great scene in which Monica recounts to the nuns the tearful story of being assaulted by three young strangers at the beach in the voice-over, while the flashback actually shows her seducing them. Zanchi does a great job playing a young girl whose motivation consists of being basically impressed with her body and the trouble she can cause with it. It's obviously a one-note role (and film), but everyone has fun with it, and it's nice that the character's lie is the closest we come to sexual assault in the film (a problem in the Black Emanuelle series). Anyway, off they go to the convent, where Monica immediately takes off and Sister Emanuelle has to chase her down and subdue her. She struggles with the girl and wrestles her into sexy submission but catches hell for wearing the wrong panties under her habit! Apparently, the Mother Superior is a bitch on wheels and forces the nun to wear woolen undies, which is clearly difficult for her.

Intrigue increases after Monica gets roomed with Annie (Vinja Locatelli), a square girl who thinks she's in line for sainthood! Nevertheless, Monica repeatedly comes on to her probably causing some issues with sainthood, but soon discovering that Miss Goody-two-shoes is okay with having her pussy eaten. Sister Manuelle, meanwhile, seems to be getting sick of this nun shit as well, as indicated by her wearing increasingly sexy underwear. If the plot thickened any more it would be concrete.

But thicken it does! Into the picture comes an escaped convict, played by the versatile Gabriele Tinti, who is in most of the Laura Gemser films. Monica first discovers him and hides/conspires with the convict in order to bonk him repeatedly in soft focus. She also implicates Emanulle by introducing her to the thug while threatening he'll massacre the students if she tells anyone else. Eventually, Gemser and Tinti have sex, pretty much a given in the films they did together. Sister Manuelle also punishes Monica by tying her up and having sex with Tinti in front of her, something that would totally happen. She then tries to burn the girl's bush with a torch!

Thankfully, it was all just a dream. This is good because, otherwise, the storyline might seem a bit silly.

The Demon (1979)

Someone, or some thing, is running amok in South Africa killing people. Okay, actually, it's someone- a man, not a demon at all, making the title a bit disappointing. In the opening, he kidnaps a young teenage girl and ties up her mother. He soon after kills a fellow who picks him up while hitchiking before babbling about how his mother thinks he's gay for his love of acting- shutting the guy up probably qualifies as a mercy killing.

Meanwhile, the family hires Cameron Mitchell, playing "just a man with ESP" to find the killer. When he gets to her room, he hears the sound of screaming angels, something that happens to me in the bedrooms of teenaged girls as well, and which clearly means something important. He soon realizes that what they're dealing with is "less than a man. But also more than a man. Much more." So a woman?

Turns out the killer is also stalking a young teacher and her visiting American friend who like to hang around the house and meditate. The young friend is dating a rich fellow who has won her heart by taking her out for lobster thermidor and wine. But the teacher friend doesn't seem compelled to inform her roomate that there's someone making scary phone calls and so forth because, really why would you?

Anyway, the story follows Mitchell who eventually figures out the kidnapped girl is dead, and never really tells us who the killer is or why he's killing. We do see frequent shots of waves breaking against rocks, which are either symbolic or padding. At the end, we finally see the killer unmasked, but unfortunately have no idea who he is, making the mask unnecessary. To be honest, not a lot of what's happening here is ever explained, which is probably why you can so often find this movie in 99 cent DVD editions.

Velluto Nero (1976)

The missing link between the Italian art house cinema and exploitation genres, Velluto Nero (black velvet) brings together a cast straight out of a million gore/sexploitation movies (including Laura Gemser, Gabriele Tinti, Annie Bell, and Al Cliver) for a film written and directed by Academy Award winner and longtime Fellini scripter Brunello Rondi. The result is a story that plays like 8 & 1/2 with more nudity. Not terribly surprising that enterprising distributors marketed it as another Laura Gemser classic "Black Emanuelle, White Emanuelle", in spite of the fact that none of the characters is named Emanuelle.

There is not much of a plot to speak of, although by now you might be expecting that to be the case. Personally, I'm not much of a plot man anyway; any hack can recycle plot mechanics and most of them do; besides, life doesn't usually have character arcs and beginnings, middles, and ends. Here, there are some interesting events that happen, beautifully filmed Egyptian landscapes and very colorful characters, just like in the Fellini movies. Here too, the storyline is loose and vague. The only difference is there's more sex and violence here. Not like that's a bad thing.

The characters are mostly European ex-pats in Egypt. Crista, played by "Susan Scott" (Nieves Navarro), owns a fancy villa on the Nile and screws around with her Arab servant, played by Tarik Ali. Al Cliver (Zombie) plays a mystical guru figure who spouts esoteric mumbo-jumbo while cott blows him, culminating in one of the best reaction shots in cinema: Scott staring very meaningfully towards the sunset as fake jizz drips down her face. Ziggy Zanger, who sadly only did three movies, plays Crista's bratty young daughter who gets off on teasing her poor Arab servant by showing him her pussy and teaching him to say, "this is not for me"! Even better is the scene in which she screws two gentlemen in the sand next to Egyptian ruins while drinking whiskey from the bottle. (In other words, she's my kind of girl!) Feodor Chialapin is a rich pedophile who hilariously retired to Egypt from Hollywood. Annie Bell is Crista's other daughter Pina, who has sex with Gemser, and is, in some versions, called "Laure" in order to capitalize off her title role in another Emmanuelle rip-off written by the real Emmanuelle Arsan. Finally we have the hilariously dysfunctional couple of Carlo and Laura, a hotheaded and abusive photographer and his model, who he gets off on posing next to roadkill and dung! They're played by real-life couple Laura Gemser and Gabriele Tinti; his dubbing is from the ridiculous "Whatsamattayou?!" school of Italian characterizations, while she eventually is liberated from the creep by screwing a girl and sacrificing a goat!

I think that pretty much covers the highlights of the film too. The characters bicker, screw, wander around, and try to achieve some sort of enlightenment, all the while unwittingly exploiting the locals and getting nowhere. There's a weighty feeling of European decadence and the fact that the story goes in circles without getting very far seems to be the point- so do the characters. Some might dislike that aspect of the film, but I was okay with it.

The Pink Angels (1971)

I guess you could call this the greatest gay biker movie ever made, if there were any others to compare it to. Actually, no, if there were others, they'd probably be better than this one!

The Pink Angels is, I suspect, a "comedy" about a biker gang made up of six gay men, and that's the punchline right there- they're a bunch of "bananas" who look like bikers! Wh-wh-what?! And they cross-dress!! They're heading down the California coast to a cotillion ball and the locals will never know what hit them when they realize that these bikers are actually... gay bikers!! YOWZA!

The movie sort of ambles through one contrived set up to another with the punchline nearly always being that, get this! They're gay bikers! Most of the actors play mildly embarassing swishy, fey "homo" types; but the film is also really on the side of the gay bikers, who are contrasted with the square "establishment" types, and the portrayals are much more lighthearted than meanspirited. One of the gags here is that the military/square/cops hate long-haired hippie "queers"- but, in this case, they really are gay! So, given that the target audience for the film was stoned teenagers at the drive-in, it's possible that maybe some of them became more tolerant of homosexual cross-dressers after watching the film.

Of course, the problem with this type of late 60s/early 70s movie is that it looks like it was shot by people who were stoned too- there is a lot of bombastic folk-rock about America and its social ills and scenes that go nowhere, and an orgy scene in which the cameraman nearly sticks the lens up some actor's noses, and a really stereotypical military type who appears periodically, and lots of scenes that play too long and slow- so very characteristic of the era.

And then there's an ending that is suddenly very serious and tragic- in the last two minutes of the film! The Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Movies reviewer admits that he had no idea how to handle it, and I'm sort of in the same boat. Is it supposed to be funny or freak us the fuck out? Unlike Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Movies, I'm going to reveal the ending, so you know if you want to watch the movie, after the trailer, (SPOILER ALERT)


Spoiler: The bikers all get lynched and murdered. The end.

It seriously comes out of nowhere, especially given the lighthearted tone of the entire rest of the movie, and reminds me a lot of "Avere Ventanni" an Italian sex romp about two girls having wacky misadventures, until they're raped and murdered in the last five minutes. That one, in fact, struck me as social reactionary bullshit- we can show all the female nudity and sex that you came to see so long as the girls get punished in the end for their behavior.

In this movie? I don't know. I think The Pink Angels is actually pretty subversive because it asks its early 70s audience to relate to heroes who are openly gay and then mourn their deaths. There's a closing montage that reminds us of their adventures and, I actually might dare to say, that we're forced to question all the fun we've had snickering at the "faggots" throughout the film, since this was what got them murdered. I prefer this interpretation to thinking the movie is showing the characters "getting what's coming to them" for their transgressions.

At least, I hope I'm right.

Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977)

Probably the most ill-concieved movie genre mashup of all time, Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals combines the sexploitation eroticism of the "Black Emanuelle" films with the graphic gut-munching of the Italian cannibal films. If that mix seems somehow wrong to you, let me just say two words: Joe D'Amato.

Okay, now: "what are the Italian cannibal films?" you ask. They're a subgenre of Italian horror movies in which clueless westerners travel into the Amazon jungle and eventually get eaten by cannibals for their transgressions. I suspect they started making these movies in response to the cannibalism scenes in earlier zombie films. "You know who else eats people? Cannibals!" The best of them is probably Cannibal Holocaust, which really isn't that good. I'm not sure the worst. Maybe we'll plow through those later- this is the last of the (official) Laura Gemser Emanuelle films to plow through. So let's get to it.

My favorite part of this movie is the title card: "This is a true story as reported by Jennifer O'Sullivan". I'm guessing this is actually a crapola story as reported by Liar O'Bullshitter.

The story begins with Emanuelle (Laura Gemser) doing an undercover investigation of a New York City mental institution when, suddenly, a patient attacks and bites a chunk out of a nurse's breast in the 'Farnacy' (The sign was clearly made by the Italian crew). The staff ties up the patient and have no luck getting her to talk. Thinking quickly though Emanuelle tries masturbating the girl, but has no luck.

Cut to her editor's office, where Emanuelle explains the girl's malicious tit-munching by telling us that the nurse "was well-known for her homosexual inclination. She's the one who started abusing the poor girl"- a bit judgmental considering Emanuelle has just fingered "the poor girl". Anyway, turns out the tit-biter has a tattoo on her linked to an Amazon tribe that was thought to be extinct. How did she get into a NYC loony-bin? No idea.

But, this allows Emanulle to meet up with an anthropologist played by Gemser's husband and frequent co-star Gabrielle Tinti. He shows her some 8mm films of African cannibals killing and eating people and then they have sex because of course they do. Afterwards, she informs him that "I'm a free woman and I behave as such".

Besides, she's got another lover, Peter, who she then has a surprisingly hot sex scene with alongside the Hudson River. This is followed by an equally good sex scene with the anthropologist, which has an unforgettably schmaltzy love song with lyrics like, "my arms feel so tired when I make love to you" and "I am so happy... like a clown". Indeed.

Emanuelle, the professor and a team of researchers heads into the Amazon jungle to solve this whole cannibal mystery. They bring along some associates, including a nun and teenage girl, who live outside the jungle and are up for more sexy hijinx (no, not the nun). For instance, Emanuelle frolics with a nude Monica Zanchi in the water near a waterfall while a monkey smokes cigarettes in the foreground. (Writing a sentence like that reminds me why I watch these movies) The group soon runs into a hunter, played by Donald O'Brien (Dr. Buther M.D. himself) and his wife Maggie, played by Susan Scott, (who's in a few other Emanuelle movies). The hunter is really searching for a wrecked plane full of diamonds, while his wife is searching for dudes to fuck her on the side; she's a lot luckier.

The hunter tells them that the priest who they were going to visit in the jungle has been killed, along with his nuns, which doesn't really seem to bother anyone terribly. After about an hour of sex and chatter, the cannibals finally show up and start picking off characters. The nun gets eaten. The gore effects are fairly realistic here, but scenes of cannibalism tend to suffer from the fact that the dinner is already dead, so there's no tension. Anyway, the hunter and his wife find the plane and the diamonds and find they still love each other, but she gets snatched by the cannibals and his plan to save her fails spectacularly.

Finally, Emanuelle saves the teenage girl with a brilliant plan that involves being naked in the water and being naked on land. She, the girl, and Tinti survive to tell the tale. Even though Emanuelle has enough material for a great article, she finds herself strangely moved by watching her friends massacred in front of her.

Of all the Gemser Emanuelle films, this is the one most seen by horror movie fans. It's also one of the worst because it makes very little sense and the blend of hot sex and revolting gore doesn't work well at all. The sex is actually hotter than in most of the other Emanuelle films and the gore is pretty convincing; but the film has to really shift gears to get from the sex to the violence. D'Amato's direction is pretty lousy here anyway, but the real problem is that, again, he's unable to stick to making one movie and goes off in all sorts of bad directions. But, at least, nobody gets raped this time.