01/23/09: THE LOVELY BONES (Peter Jackson, 2009) 
Director Jackson followed his hugely-successful “Lord Of The Rings” franchise with this adaptation of another highly-regarded but more recent novel; though, on the surface, it seemed a more realistic and intimate project, the premise still managed to take in a considerable dose of fancy (and, by extension, elaborate visual effects). The film, in fact, revolves around the murder of a teenage girl, the effect this has on her family and the eventual come-uppance of the seemingly mild-mannered man responsible; so far so simple, but then we are shown the heroine’s passage towards Heaven – and, apparently, these scenes constitute the piece’s raison d’etre (since it would otherwise be fairly ordinary). Anyway, apart from obvious technical proficiency (even if the CGI – as ever – is painfully evident), it demonstrates reasonable insight into a child’s view of the afterlife; still, the whole reportedly emerges a bowdlerized version of the source material – with, ultimately, its most lauded element Stanley Tucci’s rather overrated and clichéd portrayal of the villain: introverted, meticulous and with an annoying fixed smirk, his ironic demise comes as no real surprise (ditto for the identity of the other ‘lost souls’ the girl encounters). Despite a starry supporting cast (Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz as the girl’s parents and Susan Sarandon as her spirited grandmother), the film’s true core resides in Saiorsie Ronan’s affecting central role – recounting events in first-person narration, she evinces all the various unspoken aspects of an untimely passing: anger at the circumstances themselves, the witnessing of a family’s disintegration and the initial escape from justice of the perpetrator, remorse over one’s own unfulfilled aspirations and feelings, etc. That said, all the various moods – psychological study, social conscience, ethereal vision – do not really coalesce into a satisfying experience which, at 135 minutes, is also way too long; mind you, as a modern film, it is well up to par, hence the rating…but, typical of most of today’s output, it is not one I am likely to ever return to!
01/24/10: VINCERE (Marco Bellocchio, 2009)
Bellocchio’s latest is yet another look at a controversial Italian political figure, Benito Mussolini; however, it deals with a phase of his life which was kept ‘in the shadows’ for a great many years – the dictator’s first marriage, which even yielded him a son! As was the case with GOOD MORNING, NIGHT (2003) – in which the film-maker had treated the abduction and execution of ex-Prime Minister Aldo Moro – the politician emerges not to be the central figure after all (remaining, similarly, little more than a cipher); here, in fact, the protagonist is Mussolini’s secreted – or, more precisely, rejected – wife, who even winds up in a mental institution (a fate which also befalls their offspring, where both would die eventually)! The meticulous period reconstruction (and emphatic score) was to be expected, yet the human drama – and, by extension, the fine leading performances of Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Fabrizio Timi – is ultimately what renders the movie compelling; interestingly, while Mussolini as an older man is shown only via authentic newsreel footage, Timi plays both father and son as a young adult! Needless to say, the director distances himself from the Fascist fervor which had gripped his nation in those pivotal war years – choosing to depict Mussolini as godless (the film begins with him defying the Almighty to strike him down) and inhuman (both in the treatment of his first family and in his animalistic sexual prowess: the latter scenes, of which there a few, would otherwise have no discernible point) and even goes so far as to ridicule him by having son repeatedly caricature father’s famously arrogant mannerisms while speechifying (with this in mind, the title – which translates to “Winning” – is clearly ironic, since what it presents is anything but the correct fighting spirit)!
02/01/10: CODENAME: WILDGEESE (Antonio Margheriti, 1984)
This was the first of a German-produced war trilogy by leading Italian “Euro-Cult” exponent Margheriti; I actually watched the follow-ups (COMMANDO LEOPARD [1985] and THE COMMANDER [1988]) prior to it but, as often happens, the original is still the best (if still not saying very much in this case). To begin with, it has the best cast: Lewis Collins (star of all three films), Lee Van Cleef and Klaus Kinski (who also turn up in the third and second entry respectively, the latter in a different role since he dies here), Ernest Borgnine, Mimsy Farmer and even that “Euro-Cult” stalwart noted for his resemblance to Peter Lorre i.e. Luciano Pigozzi aka Alan Collins, albeit uncredited (he did similar duties, again playing someone else, in one of the sequels). The title would seem to aspire towards a cut-rate version of THE WILD GEESE (1978), itself followed by an inferior (and entirely unrelated) second helping a year after this one; anyway, the war we are dealing with here is not strategic but moral – since the mission involves annihilating an opium compound deep into the jungles of the Far East (thankfully, we are spared the sight of slithering reptiles which is usually obligatory with this type of setting, and one of the sequels did in fact have such a scene). Collins is the tough leader of a crack squad who typically rubs his men the wrong way but eventually earns their respect; the ageing Cleef is a helicopter pilot(!) who took the job in exchange for a prison sentence hanging over his head (besides, he can handle himself on a battlefield); Kinski and Borgnine are, ostensibly, the men who oversee the plan and put it in motion respectively…but the former, along with Collins’ own superior, are revealed to have ulterior motives (incidentally, the hero’s own son had lost his life to drugs); Farmer and Pigozzi, then, are people the team meets on the way – she is a journalist captured and rendered a junkie by the native militia later freed by Collins, and he a priest who also administers medicine to the wounded but winds up literally crucified for his beliefs. The film emerges to be undeniably proficient in the action sequences (especially the scene in which Kinski perishes via flame thrower in a large fuel depository – a set which would actually be re-used in its immediate follow-up!) but is otherwise fairly routine, indeed cliched; mind you, it offers mild entertainment while it is on (particularly the verbal sparring between Kinski and Borgnine) but is in no way memorable and certainly far below the work Margheriti could turn out in his heyday (though he had always been somewhat erratic).
02/01/10: FANTABULOUS (Sergio Spina, 1967) 
I had never heard of this one (or director Spina, for that matter) before its screening on late-night Italian TV last year; in view of a favourable write-up on the indispensable “Stracult” book, I decided to record the film but only now did I manage to fit it in my schedule (since I am currently going through a “Euro-Cult” marathon). Anyway, while certainly interesting – both visually (being laden with pop-art references) and thematically (a sci-fi tale about the creation of supermen) – the whole proved somewhat tiresome, especially after a hard day’s work, given a decidedly cerebral approach (albeit not unexpected considering its year of release)! Incidentally, the original Italian title translates to WOMAN, SEX AND SUPERMAN – indicating that the sexual revolution, again typical of the era, was as much at its core as the science (not that it was particularly explicit). The cast is led by Richard Harrison (usually seen in peplums or Spaghetti Westerns, he seems a bit overwhelmed by the material and not a bit silly when taking to the skies – though his woodenness is, ironically, ideal for projecting the character’s eventual robotic nature!) and Adolfo Celi as the megalomaniac villain (tapping into his earlier stint as a larger-than-life James Bond nemesis) who, as one more sign of the times, is an industrialist owning the titular company; leading lady Dorothy West, while also unknown to me, makes an appealing doe-eyed heroine – and just as much involved is Celi’s obligatory mad scientist assistant who adopts a unique terminology throughout. The anything-goes mood suggests the film was conceived as a satire (anticipaing in this regard William Klein's similarly spotty MR. FREEDOM [1969]) but, alas, this very ostentation is what dates it above all; mind you, FANTABULOUS is undeniably colorful and entertaining on the surface, and yet not exactly memorable…
02/02/10: HELL’S BRIGADE (Leon Klimovsky, 1969)
Among the numerous low-brow WWII adventures to emerge from Europe around this time, the film under review also proved one of Jack Palance’s not infrequent across-the-water excursions; typically, the film comes with several titles – the misleading Spanish original translates to ZERO HOUR: OPERATION ROMMEL (even if the Field Marshall does figure prominently in the narrative, his role in the failed July plot to assassinate the Fuehrer and his eventual suicide, thus bringing to mind the similar but inferior UCCIDETE ROMMEL from the same year), the Italian one (its co-producing country) to the generic THE CRY OF GIANTS and, for English-speaking consumption, it ended up with the imitative moniker given above! Anyway, the movie presents a typical ‘impossible mission’ scenario with the lock-jawed star as the cynical leader of a specialized outfit parachuted behind enemy lines; the group even includes a German officer(!) and, when they purposefully crash the plane, are also joined by the pilot. What is unusual – but also rather silly in the long run, given its pointlessness – is that each member of the squad has a specific function to perform which, however, is known only to himself…so that each of them is constantly, albeit unnecessarily, looking over one another’s back!; for obvious reasons, the former Nazi is especially suspected in this regard, even more so when his instructions dictate for him to return to the fold (to further complicate matters, he meets his sweetheart – played by Rosanna Yanni – just then, and she takes him for a traitor to their cause of fighting the Hitler dictatorship)! Eventually, it turns out that Palance and his men were intended to divert enemy attention from a strategic point to another location – so that the German forces are deployed to this other section of the battle zone, thus facilitating the Allies’ entry; the military-minded Colonel in command initially objects to the move given their opposition only involves five men – but another officer embroiled with the Nazi hierarchy imposes his will, once the ruse is discovered, to his ultimate chagrin. The combination of expected ingredients – plenty of action (where the expertise at baseball of one of them comes in handy when throwing hand-grenades during the final enemy onslaught!) and hard-boiled dialogue (most amusingly, when Palance complains about the terrible quality of the cigarette he is smoking while a bullet is being removed from his arm sans anaesthetic) – and novelty aspects (the obstacles, eventually surmounted, to camaraderie already mentioned and the suspense inherent in the jigsaw-puzzle structure) make it a mildly enjoyable offering as these things go.
02/03/10: THE HOWL (Tinto Brass, 1970)
To begin with, I do not consider myself a fan of Italian sexploitationer Brass; however, having enjoyed a couple of his atypical earlier work – the Spaghetti Western YANKEE (1966) and the pop-art giallo DEADLY SWEET (1967) – I expected more of the same to be of comparable quality (for the record, I have three others still to check out from this vintage). Anyway, I was deeply disappointed by the film under review – especially after reading it was deemed surreal (in retrospect, it is much closer to the style of fellow Italian Federico Fellini or Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose brand of weird I particularly deplore, rather than that of my all-time favorite Luis Bunuel). Well, bizarre (and virtually plotless) it certainly is but, as to engaging, quite the opposite – making for an annoying and downright repellent experience! Just about its sole saving grace, in fact, is the hauntingly beautiful presence of leading lady Tina Aumont: she, a bolting bride, and popular Italian comic Gigi Proietti are the ‘heroes’ who go from one wild encounter to another – notably an orgy, a cannibal family and a city under siege (from what I can recall, since the film has already started to fade from my memory, within the space of just one week!); an inspired self-referential moment even has the central couple literally running into Jean-Louis Trintignant, protagonist of DEADLY SWEET!
02/04/10: QUEENS OF EVIL (Tonino Cervi, 1970)
Another “Euro-Cult” offering I was unaware of (prior to the week-end before last, in fact) but, proving intriguing upon reading its synopsis, I decided to get hold of immediately; this fact, however, did not really have anything to do with my watching it so quickly – just that the disc the film was recorded on was handy at the time. Anyway, QUEENS OF EVIL was quite good, if not exactly a ‘lost’ gem; thematically, it anticipated THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK (1987) – though I have never watched the latter myself – since the plot revolves around a bearded young man travelling on a motorcycle (Ray Lovelock) ensnared by three lovely women (Haydee` Politoff, Silvia Monti and Evelyn Stewart) he encounters and who are ultimately revealed to be witches; incidentally, while the girls live in seclusion in the woods, their abode is decked-out with all the modern trimmings one associates with the fashion world (including blow-ups of each of them hanging above their respective beds)! Lovelock and Stewart were both “Euro-Cult” stalwarts (he even supplies the rather thin vocals to the soundtrack’s two numbers!); I first noticed Politoff in the equally obscure giallo INTERRABANG (1969) – where she had emerged the best of another sensuous trio – but, here, it is Monti (the one I was least familiar with) who particularly shined as the hero’s most fiery seductress. Though the film’s languid pace was to be expected, it also proves somewhat uneventful until the violent twist ending – organizing a party to which they invite their devilish friends, the girls reveal their true nature and turn on the mystified ‘hippie’…egged on by their leader, an ageing aristocratic type Lovelock had actually met (and apparently saw killed in a car crash!) at the very start of the picture!! For the record, I had previously watched the good Spaghetti Western TODAY IT’S ME…TOMORROW YOU (1968) from the same director, with two more (and still different) titles I will hopefully manage to check out during my ongoing “Euro-Cult” marathon.
