I just emerged from the sleazy world of Coffy where heads explode like pottery when shot, and many, many do get shot. Coffy stars Pam Grier, the Blacksploitation star best known for one of the most beloved films of the genre, Foxy Brown.
These films follow a predictable pattern: Pam Grier looks great in skimpy clothes, holds down a day job and racks up a terrible body count on her time off. Her target might be a crack dealer or a politician — the main thing is that they have pissed her off. This means that they -and we- will be seeing her half naked for a good part of the film as she pretends to be a prostitute. Having Grier pose as a prostitute was apparently very important to her producers.
The ensuing violence is so relentless that it becomes unintentionally comic, tilting the viewer into giddiness rather than shock. My favorite unintended joke is the theme song: “Coffy is a color, it’s the color of your skin. Coffy is a color, it’s the world you live in.”
Well, I may live there for 90 minutes for a laugh or two, but I burn rubber getting out.
In the first twenty minutes of this 1965 film, the well-endowed female leads go-go dance, drag race, and get into a cat fight. In short, they are women absorbed with what at the time were thought to be exclusively male fantasies: sex, cars and kicking ass.
Considering that the Russ Meyers cast only women with large breasts, it is curious that he would imbue them with such an overload of testosterone. I guess some men just can’t write for chicks. Their tendency towards violence kicks the film into high gear when the bustiest of the trio manages to karate chop a man to death. This is unfortunate, given that the man had a traceable car and a traumatized girlfriend as a witness.
They slip the sweet young thing some sleepers as they work out an escape plan that gets more absurd when they learn about a ranch owned by a disabled, horny millionaire. To say any more would deprive potential viewers the honor of peering inside the late director’s fantasy life. Suffice to say, this film about badass women does not get a badassbirds endorsement. Exploitation is all well and good, but this is just gross. Two kitty paws down.
This 1933 film proves that I’ll watch nearly anything committed to celluloid. It traces the fall from grace of a beautiful young woman who lands a job at an exclusive New York salon.
The friend who helps her get the job is primarily occupied in collecting presents from the husband of one of her well heeled clients. Another friend is having an affair with the son of the owner. Soon she has her own little affair with a married man. Hey, she had to fit in.
Incredibly sordid and cynical, it depicts women as gold diggers and men as walking wallets. There is redemption in the end for the titular beauty, but her counterparts meet predictably sad fates.
The film is notable for the odd, early-model beauty equipment, including a gigantic hair dryer, plus another machine that made the patrons resemble Medusa.
It’s not on DVD, which is just as well. I hate to see people waste their money. Catch it like I did, in an exhausted stupor in front of TCM.
Paul Schrader’s sweaty, deviant remake of Cat People transcends the ’80s music and fashions that threaten to date it, making it a timeless psycho-sexual creepfest. Natassja Kinski is a girl with a secret who doesn’t know she has one. To her misfortune, she is plagued by a brother who knows all about it. Malcolm McDowell exudes a sensuality a little more than most women are looking for when they want a bad boy. He’s a bad boy with nine lives, and not a single one of them makes a good bedfellow.
The story’s premise will be familiar to anyone who has seen the Jaques Tourner classic: a race of people able to become leopards find it hard to have a normal love lives. And no one prepares them. Talk about lousy parenting. If anyone needs ”the talk,” it’s these folks. Watch it with someone you’re sure of.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Mark Bittner was a failed musician, squatting in a dilapidated cottage in the Telegraph Hill area of San Francisco. One day he picked up a book of poetry by Gary Snyder and became inspired to seek the nature around him.
It arrived in Technicolor. Within months, he was hand-feeding a wild flock of Cherry Headed Conure Parrots. He soon named the birds and began to observe their personality traits and interactions.
In short, he became a bohemian San Francisco version of Saint Francis. Bittner’s soft-spoken, gentle demeanor is winning, and the parrots are fascinating to watch. Rent it when you need a respite from the Badass Birds of the world.
Hot Fuzz is a hilarious satire of “super cop” films made by the filmmakers who brought us Shaun Of The Dead. Fresh, funny and wholly original, it surpassed my very high expectations.
The story follows the dismissal of a gung ho cop played by Simon Pegg who gets transferred from his London post to a small village for being just a little too intense. But the idyllic village is not all that it seems to be. Wonderful details abound, including the lead character’s emotional attachment to his potted plant.
The film is chock-a-block with great English actors in small and large roles: Jim Broadbent, Bill Nighy, Steve Coogan and Timothy Dalton all make appearances. It’s a special delight for Anglophiles, but you don’t have to be one to find this entertaining.
Two Kinks songs from their Village Green Preservation Society album are featured, which made me especially happy. (More on that madness in another post.) Here’s a YouTube video of that title song.
See this film and laugh. It’s good for you.
