Thursday, May 10, 2007

REVIEW: BARE BEHIND BARS

Get this Italian-made WIP flick and fast-forward through all the standard fights, showers, lesbionics and body cavity inspections that litter the boring first hour. Trust me, it's all "eeew". You won't like it.

Once the ladies escape and run loose in town, this one gets good. In the final 20 minutes or so, there's not one but two of the most memorable dick-severing sequences in memory! That's right, they're not castrating fellas, they're cutting mister peepee OFF. One unlucky gentleman's member is thrown to the family dog to quiet it down (!!!) and another pays for his sex crimes by having his fed to him. I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE has nothing on BARE BEHIND BARS as far as this kind of thing goes, but that's about all it has to offer.

Labels: , , ,

REVIEW: CHEEKY!

I checked this out after reading a review that compared filmmaker Tinto Brass to Russ Meyer, along the lines of "what Meyer was to breasts, Brass is to ass" or something to that effect. So you can imagine what I was expecing: huge naked bootys all over the place!

While the asses are of underwhelming size, I will say they are a-plenty in CHEEKY. Brass's camera is most often fixated on the lower half of the female anatomy, namely the pelvic area, front and back. From the opening scene in the park, if you get your kicks from looking up skirts then you'll think you've gone to heaven with this movie. It's simply everywhere. Tons of nudity, sure, but the only similarity I saw to Meyer's work was the use of dildos when an actual penis would be shown. But whereas the cartoonish nature of Meyer's films kinda lends itself to this, Brass portrays things a bit more realistically and it didn't work as well. You'd see a Tinto Brass picture on Cinemax before you'd see a Russ Meyer. Just sayin'. I'd classify one as "erotica" and the other as "exploitation".

Actually, never mind. Now that I think back on it, CHEEKY has some moments that seemed like porno due to the gonzo-style camera angles and detailed closeups of orifices. Orifi. What's the plural of orifice?

Labels: , ,

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

REVIEW: CHRISTINA (1985)


In between HOLLYWOOD HOT TUBS and RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, author and B-movie starlet Jewel Shepard went to Spain and made this film. Most well-known for featuring a fully nude or topless Shepard throughout its running time, CHRISTINA was written by the ultra-prolific cult figure Harry Alan Towers with the original intention of being an ongoing series. Shepard plays the title role, a rich nymphomaniac exhibitionist who appears to be allergic to clothing, spending as much time as possible in her birthday suit with her male friends. If you've ever read Jewel's book IF I'M SO FAMOUS you either wanted to see CHRISTINA really bad or you hoped to never lay eyes on it.

I was expecting this to be kinda soft-focus and boring, but when the movie picks up things are surprisingly bizarre. Christina gets kidnapped by lesbian terrorists (!!!) and is given away as a prize to the winner of a karate match (!!!), only to become an object of jealousy and passed around among the sapphic soldiers. The womens' outfits look like rejects from the Solid Gold dancers and come apart real easy during combat. Weirdest of all are the lesbian sex scenes, though. Get this - when things start to get hot n' heavy, the scene switches to Jewel lying on a white sheet in a smoke-filled tent while black-gloved hands run toy cars across her naked body as she writhes in ecstasy! TOY CARS. This happens twice, and the second time the hands use a toy truck and army tank to give her jollies.

The most unfortunate thing about this film is the shoddy DVD transfer, which is full screen and dark and muddy most of the time. Several poorly-lit outdoor scenes are rendered devoid of much detail, ruining otherwise "money" shots of Miss Shepard. Since its only selling point is the amount of skin displayed by its star, CHRISTINA kind of shoots itself in the foot by presenting most of these scenes far too darkly to see much of anything. However, it is worth watching for reasons beyond the frequent nudity as the bad dubbing and hilarious lesbian tomfoolery make it a memorable cult film obscurity. See it to say you saw it, that's what I did.

Labels: , , , , , ,