The Fifth Element (1997)

To describe Luc Besson’s 1997 science fiction opus The Fifth Element as bizarre would be an understatement of monumental proportions.

The plot is nothing special but this movie is all about style over substance. I have no problems with that. I like movies that take that approach. Sometimes the style is the substance. That’s certainly the case here. Whether you will enjoy the style of this film is a matter of taste.

It begins in 1914 with an archaeologist in Egypt deciphering inscriptions. That’s when the aliens arrive and announce that the stones are no longer safe on Earth. The stones have something to do with an ultimate weapon for defeating evil. There are four stones. Each represents one of the elements - earth, air, fire and water. But the key is the fifth element.

Several centuries later Earth faces a terrifying undefeatable menace from space. Those aliens (the good aliens) promised to send the fifth element to us but their spaceship was destroyed by space pirates employed by the evil businessman/super criminal Zorg (Gary Oldman).

Some tissues samples are saved from the wrecked spacecraft and regenerated. The result is a strange but beautiful redhead named Leeloo (Milla Jovovich).

Leeloo is confined within an escape-proof isolation chamber from which she easily escapes. She ends up in the flying cab operated by Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis). He’s a retired special forces officer. Now he just wants to drive flying cabs. He doesn’t want trouble. He should hand Leeloo over to the cops when they order him to do so. But Leeloo seems so cute and helpless and nobody likes cops so he rescues her.

There is of course a secret to Leeloo. Crazy priest Cornelius (Ian Holm) has some idea what that secret is.

Huge amounts of mayhem follow, with Zorg and a bunch of disgruntled alien space pirates trying to get their hands on the stone. It builds to a climax on a report planet.

There are lots of explosions and gun battles.

One of the things that makes this movie interesting is that it was written and directed by a Frenchman, the cinematographer was French and the costumes were designed by a Frenchman. As a result this movie looks totally unlike any Hollywood science fiction movie. This is a very French science fiction movie.

Science fiction movies always predict the future wrongly and always get the aesthetics of the future totally wrong. Except maybe The Fifth Element. The people who made this movie were sure of one thing. Whatever the future was going to look like it was going to be crass and vulgar and an orgy of bad taste. Looking at the world today 27 years after the movie was made we certainly seem to be on track to making that prediction come true.

We are not going to get the uber-cool dystopian future of Blade Runner, but we might well get the bad taste on steroids future of The Fifth Element.

The costumes were designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier. Gaultier was notorious for designing clothes that no sane person would ever want to wear, except perhaps to a costume party with a bad taste theme. The staggering awfulness of Gaultier’s designs actually works well in a science fiction movie context. This is a future in which people dress like insane clowns at a fetish party.

Everything about the production design is overblown and vulgar beyond imagining.

Which does make it interesting.

There’s some staggeringly bad acting. I have no idea what Gary Oldman thought he was doing.

Bruce Willis on the other hand is excellent. He’s a Hero. A reluctant Hero perhaps, but a Hero. He’s cynical but fundamentally decent. He doesn’t let bad things happen to helpless girls. He might grumble but he’ll do his best to save them anyway. As for saving the world, yeah he’s in favour of that, but if you want to get him truly motivated present him with a cute helpless girl who needs to be rescued. Willis also has prodigious amounts of gruff charisma.

The movie’s biggest asset is Milla Jovovich. Playing an alien is tricky. You have to make an alien seem truly alien, someone who just doesn’t react in a normal human way. Jovovich does a great job at doing just that. She also has to be so adorable that even the most reluctant hero would risk his neck to save her. Jovovich takes adorableness to whole new levels here. Any man would be willing to sacrifice anything for such a girl. She’s also incredible amounts of fun to watch.

This is an incredibly bad movie, and yet in its deranged way it’s an incredibly good movie. It just depends on what mind-altering substances you’re consuming while watching it. There is so much about this movie that is so bad. But there’s so much that is so good. There’s just no other movie like it. It’s a badly flawed work of deranged visionary genius. For all its flaws it’s an absolute must-see movie and it’s highly recommended.

It also looks terrific on Blu-Ray.

The Exorcist III (1990)

Exorcist III is the third movie in the series and the story behind the movie is more complicated than the movie.

Willian Peter Blatty, author of the original 1971 novel The Exorcist and screenwriter of the original 1973 The Exorcist movie, wrote a screenplay for a third movie. The production company, Morgan Creek, wanted changes. Eventually a screenplay more or less acceptable to both parties took shape but with a major dispute regarding the ending. Several directors were considered before Blatty decided to direct the movie himself.

After a less than successful preview Morgan Creek ordered extensive reshoots including an exorcism scene. Blatty reluctantly did the reshoots. Blatty remained very unhappy about the exorcism scene. He saw the movie as a story linked to the original story, but not an exorcism movie.

Blatty turned the original version into a very successful novel, Legion. He had always wanted Legion as the title of the movie rather than Exorcist III.

Years later Blatty’s original cut was restored (with the title Legion) using VHS footage in Blatty’s personal possession. Both the Shout! Factory and Arrow Blu-Rays include this Legion “director’s cut” as an extra so it’s possible to see the movie Blatty had wanted to make, which differs in a number of ways from the Exorcist III theatrical cut.

Lieutenant Kinderman (George C. Scott) is investigating a series of horrific murders that remind him eerily of the Gemini Killer murders, but the Gemini Killer is dead. Kinderman expresses his fears to his old buddy Father Dyer (Ed Flanders).

Much of the film takes place in the psychiatric ward of a hospital. A man known only as Patient X claims to be the Gemini Killer.

What is actually going on remains mysterious until the ending, and perhaps even after that. Patient X cannot leave his cell. He cannot be carrying out the new murders. Or can he? This is not just a series of copycat killings. Both the killer and Patient X know things about the Gemini killings that the police have never revealed.

Kinderman is a rationalist. He resists the idea that there could be anything supernatural going on here. He knows that there are things happening that are difficult to explain in any other way, but he still resists.

The plot is complicated. It involves several dead people. Not just the Gemini Killer, but also Father Damien Karris. Kinderman knows these people are dead.

It seems to have been Blatty’s intention to tell a story connected to the events in The Exorcist, and involving some of the same people, but that would not be a sequel in the usual sense. Of course his difficulty is that Morgan Creek wanted it to be a sequel in a much more straightforward sense.

There are grisly murders but they take place offscreen. This is a cerebral slow-burn horror film, until the grand guignol ending (which Blatty vehemently did not want). This is very much theological horror. I wouldn’t say that you have to be a Catholic to appreciate this film but you do need at least a vague knowledge of the basics of Catholic theology. There’s a clever well-executed dream sequence but unless you’re aware of the Catholic concept of Purgatory you’ll misunderstand it completely.

This also seems to have caused tensions between Blatty and the execs at Morgan Creeks who wanted more overt horror content.

The most significant and obvious difference Blatty’s version and the theatrical cut is the exorcism scene which is entirely absent from Blatty’s cut. Blatty was correct to feel that that scene was entirely unnecessary and damaged the film. On the other hand one can see Morgan Creek’s point of view - without that scene it’s a very talky film with very little overt horror.

The movie did poorly at the box office but whichever version had been released it would probably have done poorly. It’s an intellectual theological horror film in which the characters endlessly discuss theological questions. That doesn’t make it a bad movie, but it does make it a movie with limited commercial appeal.

Exorcist III/Legion is interesting but I have to say that it didn’t particularly grab me. But then I’m not much of a fan of The Exorcist either. I’m one of those weird crazy people who think Exorcist II: The Heretic is a masterpiece.

Exorcist III looks good on Blu-Ray. When you Blatty’s version Legion you do have to accept that the VHS-sourced inserts are VHS quality but Blatty’s version is still worth watching.

Adventures of a Private Eye (1977)

Adventures of a Private Eye was the second of the three “Adventures of” British sex comedies. It was Britain’s biggest box office hit of 1977. The previous film in the series, Adventures of a Taxi Driver (1976), had been a box-office smash as well.

Stanley A. Long was both producer and director and he owned the production company and he owned the distribution company as well. Which meant that he made a great deal of money out of these films. And they were very low-budget movies so the box-office receipts were mostly pure profit.

Bob West (Christopher Neil) is a private detective. Or at least he works for a very successful private detective, Judd Blake (Jon Pertwee). Bob West is just his assistant. Judd considers that Bob is just about capable of making the coffee and that’s it (and he’s right). When Judd heads off for a holiday with his gorgeous dolly bird secretary he gives Bob strict instructions not to try to handle any cases on his own.

Needless to say Bob ignores these instructions and when glamorous blonde Laura (Suzy Kendall) asks him to take on a case Bob agrees.

Laura is being blackmailed over some salacious photos, which is a problem because a scandal could cost her her inheritance, and that inheritance is enormous.

Naturally Bob proves to be a totally inept private eye.

The members of the family of Laura’s deceased husband might be behind the blackmail but Bob convinces himself that the culprit is photographer Scott Radley (Robin Stewart).

The case gets complicated by murder and Bob’s crime-solving efforts cause mayhem.

It has been said that the trouble with the British sex comedies of the 70s is that they’re not sexy and they’re not funny. That’s a bit unfair, but it is true in some cases. It’s certainly true here.

The basic premise is fine. One can certainly imagine a private eye getting into situations with the potential for sexiness and humour. But it all falls flat.

This is the least sexy sex comedy in motion picture history. In fact it’s a movie that gives the impression that Long was going out of his way to avoid being sexy. Time and again a situation is set up with overwhelmingly obvious potential for sexy shenanigans and absolutely nothing happens. In the entire movie there are about three very brief very tame nude scenes which occupy in total about 15 seconds of the film’s 96-minute running time.

This is a sex comedy without the sex.

There is some comedy. There are some amusing scenes. There is some amusing dialogue. But nowhere near enough. There’s plenty of frenetic action but comedy requires frenetic action and gags, and the gags are few are far between. There's too much plot and not enough fun.

Of course comedy is very much a matter of personal taste and I have to lay my cards on the table here - I am not a fan of slapstick. And this movies relies heavily on slapstick. I just don’t think that a hero who keeps falling over things is particularly funny. This was apparently deliberate. Stanley Long disliked double entendres and tried to avoid them. Which is a problem, double entendres being pretty much an essential ingredient in a sex comedy. Long loved slapstick. If you share his enthusiasm for slapstick you might enjoy this movie a lot more than I did.

Stanley A. Long was a major player in British sexploitation cinema for two decades. Which makes it intriguing that Adventures of a Private Eye is so incredibly coy.

Christopher Neil handles the lead role extremely well. I like Suzy Kendall as an actress but she was an odd choice as the female lead. She had obviously made it clear that she would not do any nude scenes or sex scenes. Since she’s not given any really funny lines either it was hardly worthwhile casting her.

Sex comedies were being made in lots of different countries at this time, for the same reasons - film industries were going down the gurgler and sex comedies at least had a chance of making money. There were Italian sex comedies, such as The Nurse (1975). Japanese sex comedies, such as Nurse Girl Dorm: Sticky Fingers (1985). And Australian sex comedies, like Alvin Purple (1973). For my money the Italian, Japanese and Australian efforts were a lot sexier and a lot funnier than the British efforts.

I’ve also reviewed Adventures of a Taxi Driver (1976) which I think is a marginally better film. For comparison I’ve also reviewed the first of the Confessions movies, Confessions of a Window Cleaner (1974). And I’ve reviewed Come Play With Me (1977) which is one of few British sex comedies that I’ve really enjoyed (and it really is very very sexy). Interestingly, Stanley A. Long despised that film. Mary Millington's other notable sex comedy, The Playbirds (1978) is also worth seeing.

I have a high tolerance for 70s British sex comedies but Adventures of a Private Eye is a bit disappointing. It’s worth a look if you’re going to buy the boxed set anyway.

All three Adventures movies are included in a Powerhouse Indicator Blu-Ray set. This movie gets a good transfer, and extras include a director’s commentary track and a fine video essay by Simon Sheridan.

The Blancheville Monster (1963)

The Blancheville Monster is a 1963 Spanish-Italian gothic horror movie made mostly in Italy but with some location shooting in Spain. It was one of the first films directed by the young Alberto De Martino and was his first foray into horror. He was rather dismissive of this early effort but it’s actually very enjoyable.

It was also released under the title Horror with Edgar Allan Poe’s name prominent on the posters. In the 60s lots of movies made use of Poe’s name despite having no connection to any of his works. In this case however this really is a very Poe-like movie. It’s not an adaptation of a particular Poe story but the Poe flavour of aristocratic decay and decadence and doom and old families descending into madness is very very strong. It uses elements from The Fall of the House of Usher and from another Poe story which I won’t name since that would reveal a spoiler.

This movie was also clearly influenced by the success of Roger Corman’s Poe films, especially his 1960 The House of Usher. The Blancheville Monster is therefore Poe with a Corman flavouring and with an Italian sensibility.

The names of the characters can be confusing since there are huge differences between the Italian-language version and the English-dubbed version. The English version indicates the setting as Brittany but the Italian version makes it clear that this is Scotland in 1884. The decaying aristocratic Blackford family in the Italian version becomes the de Blancheville family in the English version.

It’s obvious from the start that De Martino is going to throw at us every gothic trapping and cliché he can get his hands on. That’s part of the reason this movie works. If you’re going down the gothic road you might as well go all the way. Gothic horror cannot be too excessive.

We start in the forest and then we get a glimpse of a decaying gothic castle. The film was clearly shot in autumn. There’s not a single leaf on any of the trees. There’s a feeling of desolation and death.

A carriage arrives at the castle. Emily Blackford (Ombretta Colli) is fresh from school and is to be reunited with her brother Roderick (Gérard Tichy). She is accompanied by her friend Alice Taylor (Irán Eory) and Alice’s brother John (Vanni Materassi).

It’s not entirely a joyful homecoming since old Lord Blackford (the father of Emily and Roderick) was burnt to death in an accident a year earlier.

Emily discovers that old of the old familiar servants are gone, and when she asks what happened to them she gets evasive answers. This immediately offers a hint that something is not quite right at Blackford Castle.

And then Emily is introduced to the new housekeeper, Eleonore (Helga Liné). Eleonore is much too beautiful and much too glamorous and the two women distrust each other on sight. Eleonore is dressed in black and looks like a young sexy version of Mrs Danvers. We know there has to be something sinister about her.

De Martino immediately has the viewer feeling uneasy about all of the inhabitants of this crumbing castle. Roderick has taken to brooding. Eleonore is obviously sinister. The family doctor, Doctor Atwell (Leo Anchóriz), is shifty. The new butler, Alastair, is evasive.

And De Martino keeps us guessing about these people. Is Roderick haunted by the past, is he crazy, is he evil or is he just gloomy and moody? Is Emily going crazy? Is it some hereditary madness, is her mind being poisoned, is she being actually poisoned or deliberately driven insane or is she just unable to cope with the atmosphere of gloom in this castle? Is the doctor involved in some mysterious plot? Is Eleonore involved in a sinister conspiracy? De Martino offers us some hints and some red herrings as well.

The screenplay by Giovanni Grimaldi and Bruno Corbucci takes Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher as a jumping-off point but it’s not even vaguely a faithful adaptation. It’s more of a Poe-esque gothic horror mystery romance.

The Spanish locations (in a spectacular ruined abbey) are used with considerable skill. The location shooting, the matte paintings and the miniatures effects do not combine to achieve anything approaching realism, but this is gothic horror. It’s not supposed to feel realistic. This is the gothic world, a world where dream and reality intersect, where the past and present co-exist, and it’s a world of unconscious fears, drives and longings. This movie has exactly the right gothic feel. And it does look great. The black-and-white cinematography is very impressive.

There’s a rather nicely done dream sequence.

It was a very strict rule at the time that a gothic horror movie had to include a scene with the pretty heroine wandering down a mysterious sinister castle corridor in a filmy nightdress and carrying a candelabra. And preferably descending or ascending a spooky stairway. Since this movie includes every known gothic trope it naturally has such a scene.

De Martino may have been inexperienced but he was already very competent.

The Blancheville Monster may not be groundbreaking and it may not be top-tier gothic horror but it has all the right ingredients nicely combined and the result is fine entertainment. Highly recommended.

This is part of Arrow’s Gothic Fantastico Blu-Ray boxed set which also includes Lady Morgan’s Vengeance (1965), The Third Eye (1966) and the excellent The Witch (La strega in amore, 1966). The Blancheville Monster gets a lovely transfer and there’s an audio commentary.

Demon City Shinjuku (1988)

Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s supernatural anime Demon City Shinjuku (AKA Hell City Shinjuku AKA Monster City) is a follow-up of sorts to his superb 1987 Wicked City. It deals with very similar themes - a confrontation between the demon world and the human world - but does so in slightly different ways.

It begins with an epic fight between two master swordsmen, Genichiro and Rebi Ra. Both have learned to harness the life energies of the universe who gives them almost supernatural powers. Genichiro is on the side of good. Rebi Ra has sold his soul to the forces of darkness in order to gain unlimited power. Rebi Ra plans to turn the human world into another version of the demon world. He doesn’t quite succeed but he unleashes a massive localised earthquake which devastates the Shinjuku district.

Shinjuku is now a wasteland dominated by demons.

Flash forward ten years and Rebi Ra is ready to try again. Only Genichiro’s high school student son Kyoya might possibly be able to stop him.

Rebi Ra had tried to assassinate the world President. Kyoya hooks up with the president’s daughter Sayaka. Together they enter Shinjuku, with the aim of stopping Rebi Ra.

They get some assistance from a lively cynical streetwise kid.

They also encounter Mephisto. Mephisto is an ambiguous figure. He is human but so disillusioned that he figures things can’t be any worse if the demons win. But Mephisto does offer some aid to Kyoya and Sayaka. Whether he will become an ally or a foe remains to be seen.

There are lots of terrifying monsters to be defeated. Kyoya has also still not fully developed his powers and he’s running out of time to do so. He also has to defend Sayaka with whom he is slowly falling in love.

The biggest problem with this movie is that you are inevitably going to compare it to Wicked City and Wicked City is much the better movie, with ideas that are more fully developed and complex and with more complex characters. Demon City Shinjuku is just a bit too straightforward in plot terms. Kyoya doesn’t have to work hard enough to harness his full powers. Sayaka is cute and likeable but there’s not much depth to her.

We also never really feel that Sayaka is in great danger. That would have added a bit more bite to the suspense and it would have given Kyoya more of a chance to show us some emotional depth.

Mephisto is the most interesting character and perhaps the movie should have focused on him a bit more.

Demon City Shinjuku also lacks the kinky eroticism of Wicked City. Wicked City is full-blown erotic horror done superbly. The lack of eroticism in Demon City Shinjuku makes it seems a little bland.

There are no love scenes between Kyoya and Sayaka which make their romance seem a bit too much like two high school kids experiencing puppy love.

Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s involvement would lead you to expect something visually spectacular and that’s what he delivers. Demon City Shinjuku might be a slight disappoint in other ways but the animation is excellent and there are plenty of very very cool images.

The fire monster is not just visually interesting - it provides the movie’s most effectively chilling and emotionally wrenching moments. This is where we see what evil really entails. This movie needed more moments like this.

Demon City Shinjuku looks impressive and it offers action and excitement. It just doesn’t have quite enough substance to back up its unquestioned style. I’d still recommend it.

Demon City Shinjuku has been paired with Wicked City in a two-disc Blu-Ray set which I recommend.

I’ve reviewed Wicked City (1987) which really is superlative.

Gunbuster (anime OVA, 1988-89)

Gunbuster is a 1988-89 anime OVA. It features an epic struggle for survival with space monsters, giant robots, time paradoxes and scantily-clad (sometimes unclad) babes. 

An intelligent, subtle, emotionally resonant complex sci-fi tale. 

It's absolutely superb.

My full review can be found at Cult TV Lounge.

The ABC of Love and Sex: Australia Style (1978)

John D. Lamond’s 1978 ozploitation opus The ABC of Love and Sex: Australia Style was very obviously a follow-up to his 1976 success Australia After Dark so you might assume that this is going to follow the same formula. To a superficial extent it does (they’re both a collection of erotic vignettes) but it’s actually quite different in some surprising ways.

Australia After Dark is very much a mondo movie and it has all of the weirdness and all of the idiosyncracies of that peculiar genre. It’s deliberately outrageous and not intended to be taken the least bit seriously.

The ABC of Love and Sex is a sex education film. Well, sort of. Of course the intentions are entirely commercial. It is in reality a sexploitation feature. There were reasons for choosing the sex education film format, which we’ll get to later.

As the title suggests the movie goes through the alphabet, giving us brief snippets of information/entertainment on various topics related to sex. A is for Anatomy, C is for Contraception, etc.

The actors and actresses give visual demonstrations. For example, for Anatomy they take their clothes off.

There is an extraordinary amount of both male and female frontal nudity. And lots of sex.

The film was shot mostly in Melbourne but with some shooting in Sweden (including scenes in a live sex club).

This is a movie that tries to be whimsical and lighthearted but also tries to convince us that it’s a real sex education film (in fact most of the information about sex is quite factual). As a result the movie has an odd mixture of tones which gives it a certain offbeat charm.

It also tries really hard to be positive. F is for Fun. Yes, sex is allowed to be fun. Fun was legal in 1978.

Don’t expect to be convulsed with laughter but it does have a few amusing moments.

Given that it was made in 1978 you won’t be surprised to learn that it’s deliciously and gleefully and uncompromisingly offensive, dated and problematic.

It’s also entertaining in its own odd way, and erotic in a strange sort of way.

The most startling thing about this movie is that many of the sex scenes are clearly, obviously and very visibly non-simulated. Yes, these guys and gals are actually getting it on. There’s lots of visible penetration. We’re not talking about blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glimpses. There’s even very obviously non-simulated fellatio. This movie is certainly borderline hardcore. Well, actual hardcore.

Presumably the producers figured that if they presented the movie as educational they would be able to get away with a lot more. In fact they didn’t get away with it and the censors made quite a few cuts. Those cuts have been restored for Umbrella’s DVD release.

These kinds of sex education movies released as sexploitation were moderately common at the time, the best-known being the Swedish The Language of Love (1969). The Swedes of course managed to make sex seem like a dreary but necessary biological function, about as exciting as brushing your teeth. But The ABC Of Love is Australian so it suggests that sex is something you might actually enjoy doing.

The ABC of Love and Sex: Australia Style has an oddball appeal. It’s so very very 70s, and very very Australian. Recommended for those reasons. John D. Lamond went on to direct Felicity (1978), one of the best softcore erotic movies ever made.

Umbrella paired this one with Australia After Dark on a double-header DVD. The transfer is not dazzling but it’s perfectly acceptable.