Charles T. Tatum, Jr.

Monday, September 16, 2024

Exhibition (1975)

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The only thing notable about this navel-gazing documentary detailing the life of a French "erotic" film actress was its acceptance into the mainstream New York Film Festival (so chic!). While scandalous in its day, the film is an exercise in tedium, with occasional explicit sex scenes to wake a snoozing audience.

Claudine Beccarie is a thirty-year old porn actress. She handles all of her own job offers and representation, so director Jean-Francois Davy captures her on phone calls lining up work and trying to get paid for past performances. The hardcore sexual scenes in the film are not from any of her previous films, however. Davy sets up Beccarie and some of her co-stars to have sex on cue, and then talks to them about the psychology of what they are doing. We get to have an obligatorily uncomfortable interview with Beccarie and her mother, both of whom remember Claudine's upbringing a little differently, and Beccarie's fiance, who is ten years her junior.

Davy is more fascinated with Claudine than the viewer is. Most of the female actresses have overly-plucked eyebrows, so they wear an expression of mild surprise during the screen time. Beccarie is an attractive woman who could have had a career in mainstream films if she had chosen that route. Instead, she seems to be working on her inner demons through pornographic film making, touting her individualism and freedom. The mid-70's decor and fashion are hilarious. Davy spends a lot of time onscreen himself, in scenes that seem planned and artificial. Claudine's story of living in a brothel after leaving home as a teenager sounds like the plot to a soap opera she had watched pre-interview. One sex scene with her and an attractive young man is cringe-worthy because the man either doesn't speak French and cannot respond to Claudine's questions and direction, or he might be mentally deficient. It's odd that we watch Claudine and her friends in all their naked glory, copulate on camera, get an interview with the people in her life, yet the one subject she refuses to discuss is her politics.

Sitting through the two weird epilogues, and a cursory online check, shows this entire two-hour exercise, which took me days to watch, is moot. For all of Beccarie's condescension about the porn film business- what she does is erotica, not porn- and her slamming of that new American hit "Deep Throat," she ended up leaving the hardcore sexual film industry a year or two after this was made. Davy would go on to make other "Exhibition" films, focusing on a different subject, but if they are anything like this, I don't want to spend another two hours or so having to listen to the drivel, unless it's coming from an actress named Beatrice Harnois who pops up way too late in this film, and is unbelievably, sadly beautiful. Her initial scene is a yawn-fest as one actress reads some erotica she wrote (yeah, right) while the cast members badly act it out. This one star's story got two stars from me years ago when I initially reviewed it, but now I grade all porn with zero stars.

Stats:
(1975) 110 min. (0) out of five stars
-Directed by Jean-Francois Davy
-Cast: Claudine Beccarie, Benoit Archenoul, Noelle Louvet, Beatrice Harnois, Frederique Barral, Jean-Francois Davy, Michel Dauba, Ellen Earl, Patrick Segalas, Mandarine, Noel Simsolo, Didier Faya
(X)

Boys Don't Cry (1999)

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Hello. Welcome to another negative review of a universally triumphed film. I hate to break this to the good citizens of Hollywood, but there are literally hundreds of millions of people in-between the coasts of California and New York who are not "looking to get out" of their small town existences. Please stop trying to make us feel wrong for the location we have picked to live.

Based, very very very loosely, on a true story, Swank is Teena Brandon, who cuts her hair short and becomes Brandon Teena. She is a troubled soul with big dreams about owning a mobile home park, and who likes to pass as a boy in order to be with other women. She leaves Lincoln, Nebraska, lands in Falls City, and meets up with John (Peter Sarsgaard), who introduces her to his screwed up extended family. Everyone here drinks too much, smokes too much, and works dead-end jobs so they can leave this "godd@mn town." Brandon also meets Lana (Chloe Sevigny), falls in love with her, and they make plans to leave Nebraska for a glistening fantasy life in Memphis- then the cornhusks hit the fan. Brandon is imprisoned on a traffic violation and is found out to have been born a woman. Everyone reacts the way movie white trash should react, and the final forty five minutes of the film is an orgy of drunken sexual assault and murder.

Let me state that Hilary Swank deserved every award heaped upon her. She has a perfect look, and I sometimes forgot she was an actress immersed in the lie Teena Brandon lived. For years now, Hollywood has doled out all this cow plop about how horrible it is to live in the flyover country, and I am sick of it. After the horrible murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming, some celebrities were literally disappointed that they weren't attacked by rubes on the tarmac when they left their L.A. bubble to come fix things- but be sure to see their latest film or television project.

The Nebraska of this film is not Nebraska, and I figured it out early. Kimberly Peirce directs the film with all the subtlety of acid thrown in your eyes, and at one point shows us a director-y shot of a big city skyline- Dallas'. Reading the credits, this film proudly states that it was shot in Dallas, Texas. I can honestly say there are more than a few differences between Texas and Nebraska. For one thing, the white trash cast here all have Texan drawls that are never explained. The film makers make a point of how horrible Nebraska is, yet do not even back up their hatred with accurate locations (I was born in Texas, and graduated from high school in Nebraska, so I know my stuff).

The entire cast is awful. Not awful actors, but awful human beings. One of the people portrayed sued the film makers for defamation of character, and you have to wonder what other liberties the co-writer/director took. Brandon Teena does not come off as a heroic martyr, she comes off as an idiot who could not seem to wake up, smell the stale beer, and SKIP TOWN. Peirce throws us into this cesspool, never explains WHY Teena did what she did, and still expects us to be moved and angered. Peirce has some good moments here and there, but after all the decadence in the first part of the film, the viewer may find themselves dulled to the horrific assault and murder scenes, which leave nothing to the imagination. If anything, I felt bad for the real people involved, who had to relive this nightmare on film in order to shock an audience- although for some reason, one of the victims of the killing spree isn't mentioned in the film. I dare use the word "exploitation" to describe the extended rape scene and the murders. While these scenes are strong and shocking, do not let them anger you into thinking this film is gospel fact, and therefore, good cinema. For a horrific true crime story, see the original film version of "In Cold Blood," that film will stay with you for days for what they did NOT show.

This is a ghastly story that needs to be told. I just think the money may have been better spent on a documentary with the people involved, not a skewed perspective masquerading as an independent film. "Boys Don't Cry" is not worth the tears.

Stats:
(1999) 118 min. (* 1/2) out of five stars
-Directed by Kimberly Peirce
-Written by Kimberly Peirce & Andy Bienen
-Cast: Hilary Swank, Chloe Sevigny, Peter Sarsgaard, Brendan Sexton III, Alicia Goranson, Alison Foland, Jeannetta Arnette, Rob Campbell, Matt McGrath, Cheyenne Rushing, Robert Prentiss, Josh Ridgway, Craig Erickson
(R)

Saturday, September 14, 2024

Apache Blood (1973)

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This mess ranks up there, or down there, with the absolute worst films ever made, Western or otherwise.

Bold, unimportant narration tells us that Chief Yellow Shirt (Ray Danton) is hunting down white men because they broke a treaty. He and all three of his braves find a small squad of U.S. soldiers and take after them. Among the soldiers is Sam Glass (Dewitt Lee), a mountain man who is attacked by a bear in the funniest scene in the movie and left for dead. I assume one of the writers was familiar with "The Revenant" story. Sam eventually regains consciousness and starts fighting off the warriors while trying to catch up with the soldiers. Eventually, both sides are killed down to Yellow Shirt and Sam, who now race across the desert, try to outsmart each other, and survive wind storms, snakes, and hallucinations of their respective women.

I cannot give too much away from the ending because I am still trying to figure it out. Let me just say it is perhaps the stupidest plot twist of all time, and do not take this as a peaking of your curiosity to go find this thing. The editing seems to have been done with a chainsaw. This is beyond bad, this is so inept you will want to hurl things at the television, whether it be physical objects or your semi-digested lunch. The acting is terrible, the direction seems to have been achieved by one of my toddlers, and the film is padded so heavily to stretch this to an hour and a half, you could use the screenplay as a flotation device in the event of a water landing.

How this was made, marketed, dubbed onto video, and found its way to my local video store decades ago is a great mystery that may never be answered through the coming ages, but I guarantee you will be hard pressed to watch a more idiotic example of film making. Also known as "Pursuit," this is a waste of time and money.

Stats:
(1973) 86 min. (1/2 *) out of five stars
-Directed by Vern Piehl
-Screenplay by Dewitt Lee and Jack Lee
-Cast: Ray Danton, Dewitt Lee, Troy Nabors, Diane Taylor, Jason Clark, Dave Robart, William Chadwick, Carl Mancini, Earl Baldwin, Wilford 'Whizzer' White, Carl Nelson, Jack Lee, Eva Kovacs
(R)