Super Fuzz

I saw this movie for the first time sometime in the early 1980's on HBO when I was a kid. I recall thinking it was funny and that the music was awesome. When we joined Netflix a few years ago I looked up this movie and it was not available. However, Netflix allowed you to add it to your queue and when it became available it would be listed as one of the available movies.

A few weeks ago I noticed that the move was moved from the "Saved" DVD queue up to my active DVD queue. And last week it was released to the public. However, I didn't get it until Friday. And I watched it....on Friday.

Super Fuzz is about a rookie cop named Dave Speed (Terence Hill - the famous Italian actor) who is sent by Sgt. Willy Dunlop (Ernest Borgnine) to an offshore island (as a prank) to serve a parking ticket warrant. What neither of them knew was that a nuclear bomb was going to be tested over the island. Dave Speed survives the explosion and suddenly finds that he has super powers. However, his super powers seem to come and go and he doesn't know why.

Officer Speed returns to duty and drives his Sergeant crazy with his new powers, which the sarg doesn't believe. Meanwhile, Sarg has a giant crush on Rosy Labouche (Joanne Dru) and learns that she is coming to town. What he doesn't know is that she is tied to the local mob. When Rosy learns how to disable Officer Speed's powers, she frames him for the murder of Sarg. Can justice be served before Officer Speed is put to the electric chair?

Originally released in Italy and named Poliziottot Superpiu in 1980, Super Fuzz was directed by Italian director Sergio Corbucci who directed many unfamous Italian movies. Rated PG for some minor violence, a little cussing, and an almost topless dancer, Super Fuzz is 97 minutes long and also stars Marc Lawrence and Julie Gordon as Speed's girlfriend.

The movie is super cornie. The special effects are very funny, even by 1980 standards. The music is groovy. I've never heard a single song played in one movie as much as "Super Super" was played throughout Super Fuzz. However, it's quintessential 80's. If you like all things 80's you will love this movie. And for this I give Super Fuzz 5 stars. Even my kids thought it was funny. And that makes it a winner!

Ecstasy

How many people request movies from Netflix that were produced in Prague in 1933? I have a list of what I'll call novelty movies that I throw into my Netflix queue when I need a backup. Most of these are significant for one reason or another. My latest Netflix movie was one of those.

Ecstasy, with its soft-core erotic name, is nothing of the sort by modern standards. However, in 1933, this movie blew the doors off of the film industry. The movie was even seized by customs officials when it was imported to the United States. The reason? There were three. Let's understand the plot of the movie first.

The movie is quasi-silent. There is some dialogue, but mostly the movie is music like a silent film. Hedy Lamarr stars and a newly married young bride. She marries an older man and on that wedding night they go to their room. Reason #1 - being their wedding night, there is much foreshadowing that they are preparing to consummate their marriage. There they slowly get ready for that wedding night. However, he shuns her advances and falls asleep. Meanwhile, she seductively falls asleep in bed.

Realizing her mistake she quickly files for divorce, but is unhappy. So one morning she hops on her horse and rides to a creek. You see the horse standing on the shore with her clothes laid upon its back. Then there are several long views of her swimming - naked. There was a 2 second scene of her breasts and a blurry image of her bottomless.

Reason #2 - the next scene was actually comical. The horse hears another horse and is drawn to it, leaving Hedy in the creek without her clothes. She chases the horse exposed bosoms and all, but realizes she cannot catch it. Finally a fine strapping man secures the horse, but he doesn't see her. She scampers into the woods to hide and we catch a 5 second long-view glimpse of her fully naked body. He finally sees her and tosses her clothes to her.

Reason #3 - Later, she lies awake thinking of this young man and decides to pursue him. She walks out at night, through the woods and finds his home. She enters his small hut, they embrace, she falls to the bed, he moves down "there" and the camera moves up to her face where she closes her eyes, begins to breathe heavily, then gives the quintessential silent orgasmic face, a face that graces the cover of the movie, and was briefly stolen by software maker Corel for one of their editing programs.

The movies then loses some of its steam steam. Her ex-husband returns, he meets her new fling, realizes that he cannot regain her, then ex-hubby dies, and finally Hedy tearfully leaves the new guy at the train station while he sleeps on the bench.

The novelty of the movie is that claims to be the first non-stag film to show a woman's pubic hair, though the scene shows her from what must be 100 yards from the camera, she's running from left-to-right, not facing the camera, so you only get a side-view, and the scene was like 2 seconds long. And second, as mentioned before, it implies her orgasm during oral sex.

Again, by today's standards, this movie probably would get a PG-13 rating. We've become numb to nakedness and sexuality. However, in 1933, this was a big deal.

Moreover, Hedy Lamarr made quite a name for herself outside of this film. The is also co-credited with inventing a spread spectrum device, the forerunner to wireless communications. Furthermore, she was mocked repeatedly in Blazing Saddles and even sued Mel Brooks for infringing on her right of publicity, a case that was settled out of court.

Ecstasy is 129 minutes long and did I mention that it's in German with subtitles?

I have to admit that I was more interested in the background of the movie than the actual movie. However, because of it's novelty and my anxiousness to see the movie, I'll give it 4 stars.

Slumdog Millionaire

I finally got around to watching Slumdog Millionaire. I wasn't in too much of a hurry to see this movie being that it won the Academy Award for Best Picture. In my mind this usually means that the movie sucked. Funny how my stereotypes continue to be accurate in my own mind.

Slumdog Millionaire is about a young man named Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) who is retelling the story of his life and how he knew the answers as a contestant on India's Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The movie traces his life from his early childhood growing up in the slums of India, meeting a young girl (Freida Pinto - a very attractive young lady!), a girl who's love will forever be in his heart, to the struggles with his brother and his keeper.

If you've never seen anything about India you will most likely be struck by the hopelessness and poverty that lie across the country. However, there are signs of life and a desire to do good that can overcome the evil that seems to have penetrated everything.

Throughout the movie Jamal is being held in a police station and being grilled about correctly answering so many questions on the game show. How can a slumdog know so much?

Many will find the movie inspiring, while others, like me, see this as a movie which exploits a formerly popular game show which just connects the dots in the contestants life to get the answers. I find this to be a more convenient storyline than intriguing.

The movie is 2 hours long and was directed by Danny Boyle, also known for his independent movie Trainspotting. Slumdog Millionaire is rated R for violence, disturbing images, especially of children, and some language. They also made us watch a cricket match or football (soccer) game, also worthy of an R-Rating.

Not a big fan of this movie. I give it 2 stars.

Das Boot

As we all know, VHS tapes are on the out and DVD's are here for a bit longer. We'll probably all be watching movies digitally in the next few years. However, in that time I still have my VCR and a few VHS tapes. I decided to watch them again for posterity sake while I still own a VCR.

The movie I dug out of my box for this weekend was Das Boot, the German movie about World War II - from their perspective. As any historian will tell you, history is told by the victors. In this case, the Germans decided they wanted to show what it was like for German seamen of the submarine flotilla, or Kriegsmarine.

The movie starts out with a party in some French town and everyone is totally out of their mind stupid drunk. However, they know what they're getting into. Nearly three-quarters of all Germans who went out on a submarine never returned. Most knew that there was a good chance that they would never see land again.

The next day, Captain Leutenant Henrich Lehmann-Willenbrock is led to his new boat, U-96 and they head off to sea to intercept ship convoys and sink their prey.

What is interesting about the movie is that there is a strong anti-Nazi feel amongst the men. Most seem to understand that they are being led by an ego-maniac and eminent death awaits the country.

In reading about the movie, the actors were confined to the submarine model that was created for the movie for many hours and denied sunlight. This was to help give a more realistic sense of the anxiety and darkness that the sailors would have experience at sea.

Truly a military movie classic, this is a must see. The only actor that would be known to Americans is Jürgen Prochnow who was in The English Patient, Beverly Hills Cop II, and Dune.

Das Boot is Rated R for violence, language, and tense situations. The movie is long - it's 209 minutes, which for people that attended Baltimore City Public Schools - that's 3 hours and 29 minutes. I give this movie the maximum rating - 5 stars.