This week's flicks: REVOLVER, JOAN OF ARC and SHOWGIRLS

Films/DVD Asylum

Movies from comedy to drama to your favorite Hollyweird Star.

REVOLVER: The one with Oliver Reed as a prison guard trying to free his kidnapped wife from the bad guys. A good performance from Reed (interesting to hear him do an American accent, which he pulled off convincingly), but the film seemed overlong and somewhat anticlimactic. Good atmosphere nonetheless, and still worth seeing, especially for Reed fans.
JOAN OF ARC: The Victor Fleming film with Ingrid Bergman. I had never seen this before. You can really tell it was made by the same guy who did THE WIZARD OF OZ, especially in the way it was lit and its judicious use of painted backdrops. The compositions and palette of colours used in many scenes really made it look like medieval illustrations come to life. The dialogue was old-fashioned, but fit the stylized, archetypal presentation of the story. Amusingly, the judge at Joan's trial, Cauchon (a real historical figure whose name, in French, is a homonym of the word for 'pig') was a heavy-set actor who wore an all-pink costume complete with a bulbous matching cap. The DVD transfer is fantastic visually but the sound is distorted through the first half of the movie...
SHOWGIRLS: this was my partner's and my second viewing of this 90s pop-culture phenomenon. Is it just a cheap tits and ass film, or a more advanced send-up of similar genre flicks? To be taken purely at face value, or to be savoured "au deuxiÃ¨me degrÃ©" (one step removed) as a delicious parody whose camp/satire elements were lost on at least half of its audience? Is the bad dialogue intentionally or unintentionally humourous? Is Joe Eszterhas really a feminist, as he once claimed? I will admit to being entertained, regardless.

djprobed

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Topic - This week's flicks: REVOLVER, JOAN OF ARC and SHOWGIRLS - djprobed 12:55:59 06/02/04 (0)

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