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Reviews
Piranha (1978)
Guests are the main course today, sir !
Joe Dante is an extraordinary ironic man, with a cartoonist temperament. I met him a week ago and gave an embalmed piranha to him. He chuckled. "Piranha", the movie, undoubtedly hands trace of his personality. It's like a prawn cocktail, a river and nihilist drama, a sort of nonstop run from top to valley while everything dissolves in a slow underwater immersion. There aren't float, life belt or dike able to embank tourist ambitions and insane, scientific expectations: a swarm of furious and mutant fishes is going to delete unwitting. Fomented by the uneasy music that Pino Donaggio cleverly composed, the tail depicts its Vietnam's squabble and apocalyptic facet only shyly, wrapping it all in a toy box: dialogues are bright, humor never gets dull, photography shimmers as shines upon the water, references to other movies fit perfectly as dolls in a "matrioska" do; water tempers blood and plays hide and seek with creatures, among silent tangles of legs. "Aquarena resort" (Texas) it's sort of a petite Disneyland, crowded by swimmers: confluence and terminal of all the fears fed up during the preceding steps. Paul's afraid for his little daughter's safety and Maggie's full of shame for having unintentionally released the carnivores from a tube; so they trip toward that direction, jumping into a progressive slope to Hades whose circles are populated by foolish, involved military hierarchies, idealist and inhuman scientists and even more mephistophelian businessmen: unaware people's vulnerability is their main entrée, not the fishes'one. Several claims for help pass through the holes of an invisible net that doesn't even save children: as in a bad fairytale the wolf in sheep's clothing will eat their naivety. Not to mention the evanescent mapping of the whereabouts - from the lurking laboratory to the pretty unknown shores - and the folk's total blindness to the launched alert, both give to this race a nightmarish dimension. Bradford Dillmann's already known for his troubled experiences in ecological "Swarm" and "Bug" before: here he comes as a two-slices character, undergoing an inexplicable changeover that resembles the fishes' shift as if ancestral fears for the danger surrounding him could accelerate his primary instinct by transfiguring it. Obviously, "Piranha" it's a "Jaws" rip-off but, in my humble opinion, is far than a simple copy and it's more "à la carte". Taste it!
Qualcosa di biondo (1984)
Something blond: something tender and sweet.
"Qualcosa di biondo" a.k.a. "Aurora" is a delightful and moving picture. Edoardo Ponti - Sofia Loren's son - performs a tender blind child, Ciro. He and his mother Aurora share an hopeful trip across Italy to collect enough money and undergo surgery to regain the sight he lost subsequently to a fall. All Ciro can remember about the last time he looked at himself is only... "something blond". Since the beginning, we are pervaded by a protective instinct towards his fragility and liking: he's vulnerable, sweet and delightful at the same time. We sympathize with his issues and the bold bond that blends mother and son together though their adventure. At one point, the emotion seizes the storyline when the young boy struggles among a legitimate willing of seeing life through his own eyes rather than those of his mother and the repulsion for what he could only perceive about humanity and its most puzzling aspects: egoism, to start with. Fearing the changing could be too much to stand, he also tries to flee away from the perspective, jeopardizing the only chance he has to become self-sufficient. Despite his little age, Edoardo gives a really touching performance along with Sofia Loren, giving us two different perceptions about the world and its contradictions in a warm, heartbreaking and sentimental journey. Recommended.
Dogs (1977)
Barks and bites ... biological terror runs between your legs
What if one day, your cute puppy dog starts taking a run at you and biting your hand or feet? You'd probably think "it's time I get it to its veterinary". But what if a pack of dogs starts assaulting people with wild abandon in a little town in California? DOGS tries to teach us how it could be. After having repeatedly witnessed to all kind of animals attacking humanity between '60s and '70s flicks, here it comes this movie. I pretty like it and it was given to me by chance while I was purchasing a video recorder, about twenty years ago. Very hard to catch I'm afraid, not even on DVD 'till now. From the beginning, I was intrigued by David McCallum and Linda Gray, this one starring as Mrs. Engle before jumping into the Sue Ellen's odyssey on the TV drama DALLAS. And I found interesting the movie was mostly shot closing to the floor at the characters' foot, while they're stroking the pets. Just there, I spotted a reference to a fortunate dog movie series in the '70s: BENJI. But Hitchcock's devices, you know, insinuate all over this era. So what if THE BIRDS over cross the set, taking a little trip from Bodega Bay to Chula Vista, San Diego? Therefore a dogs' parade could become a children and ladies' flight with dogs acting in the way Hitchcock would have directed them and angrily barking and running after innocent, unarmed children and populace. Therefore a man could try to protect his refuge and loves from attacks by covering doors with boards and planks. And differently from the other ones, a dog could resemble the pacific couple of Melania Daniels' caged lovebirds. But what about PSYCHO and its unforgettable scene under the shower? Guess! Anyway, I really appreciate the way the director devised his inspirer sources: he surely set up an original tale with a good location in Southwestern University. Not to mention other influences on it - as SQUIRM on the same year or BUG one year before - this movie really charms due to its scientific and biological explanation: an high energy accelerator near campus maybe drives the dogs crazy. It makes all more realistic than ever, even if political reasons and hidden researches spoil the plot as those in Joe Dante's PIRANHA do.
***Possible SPOILER ahead***
Considering also THE STRAWBERRY STATEMENT movie (1970), You could compare its ending to the one in DOGS. Centering the attention on campus, both of the films turn fatefully to a final massacre between young students living there. The canine mass acts as the police does in the other movie, making us believe society must pay an heavy price because of its political and scientific strategies. This last and the scene about the pets' exposition are my favorite ones. 6/10
Rollercoaster (1977)
Tracks,sparks,frequencies.Bottoms'up to an explosive ride into a...masterpiece!
I knew this movie in my childhood and still now I watch it time by time because it mesmerizes me.Both Italian and American version are good.
OCEANVIEW PARK,Virginia: the carriages of a roller-coaster collapse after the explosion of a bomb that uproots a stretch of tracks.Roller-coaster opens with this shocking premise.Who's behind all this mess? A psycho extortionist, brilliantly played by a really cute BOTTOMS.His performance gives the best of him, carrying on an impressive sense of isolation and anonymous danger.He's an enigmatic shadow eclipsing crowded amusement parks and embodying a mimetic threat that strikes against carefree sunny festivities and unaware middle-class families. It's a nightmare without even a name.Do you remember "Two minute warning"?I usually consider both of these tales under the same allegory.In one, there is a shooting man whose identity remains unknown.In the other, there is a terrorist you can look at but uselessly 'cause he's inscrutable detached remote.One man uses the gun to shot people indistinctly from a tiny tower of a stadium.The other uses a modern technological enjoying trap as a weapon.Anyway, all of us could be the deadly target under a deranged stranger's sight. SPOILER ahead:Roller-coaster comes to height in one of my favorite scenes.At last,BOTTOMS and not less extraordinary SEGAL (on the other side of the track)come face to face as two medieval soldiers after a long-desperate battle.Really you can't say who's the winner between them.BOTTOMS is hating his prosecutor and stares at him in anger and defenselessly.SEGAL's quiet and resigned as ever, but in the middle of the match...the lethal weapon strikes again (see also THE BLACK CAR or CASSANDRA CROSSING).Not even the master can dominate his modern mechanical horses, pushed by centrifugal forces.In the best tradition taught by '70s movies, society pays always an high price due to its way of mechanizing reality (remember Austherity and oil crisis in that period).During the movie,Mr.GOLDSTONE cleverly catches pieces of dialogs between parks' frequenters on the other side, showing current conflicts of an ordinary life.So the parks become a frame surrounding a little universe where the bomber acts on his own.Schifrin's soundtrack's overwhelming and it reminds PSYCHO and THE JAWS. The SPARKS rock band gives the final touch, over crossing. I've red Mr.GOLDSTONE has passed away and I'm upset due to this new. He'll be one of my greatest idols, ever. 10/10
Avalanche (1978)
God's styrofoam hand punishes spoilt high society by trapping it in a snow-whirlpool!
AVALANCHE is a little gem, all-stars disaster movie that closes a fortunate decade about the genre and that belongs to my childhood. In the beginning, the plot concentrates most on the characters but You can feel the tension growing up as the danger moves closer. As the temperature starts freezing, Mr. Shelby (HUDSON) opens his icy resort to you (watchers) and to his spoilt and restless guests, including his ex-wife Caroline (Mia Farrow).Before the avalanche begins, you are overwhelmed by an atmosphere made of passionate triangles, betrayals,building trade corruption,unrestrained fun... All this seems to be a short holiday from the city and the family life taken by an hedonistic society. You can breathe all the spirit of a winter vacation in the late '70es (SPOILER ALERT) 'til GOD - a little plane without fuel- crashes on the crest of a Colorado mountain and starts the avalanche...to punish all this mess: a self-obsessed athlete, a too much self-confidence landlord, an old too much drinking woman and so on...I really like this movie even if some characters and story lines are predictable. I found Mia Farrow and Robert Forster very believable, also as a couple.Farrow brings a welcomed humble and meek touch all over the movie and she's very sweet. I like very much the scene shoot-ed near the window during the snowstorm, when Forster joins her and they embrace each other. And I find very impressive the soundtrack you can hear when the blocks of snow fall down and down. Hudson overacts in the beginning but slows down as the tragedy becomes more concrete. I'll always remember the snow whirlpool sweeping away the ice skaters and the ambulance exploding under Miss Farrow's feet. 7/10
All My Children (1970)
Passion,glamour,killings and tornadoes: let's go to the green pine valley
One day,in the afternoon,I saw a pretty blond guy who was delivering a Christmas present to a middle-class family. Shortly after, the old lady started moving towards the basement, with the parcel in her hands and while she was going down the stairs I could hear the sound of a ticket bomb cluttering between the other gifts, ready to explode. It was 1989 and since then I couldn't stop watching AMC a.k.a. " LA VALLE DEI PINI ", here in Italy. The blond guy was Gregory Nelson and the family with the bomb in the basement were the Martins. At once, I was captivated by Agnes Nixon's little P.V. and I found some similarities between Erica Kane (working for SENSUELLE) and Lorna Forbes (working for AMOURELLE in the other Nixon's TV show LOVING). I started recording episodes from Greg's fall down from a catwalk and hospitalization 'till his wedding with sweet sweet Jenny (one of the most intense and deep love story I've never seen). Glamorous Erica was living with her phony half-sister Silver,who was trying hard to set up a trap in order to steal Erica's man and modeling job. She did it so cunningly that the beauty - queen was forced to go to the psychiatrist for suffering nervous breakdown and amnesia. I loved the storyline concerning Nina and Steve: I remember the tail of a cyclone battering their helicopter and killing Steve. And I remember Nina's sister-in-law , auburn Linda Warner , burgling safes in P.V. And the Cortlands and the Chandlers' twins saga... Still now, when I enter this little lively place , I can breathe the spirit of American province ( and get short trips in NYC ) and I love staying with all these past and present characters, making myself at home. I'd like Susan Lucci to keep on surprising us and eventually to win another deserved Emmy Award!
Black Christmas (1974)
... when the phone starts to "thrill"... the best thriller you've ever seen begins! Thanks Mr. Clark!
I was only 9 when I first watched to this wonderful, unforgettable, mysterious picture and I felt in LOVE with it. The second time, I got it on a secondary channel, here in Italy, but it was 4:00 a.m. so my father had to throw me out of my bed in order to watch to it again after a long, desperate wait. Now I'm grown up but I never get tired to talk about it. During my short life, I have watched to a lot of slasher and thriller movies but none of them could compete with this. You can't say you really know this genre if you haven't seen this movie. There are a lot of gimmicks and emblems that you can get about it: the attempts to trace the source of the phone calls, the phone calls themselves, Jesse's slowly climb up the stairs with the fireplace pocket in her hands, her lonely fight and run from the killer through the empty, old house towards the basement, the killer's shapes and his frightening and staring EYE behind the door, his hide-and-seek in the attic and his hysterical personality. All this means a great proof in the history of the Cinema. The cast is all perfect, the colours are brilliantly composed and I have a special devotion to Mr. CLARK, the director, simply a genius. My compliments to his courage facing problems like abortion and violence between guys, on Campus. All my recognitions to the incomparable and beautiful Hussey's performance. Thanks to this movie, you can now appreciate films like " Hallowen", " When A Stranger Calls"," Friday the 13th", "Scream"... All these are ITS sons. That's a pity because I haven't got anymore room to type in , otherwise I could chat about this movie over and over again!