In Beyond the Darkness, Frank is a young dude with feathered hair who drives around in his red serial killer van while the familiar sounds of Goblin pump out on his bitching speaker rack as he heads off to pick up that baboon he ordered a few weeks before. Unfortunately this baboon doesn’t really play much more of a part in this film and is mainly used to introduce us to Frank’s hobby, taxidermy. Continue reading “Beyond the Darkness (1979)”
Category: Italian Cinema
Agent 3S3: Passport to Hell (1965)
Secret agents get a bad rap most of the time. The nature of their business requires them to engage in all manner of morally questionable conduct. From the good old fashioned lies they have to tell even their loved ones to the random women they have to bed to maintain their cover as an international playboy to the nonstop murders they must commit in order to bring down whatever colorful evil mastermind is threatening American hegemony that week, it’s easy to lump them in with other terrible people such as bankers, politicians and soccer fans.
So when one of them demonstrates the humanity of a Ghandi or Dali Lama we should salute them. So I tip my cap to you Agent 3S3 for confirming that the woman you were assigned to screw information out of was not underage! Continue reading “Agent 3S3: Passport to Hell (1965)”
Messalina (1960)
One of history’s greatest sluts is given a very tasteful treatment in Vittorio Cottafavi’s early sword and sandal epic, Messalina. Sure, Messalina is shown coming onto everything with a bulge in his mini-skirt tunic and she’s not above being pawed by a sweaty goon solely to achieve the assassination of her emperor husband.
There’s also that time a guy sneaked into her palace bedroom to kill her, but she ended up screwing him instead. Really though, anyone would agree that was purely self defense.
And just because the only guy in Rome able to put all the pieces together to finally end her reign of horny terror is obviously a homosexual doesn’t mean that some straight guy might not finally tire of succumbing to her royal hotness and eventually halt her power grab. Like maybe when she was sixty and was forced to wear an unattractive support toga. Continue reading “Messalina (1960)”
Mark of the Scorpion (1986)
Producer Augusto Caminito is at it again! The man who brought us the most famous Italian Indiana Jones clone ever to use a longshoreman’s hook in The Mines of Kilimanjaro rents some caves in Tunisia to dramatize the legendary quest for Cleopatra’s lost treasure in Mark of the Scorpion!
If you’ve never heard of Cleopatra’s lost treasure, don’t feel like a moron for letting your subscription to Sports Illustrated For Treasure Hunters lapse because her goodies turn out to be a mostly empty trunk with an ancient scroll and a few ugly gold trinkets in it! Continue reading “Mark of the Scorpion (1986)”
Goliath and the Barbarians (1959)
Made very early in the sword and sandal cycle of the late 1950s and early to mid 1960s, Goliath and the Barbarians attempts to get by solely on the fact that the biggest name in the genre, Steve Reeves, is the featured player. The movie fails to rise above “forgettable strongman epic” but the fault in no way lies with big Steve.
Steve and his Goliath-sized guns grunt and groan mightily in an effort to heave this movie into something approaching interesting, but even his mammoth chest, no matter how much it’s glistening with hunk-sweat, can’t overcome the dull story of barbarians harassing Steve’s lower class village. Continue reading “Goliath and the Barbarians (1959)”
Blue Angel Cafe (1989)
I don’t think that Richard really wanted to be governor all that badly. Sure, he was giving interviews, holding court in his fancy office shuffling files while advising his secretary he was not to be disturbed, and having cocktail party receptions, but I don’t think his heart was in it. And I sure know his dingus wasn’t in it either! Because it kept getting into his stripper/singer girlfriend when his old lady was out of town at her mother’s! Continue reading “Blue Angel Cafe (1989)”
The Last Match (1991)
As I watched it unfold, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it about a hundred times before. It seems so obvious in retrospect. A loved one gets framed up in some nameless banana republic on drug charges. A father can’t get any help from the impotent American embassy. His daughter is facing years behind bars in such a tough prison that the warden has the father beaten during visiting hours! There’s no one left to turn to for help! Except the teammates on his professional football team! Admit it, you just got goosebumps! Continue reading “The Last Match (1991)”