THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY (1980)

Outwardly, Hoskins character looks like a businessman, but in reality he's the head of the biggest syndicate in London.  He's currently working on a huge real estate deal with the American mob that's gonna make him richer than god.  So it'd be a bad time for something negative to happen.  Something like...ohh, your right hand man getting stabbed to death, a bomb going off in your restaurant, your underlings stealing money from the IRA and a guy getting nailed to the floor.  Stuff like that could ruin your day.

THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY is a good film.  Interesting camerawork, strong direction, Bob Hoskins snarling, forward moving story, great looking vintage cars, Helen Mirren lookin' good, a young Remington Steele, solid acting all around.  The only trouble I had is that main theme song ("Taken") was so goddamn awesome that the movie just couldn't live up to it.  When that song started at the beginning of the film I was totally taken back, cause that's like a werewolf knight riding a battle-scarred dragon and killing zombies with a long sword montage music!  Yeah, there was a good amount of violence, but there wasn't anything that could rival that song.

Worth a watch.

INSERTS (1974)

In 1930, a once great silent film director (Richard Dreyfuss) is down on his luck and reduced to filming pornos in his rundown Hollywood mansion. But he can't even do that right, because instead of just leaving the camera on the tripod (like the money man wants) Dreyfuss insists on moving the camera around to give it a more realistic feel. One morning while filming an especially energetic rape scene, the money man (Bob Hoskins) shows up unexpectedly with his new girl (Jessica Harper). Stuff happens and Harper is left alone with Dreyfuss...it's quite an eventfully day.

Before sitting down to watch INSERTS I had never even heard of this film, but it ended up being quite enjoyable and somewhat shocking for the sheer amount of nudity in it. Jessica Harper is pretty much topless in entire second half of the film! Not that I'm complaining, but I do want to complain a little bit about the complete lack of Extras on the DVD. It would've been nice to at least have an audio commentary, because now that I've seen the film I have a lot of questions about it including: What was the budget? Did it make any money? What exactly did United Artists expect from a film that takes place entirely in one room and consists of pretty much nothing but talking? How did this film even get made? Maybe because of the popularity of LAST TANGO IN PARIS? If it was filmed in 1974 why was it not released until 1976 and did it have anything to do with the popularity of JAWS? Was this story based in reality at all? Was the guy the "big cheese" they spoke of F. W. Murnau? What do the actors involved with the movie think of it now and how has it affected their career?

Should you watch INSERTS? I guess that really depends on your taste in films, but I recommend it. The story is interesting; it's cleverly written to lean towards the style of 1930's romantic comedies; all of the performances are excellent; a young Bob Hoskins; a young Veronica Cartwright; you get to see Richard Dreyfuss licking nipples and also because it's such a curious little film. I honestly can't think of anything else like it.

Is this the first occurrence of the word "cunt" in a big studio movie?

Is this the first occurrence of the word "boner-rama" in a big studio movie?