Monday, December 31, 2018

EUGENIE (1970)

"Observe this ceremony of sadism..."

Very loosely based on Marquis de Sade's "Philosophy in the Boudoir", EUGENIE tells the story of a young lady who goes to spend the weekend on a private island with a woman and the woman's brother.  Sexual hijinks ensue.  That's really about it.  If the sexual hijinks had actually been stimulating that would have been awesome, but unfortunately, EUGENIE is about as sexy as waking up to find a vampire bat nibbling peanut butter off your dick.

The young girl is drugged (at least twice) and abused, but then, when she wakes up in the morning without a scratch, she's sexually curious about her "dreams".  Eventually a more sinister plan arises, but it's so lame that it might as well been left out of the script.

Boring story, Christopher Lee lifelessly reading his boring lines, a fair amount of nudity by our two lead actresses, average acting, slow as molasses pace, that one dude from MARK OF THE DEVIL, a disappointing ending.

On the one hand, I admired the filmmakers for trying to adapt something by de Sade, but on the other hand, they did such a poor job of it that if de Sade was still alive, he probably would have hated it for being so tame. Skip it.

Monday, November 19, 2018

SUMMER RENTAL (1985)

I don’t care for comedies like this. The ones where the main character is a sad sack and/or a totally unlikable asshole and the entire movie is simply him/her bumbling around acting like a jackass and/or getting fucked over.  It's depressing.

John Candy plays a unlikable slob who sucks at his job so much that they force him to take a paid summer vacation.  Once in the fictional Citrus Cove, Florida, Candy does everything wrong right from the beginning.  Including, on the very first day, moving into the wrong house (how does that even happen?!) and then getting into very public argument in a restaurant with one of the most powerful guys in town (Richard Crenna)...who also just happens to be the landlord of the house he's supposed to be in.  The insane consequences don't stop there!  Ohhh, no...Candy also sucks so bad at sailing that he accidentally punctures a hole in the side of Crenna's boat.  After that, he takes sailing lessons from a local restaurant owner (Rip Torn) and then races Crenna in the annual Citrus Cove Regatta.  Crenna has won the last 7 years.

SUMMER RENTAL isn't a bad film, it's just really boring and frustrating to watch.  I felt zero connection with the main character and thought over and over that if I ran into him in real life, I'd most likely be irritated by him.  Example: when he walks out to the beach to meet his family, he tramples and spills cold water all over dozens of innocent people that were just relaxing.  Also, the jokes were totally lame.  At one point, Candy sees his daughter moping around, so he asks his wife "What's with Frances Farmer?"  Yeah, that's a real knee slapper!

Failed attempts at humor, boring photography, one lame topless scene, slow pace (mainly because nothing really happened for the entire film), abrupt ending, some cool old vintage movie posters in the movie theater lobby scene.  I really can't think of any reason to watch SUMMER RENTAL.  Skip it.