Friday, February 10, 2006

Black Cobra Woman – 1976

Directed by Joe D’ Amato and shot by Bruno Mattei, you’d think that this was going to be a classic flick. Unfortunately, unless you noticed the string of aka’s this film has in IMDB, you won’t guess by the name a classic what. Take a look at this:

“Black Cobra / Black Cobra Woman (UK) (DVD title) / Emmanuelle Goes Japanese (USA) (cut version) / Erotic Eva / Hot Pants (UK) (video title)”

Ahhh, what’s that Emmanuelle title doing in there? And wait, isn’t that Laura Gemser? She’s got 14 Emmanuelle titles in her discography, not counting this movie. And although her character’s name is Eva, this is an Emmanuelle movie thru and thru. It has all the conventions. Sultry looks leading to implied sex scenes. Seduction of others in front of partner. Everything you’d expect to see on Cinemax after 11PM.

Which wouldn’t be a bad thing, except this has to be the worst transfer of a movie to DVD I have ever seen. There are so many scratches and specs in the transfer that I don’t think that anyone even bothered to wipe off the film before running it thru. And the color is god-awful, showing a red tint for 10-15 minutes straight, then suddenly having everything has a green tint. There’s probably not 10 minutes of color corrected footage in the whole 98 minute mess.

I have one other quick problem with all the aka’s. Emmanuelle Goes Japanese? It takes place in Hong Kong for goodness sake. Don’t these people even know the difference between Japan and Hong Kong? Cripes!

I guessed the ending within the first 30 minutes, so don’t be expecting anything unusual or even vaguely interesting. In fact, if it wasn’t for all the nice natural boobage, this might be the first negative number movie. As it is, the naked ladies save it.

One beer out of five

The Frighteners (Director’s Cut) – 1996

I got this edition for one reason only, a Peter Jackson commentary. I already had this movie in my collection, both because it’s a Peter Jackson movie (and I have everything he’s ever done) and it has one of my favorite actors in a GREAT role, Jeffery Combs.

The movie is great (probably the last good movie Michael J. Fox did before his ailment took him out of the running), and I’ve always loved it. The extra scenes put back in by Jackson are very nice, but extend the movie to two hours. What is it with Peter and numb-butt-athons? Did you watch all the extended versions of each of the Lord of the Rings movies? Have you seen King Kong? It seems that each movie he makes gets longer and longer. Bad Taste is 91 minutes, and King Kong is 187!

The commentary is good, but like many Director’s Commentaries where they’re the only person there, he does go off into the weeds occasionally. I think its always better if there’s at least two people on a commentary. It would have been nice if he’d invited Fran Walsh. Heck, he said he was recording it at his house, and they’ve been a couple (if not actually married) for over a decade, why didn’t he just open the door and shout at her to join him?

Aside from that complaint, there’s nothing else to complain about this new edition. Subtitles are present, there’s a 4 hour “making of” (good luck getting thru all THAT!), so the completist HAS to be satisfied.

Four beers out of five