Movies: Levres de Sang, Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows
On the one hand, nekkid French vampire ladies - on the other, Sherlock Holmes! I thought I knew which one I'd like better--but I was wrong!
Jean Rollin, the director of movies like La Vampire Nue and Les Bacchanales Sexualles, kinda grows on you after a while. Levres de Sang ("Lips of Blood"), features a man who suddenly regains a lost childhood memory after seeing a photo of a ruined building where, as a child, he met a mysterious and enchanting young woman. People alternately help and hinder his quest to track down the building and find out what happened to the young woman, including a bunch of lady vampires in transparent gowns. There's quite a lot of casual nudity, but nowhere near as much sex as Les Bacchanales Sexuelles, so what little plot there is flows much better. [There's also full frontal male nudity. It's nice to see equal opportunity exploitation.] The movie as a whole is very dreamlike and the ruins are stunning.
Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows is a very noisy and busy extravaganza that is occasionally recognizable as having something to do with Sherlock Holmes, but more often resembles a sort of steampunk spy caper. Not that there's anything wrong with steampunk spy capers, mind you, except that the filming style was so choppy that it was hard to follow the action. I actually enjoyed the last twenty minutes or so more than the previous hour and a half. And Stephen Fry was a lot of fun as Mycroft. But overall . . . meh.
Jean Rollin, the director of movies like La Vampire Nue and Les Bacchanales Sexualles, kinda grows on you after a while. Levres de Sang ("Lips of Blood"), features a man who suddenly regains a lost childhood memory after seeing a photo of a ruined building where, as a child, he met a mysterious and enchanting young woman. People alternately help and hinder his quest to track down the building and find out what happened to the young woman, including a bunch of lady vampires in transparent gowns. There's quite a lot of casual nudity, but nowhere near as much sex as Les Bacchanales Sexuelles, so what little plot there is flows much better. [There's also full frontal male nudity. It's nice to see equal opportunity exploitation.] The movie as a whole is very dreamlike and the ruins are stunning.
Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows is a very noisy and busy extravaganza that is occasionally recognizable as having something to do with Sherlock Holmes, but more often resembles a sort of steampunk spy caper. Not that there's anything wrong with steampunk spy capers, mind you, except that the filming style was so choppy that it was hard to follow the action. I actually enjoyed the last twenty minutes or so more than the previous hour and a half. And Stephen Fry was a lot of fun as Mycroft. But overall . . . meh.