RECENT VIEWINGS (Bad Movie Thread!)

[LilCerberus]

Cerberus - do you ever watch good movies?

Why would I do that?
Everybody's already seen 'em!

[lester1/2jr]

good point

[Rev. Powell]

NINJA TERMINATOR (1986): In Movie A, ninjas fight over three pieces of a golden statue that will make them invulnerable; in Movie B, a lone hero takes instructions from characters in Movie A (via teleconference on a Garfield phone) who then fights a triad gang that has captured a female who is made integral to the plot of movie A through the magic of dubbing. This is probably Godfrey Ho's most "beloved" cut-n-paste ninja movie; it's necessarily confusing but actually easier to follow than most of the others, the fight scenes are good, and there's absurdity aplenty. The ninjas wear more eyeliner than JD Vance! 4/5 for a bad movie, 1.5/5 on a mainstream movie scale.

[M.10rda]

CAPTIVE WOMEN 4 aka FRAULEIN KITTY (1977):
Archival WW2 footage is followed by a parade of credits that will be suspiciously familiar to anyone who's seen a few Eurocine productions. I was positive for a while that this was either a Jess Franco film or an Erwin C. Dietrich film, but research reveals it is not, and indeed CW4/FK is so competently - and frankly tastefully - directed that late 70s participation of Franco or Dietrich seems impossible. Yes, there's a leather thighboot-wearing female officer named "Elsa"  who is tasked to run a locomotive brothel for the pleasure of the SS; yes, there's an obligatory (though oddly lifeless) "inspecting the recruits" sequence; yes, ugly men in German uniforms get grinded upon by topless and or naked ladies, in sub-softcore fashion (hence I didn't review this in "Is It Porn?"). But there's also a lot of plot and character development. Who slipped all this content in our Nazi sexploitation flick?!

I ain't exactly complaining about the lack of sleaze or relative thoughtfulness of this project, though it does confuse me. Malisa Longo (who was in Tinto Brass' SALON KITTY) is a more complex and (imho) sexier She-Wolf than Dyanne Thorne. Patrizia Gori is the sweet young thing in Longo's crosshairs and plays the role with a lot of aplomb. Then there's a guy named Oliver Mathot who looks a bit like Sam Waterston and plays the central male Nazi, who (of course) is highly conflicted about being a Nazi and really would shift to the side of the angels if that was ever a realistic possibility. Mathot was an extra in real movie NIGHT OF THE GENERALS and also appeared in tons of Franco/Eurocine sleaze. The entire idea of his character offends me as apologist propaganda, but Mathot has lots of decent dialogue (including long soliloquys!) to back him up, and he throws himself at the role with such commitment and gusto you'd think his agent was buying Oscar Consideration ads in Variety or something.

The fact that I can't think of another Nazi "sex" film w/ three performances as strong as those in CW4/FK only underlines the overall indifference I felt towards the film at the end. It's reasonably well-made, but it's a Nazi "sex" film - maybe I just don't like Nazi "sex" films that much! 

2.5/5
I could only think of two previous films with the words "Captive Women" in the title and neither were Nazi movies, so I googled "Captive Women" 1, 2, and 3, and none of those were the two films with the words "Captive Women" in the title I was thinking of and none of the three were Nazi flicks either. WTF...