[center][/center]The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968, Jess Franco) *˝[color=white]Boring 4th entry in the Fu Manchu series (but the first I have seen). Typical Franco mess with incoherent plot, poor camerawork. The Castle of Fu Manchu (1968, Jess Franco) **[/color][color=white]Definitely an improvement over Blood.
Entertaining in a comic book, Saturday matinee kind of way (I watched it on a Saturday morning). Fu Manchu plots to overtake the world by changing the oceans into ice! [/color]Some stock disaster footage added for effect.The Bloody Judge (1970, Jess Franco) **˝[color=white]Well Christopher Lee is a medieval judge who likes to sentence people to hang for things like witchcraft. Some unpleasant torture scenes thrown in as well. More historical drama than horror.Circus Of Fear (1966, John Moxey) ***[/color][color=white]Entertaining British whodunnit in which Christopher Lee wears a black mask for most of the film. King of the Grizzlies (1970, Ron Kelly) **˝[/color][color=white]Another nature-oriented Disney film. Not as intriguing as some, but a pleasant, low key viewing experience. [/color] [center][/center]Les Carabiniers (1963, Jean-Luc Godard) ***[color=white]The Godard film fest continues. This one actually ranks as one of the best Godard's I've seen yet. His amateurish, cinema verite style is a good fit to a war film. Still, annoying tricks detract from the film, this time fast cuts to black in the middle of scenes. Anyway, incredibly unlikable country bumpkins go to war so they can rape and pillage the enemy, and return home with a suitcase full of postcards. Another picture portraying the insanity of war, literally. [/color][center][/center] Elizabeth (1998, Shekhar Kapur) ***[color=white]Exquisitely photographed, vividly detailed period film. Deep down, though, it wants to be a "chick flick", with its emphasis on the doomed love between Elizabeth and her suitor. Nauseatingly romantic at times, I was actually yelling at the screen to get 'Dudley' off camera and out of the story. [/color][color=#ffffff][/color][color=#ffffff][/color]
April 7, 2004
