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Sunday Double Header

Due to severe boredom, rainy skies and no kickball, yesterday became a movie double header of Bananas and Danger: Diabolik. I gotta say, I enjoyed both of them, but for very different reasons.

I've only seen a few of Woody Allen's "classic" movies: Manhattan, Annie Hall and Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask. Great stuff, but Allen has done so many movies that you have a hard time keeping up if you're a casual fan. Bananas is more of a slapstick satire than a dramatic comedy but it still has a heart. I want to see more of these kinds of Allen flicks. Looks like I'll be bumping up Play it Again, Sam and Sleeper on my Netflix queue . . .

Like a lot of people, I was first exposed to Danger: Diabolik through the Beastie Boys' "Body Movin'" video. When I saw the film on Mystery Science 3000, I thought it was a really terrible movie that looked really good. The sets are really cool but the acting was really ham-handed and campy. Well, I don't think my opinion has changed since yesterday's viewing, but I found more things to appreciate. Bava's direction is very cool with his use of wild colors and crazy angles. Combined with Ennio Morricone's score, these things are advantages. Probably the biggest distraction is the film's looping: the words you hear are rarely in sync with the actors' lips. So add that to very little character development and the over-the-top acting, you have a great B-movie.

Some of the next movies on my list are Slacker, Waking Life and Catching the Friedmans. Hopefully I'll have something to do next weekend and not feel like watching movies is my only alternate.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Ohhh, now. How could you have been bored with Juliet around?

I think I'm still trying to recover from the shaggy dog's visit!
9:35 AM
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