Lips of BLOOD
Jun. 3rd, 2013 11:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
handful_ofdustAfter having a three-hour nap yesterday afternoon, my sleep is officially even more fucked up than usual. I was awake until at least 4:30 AM, then slept until 10:30 AM. Am making myself write this to focus my brain.
All arrangements have been made for the trip to World Horror Con 2013 (in New Orleans, which rocks) and Readercon 2013 (where I will be hanging out with the Clockwork Phoenix crew, doing a reading of "Two Captains"--to be published in July--and leading a panel I proposed, which should be reeeaaaallly interesting, possibly Chinese-style "interesting"), so that's good. And the work I did last week on the new outline for Experimental Film is exciting and (I believe) helpful. Now I just have to keep going, and make sure it actually turns into something useful.
Over the weekend, we saw Fast and Furious 6, or whatever it was calling itself...not that I didn't enjoy it, because HELLS yes I did, but the fact is that after Fast Five, options for titular invention have become pretty limited in that franchise: Even Faster and Yet More Furious? Doesn't really have a ring. One way or the other, this crazy vehicular juggernaut continues to bring the unrepentant 'sploitation swag while simultaneously undercutting it with some of the best racial and gender parity visible onscreen today in a Hollywood film. We lost two characters, but to be frank, I would've been not only amazed but disappointed if nobody died by the end of the final act, which began with a tank driving the wrong way up a freeway (literally crushing everything in its path), then graduated to a moment of sheer awesome everyone in the packed theatre whooped and applauded for, before at last burgeoning into a sequence of almost indescribable badassedness and wanton destruction. Fittingly, those two dead characters came in like Hong Kong movies stars, and went out the same damn way.
Also, we had TWO no holds barred fights between Michelle Rodriguez and Gina Carano. Two. These are as far away from "cat-fights" as you can get, conceptually; there's a reason Carano spends most of the film partnered with the Rock, who Ludacris's character refers to as "Samoan Thor". As I clearly recall from Haywire, she the closest thing we have right now to Wonder Woman IRL, if not to a grantedly tiny She-Hulk.
We then continued the lady-friendly trend by picking up a fifteen-dollar BluRay of Hammer's The Vampire Lovers with Ingrid Pitt (and Peter Cushing, natch), and a ten-dollar DVD of Jean Rollin's Le Frisson des Vampires (Shiver of the Vampires). The first is highly overt and a lot of fun--Pitt's Carmilla has much of Christopher Lee's sheer bodily charisma, though I find it frankly impossible to believe that everyone involved with the film outright denied there was any lesbian subtext, let alone text; "You're licking her nipple and then drinking blood from her boob," I said to Steve, wonderingly. "While saying 'I love you, I will never let you go.' And then, when the girl gets all freaked out and rejects you after realizing you're a vampire, you look REALLY SAD, and disappear. What's that about, if you don't like chicks? It's not exactly strictly food-oriented behaviour."
Le Frisson, meanwhile...okay, you have to understand that Jean Rollin's films are essentially softcore; women drop their togs in pretty much every scene, almost randomly, or mope around wearing "outfits" designed by Metal Hurlant friend of his like Moebius and Driullet. But they're also avant-garde and ritualistic, full of weird philosophy and genuine humour. The "plot" is based around this crazy series of locations Rollin found, a graveyard, a castle, a beach--Isle and her new husband Antoine arrive to visit a pair of equally tall, cadaverous cousins, her only relatives, and discover that A) they've been exploring their family history and their religious links with paganism by B) becoming vampire hunters, which C) led to them being turned into vampires. Now they only come out at night, wearing freaky Carnaby Street outfits and hangin' with their two sexy female Renfields, while trying to satisfy the needs of their maker, the lesbian vampire Isolde (Dominique, who looks like David Bowie in drag).
At midnight on the first night. Isolde pops out of a grandfather clock in Isle's room, plays with her breasts for a while, then bites her on the neck. BY the second night, Antoine is already trying to get Isle to leave, without much success--Isolde emerges from a well, dressed entirely in chains and a Dracula cloak, then appears in the languishing Isle's bedroom again by suddenly twitching aside the curtains at the head of her bed and striking a pose, while a massive clap of thunder goes "CRACKA-BOWWWW!" Then she tells the cousins that she's a wandering vampire but they're bourgeois vampires, an insult they respond to by sexually assaulting her (?!). Antoine finds a hidden library, and is telekinetically buried in a huge pile of books. The lady Renfields wake him up by getting into bed with him naked, then run away giggling.
Night Three: Isolde descends through the chimney in Isle's room, just in time to tell Antoine she's making Isle into a vampire, Isle's like: "Sounds legit." (Earlier that day, they had a long conversation while Isolde was stuck inside her coffin, tapped by the sun.) Antoine is left tied to a chair, but convinces the lady Renfields he'll free them from the cousins' sway if they let him go. He runs off to confront the cousins and Isle on the beach, where they're having a massive three-way incestuous make-out session. The lady Renfields trap Isolde in the crypt, where she discovers her coffin's been set on fire and sucks her own blood for strength, but it dissolved as the sun rises. the sun also dissolves Isle and her cousins, and Antoine is left running along the beach in a frenzy of grief, shooting his useless gun randomly into the air while the lady Renfields twirl in a victorious circle until they fall over.
According to Video Watchdog's Tim Lucas, this is apparently one of Rollin's most thematically integrated films, so...yeah, I'm glad I got it and I'm glad I saw it, but I don't feel like I need to pick up any more. Softcore French vampirism, with extra bad fashion and really weird set design!
Okay, back to it.
All arrangements have been made for the trip to World Horror Con 2013 (in New Orleans, which rocks) and Readercon 2013 (where I will be hanging out with the Clockwork Phoenix crew, doing a reading of "Two Captains"--to be published in July--and leading a panel I proposed, which should be reeeaaaallly interesting, possibly Chinese-style "interesting"), so that's good. And the work I did last week on the new outline for Experimental Film is exciting and (I believe) helpful. Now I just have to keep going, and make sure it actually turns into something useful.
Over the weekend, we saw Fast and Furious 6, or whatever it was calling itself...not that I didn't enjoy it, because HELLS yes I did, but the fact is that after Fast Five, options for titular invention have become pretty limited in that franchise: Even Faster and Yet More Furious? Doesn't really have a ring. One way or the other, this crazy vehicular juggernaut continues to bring the unrepentant 'sploitation swag while simultaneously undercutting it with some of the best racial and gender parity visible onscreen today in a Hollywood film. We lost two characters, but to be frank, I would've been not only amazed but disappointed if nobody died by the end of the final act, which began with a tank driving the wrong way up a freeway (literally crushing everything in its path), then graduated to a moment of sheer awesome everyone in the packed theatre whooped and applauded for, before at last burgeoning into a sequence of almost indescribable badassedness and wanton destruction. Fittingly, those two dead characters came in like Hong Kong movies stars, and went out the same damn way.
Also, we had TWO no holds barred fights between Michelle Rodriguez and Gina Carano. Two. These are as far away from "cat-fights" as you can get, conceptually; there's a reason Carano spends most of the film partnered with the Rock, who Ludacris's character refers to as "Samoan Thor". As I clearly recall from Haywire, she the closest thing we have right now to Wonder Woman IRL, if not to a grantedly tiny She-Hulk.
We then continued the lady-friendly trend by picking up a fifteen-dollar BluRay of Hammer's The Vampire Lovers with Ingrid Pitt (and Peter Cushing, natch), and a ten-dollar DVD of Jean Rollin's Le Frisson des Vampires (Shiver of the Vampires). The first is highly overt and a lot of fun--Pitt's Carmilla has much of Christopher Lee's sheer bodily charisma, though I find it frankly impossible to believe that everyone involved with the film outright denied there was any lesbian subtext, let alone text; "You're licking her nipple and then drinking blood from her boob," I said to Steve, wonderingly. "While saying 'I love you, I will never let you go.' And then, when the girl gets all freaked out and rejects you after realizing you're a vampire, you look REALLY SAD, and disappear. What's that about, if you don't like chicks? It's not exactly strictly food-oriented behaviour."
Le Frisson, meanwhile...okay, you have to understand that Jean Rollin's films are essentially softcore; women drop their togs in pretty much every scene, almost randomly, or mope around wearing "outfits" designed by Metal Hurlant friend of his like Moebius and Driullet. But they're also avant-garde and ritualistic, full of weird philosophy and genuine humour. The "plot" is based around this crazy series of locations Rollin found, a graveyard, a castle, a beach--Isle and her new husband Antoine arrive to visit a pair of equally tall, cadaverous cousins, her only relatives, and discover that A) they've been exploring their family history and their religious links with paganism by B) becoming vampire hunters, which C) led to them being turned into vampires. Now they only come out at night, wearing freaky Carnaby Street outfits and hangin' with their two sexy female Renfields, while trying to satisfy the needs of their maker, the lesbian vampire Isolde (Dominique, who looks like David Bowie in drag).
At midnight on the first night. Isolde pops out of a grandfather clock in Isle's room, plays with her breasts for a while, then bites her on the neck. BY the second night, Antoine is already trying to get Isle to leave, without much success--Isolde emerges from a well, dressed entirely in chains and a Dracula cloak, then appears in the languishing Isle's bedroom again by suddenly twitching aside the curtains at the head of her bed and striking a pose, while a massive clap of thunder goes "CRACKA-BOWWWW!" Then she tells the cousins that she's a wandering vampire but they're bourgeois vampires, an insult they respond to by sexually assaulting her (?!). Antoine finds a hidden library, and is telekinetically buried in a huge pile of books. The lady Renfields wake him up by getting into bed with him naked, then run away giggling.
Night Three: Isolde descends through the chimney in Isle's room, just in time to tell Antoine she's making Isle into a vampire, Isle's like: "Sounds legit." (Earlier that day, they had a long conversation while Isolde was stuck inside her coffin, tapped by the sun.) Antoine is left tied to a chair, but convinces the lady Renfields he'll free them from the cousins' sway if they let him go. He runs off to confront the cousins and Isle on the beach, where they're having a massive three-way incestuous make-out session. The lady Renfields trap Isolde in the crypt, where she discovers her coffin's been set on fire and sucks her own blood for strength, but it dissolved as the sun rises. the sun also dissolves Isle and her cousins, and Antoine is left running along the beach in a frenzy of grief, shooting his useless gun randomly into the air while the lady Renfields twirl in a victorious circle until they fall over.
According to Video Watchdog's Tim Lucas, this is apparently one of Rollin's most thematically integrated films, so...yeah, I'm glad I got it and I'm glad I saw it, but I don't feel like I need to pick up any more. Softcore French vampirism, with extra bad fashion and really weird set design!
Okay, back to it.
