It's a day ending in "y," so here are some more movies, most of them bad:
DIAVOLO IN CORPO (1986): Sexually explicit but generally lackluster Franco-Italian drama about an affair between a high school boy, Andrea (Federico Pitzalis), and a 20something woman called Giulia (Maruschka Detmers), who's engaged to a political prisoner currently lobbying for release under a new clemency law. Loosely adapted from Raymond Radiguet's 1923 novel LE DIABLE AU CORPS, the film departs so much from the original story that one struggles to see the point: In the novel, the boy (who narrates) and his mistress (whose name is Marthe, not Giulia) are both teenagers — when they meet, they're 15 and 18 respectively — and Marthe is engaged and later married to a soldier away fighting in WW1. Stripped of that context, Radiguet's sardonic first-person narration, and most of the novel's plot, the script preoccupies itself with painting Giulia as a maniac who threatens to castrate her young lover while he's sleeping and may have had an affair with his therapist father — bleah! (The book, which Radiguet wrote at 18 and which was at least semi-autobiographical, has been adapted several times, some more faithful than others.) CONTAINS LESBIANS: No. VERDICT: Greatly inferior to the source novel, with little to offer besides sex and misogyny.
THE MACK (1973): Unexceptional blaxploitation drama about an ex-con called Goldie (Max Julian), newly released after five years in prison on a robbery beef, who decides to reinvent himself as a pimp, much to the dismay of his politically conscious brother (Roger E. Mosley). Richard Pryor has a noncomedic supporting role as Goldie's childhood friend and one-time co-conspirator. Not as clunky as some blaxploitation films of its time (it's head and shoulders above the conceptually similar WILLIE DYNAMITE, for instance), but not particularly memorable either, and its attitude toward women is hard to stomach, particularly in a bizarre sequence where Goldie tries to build a cult of personality around himself. Its main virtue is the soundtrack by Willie Hutch; the movie is no classic, but Hutch's end-credits theme song ("Brother's Gonna Work It Out") definitely is. CONTAINS LESBIANS? Not in any meaningful way. VERDICT: Stick to the soundtrack album.
PATTY HEARST (1988): Dull, mostly unsatisfying attempt to dramatize Patty Hearst's 1974 kidnapping/recruitment by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), starring Natasha Richardson as Hearst. Based on Hearst's 1982 autobiography, it tries to convey her state of mind by sticking close to her point of view, beginning with her abduction and psychological torture/indoctrination at the hands of the SLA and its leader, Cinque (Ving Rhames), and ending with Hearst's conviction for crimes committed while part of the SLA. (Her sentence was commuted in 1979.) If you're not familiar with at least the basics of the story, you'll likely be completely lost, because the framing is deliberately disorienting, though never very engaging. In its determination to suggest that Hearst was non compos mentis through much of the period it depicts, the film leaves her something of a blank, and the portrayal of the other SLA members is thin and wooden; Rhames' charisma compensates to some extent, but costars Dana Delany, Frances Fisher, and William Forsythe are just not good enough to make up for the weakness of the script (which is by Nicholas Kazan, son of infamous HUAC collaborator Elia Kazan.) It only comes to life near the end, following Hearst's capture, which hints at a more interesting movie that failed to materialize. CONTAINS LESBIANS? Several of the other SLA members were wlw. VERDICT: Reading Hearst's Wikipedia entry and then watching the SLA pastiche in NETWORK (1976) would tell you just as much and be significantly more entertaining.
RAMBO: LAST BLOOD (2019): Seeing Stallone's engaging turn in TULSA KING gave me the misguided notion that maybe some of his other recent projects might be passable time-wasters. Not so this extremely dreary, very racist hokum about John Rambo, the improbably durable Troubled Vietnam Vet™ from Stallone's inexplicably popular '80s action series (originally based on a David Morrell novel, whose protagonist did not survive the story), trying to save the Latina granddaughter of his caretaker (Yvette Monreal) from evil Mexican human traffickers led by Sergio Peris-Mencheta (apparently taking time out from his role on SNOWFALL) with the help of Paz Vega. Why anyone thought the RAMBO series needed a fifth installment 11 years after the the previous movie (to which it's unrelated) is anyone's guess, but the results are wholly free of redeeming virtue — sadistic and jingostic almost from the jump, and most of the Mexican characters are played by Spaniards! I noped out after less than an hour. CONTAINS LESBIANS? No. VERDICT: If you want vicious racist bullshit about the evils of The Border, you could just watch presidential campaign ads (from either party) for free.
SERIAL MOM (1994): Appropriately ridiculous John Waters satire about deranged Baltimore housewife Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen Turner), who becomes a serial killer lashing out at anyone who tests her fragile sense of propriety. Eventually, she becomes a popular celebrity, even defending herself at her much-publicized murder trial. Sam Waterston, Ricki Lake and Matthew Lillard costar as her family, with an assortment of absurd cameos and supporting bits — Juror No. 8, whose white shoes (after Labor Day!) so offend Beverly during her trial, is played by Patty Hearst! The film doesn't quite find its groove until the nightclub scene (featuring L7 as "The Camel Lips"), and its satirical take on the derangement of straight white suburbia is not exactly deep (or subtle), but it remains fun, thanks mostly to Kathleen Turner's commitment to the bit; she's great. CONTAINS LESBIANS? Not as such — it's a Waters film about straight suburbia, so none of the characters are normal (gay). VERDICT: Tame by Waters standards, but a minor classic worth seeing for Turner alone.
