SF and Fantasy Movie Reviews Starting With V
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970 Czechoslovakia) NR
Genres: F
Watched: 21 min
Yeeow! This is so cryptic. Or rather, craptic. I think somehow the scenes got out of order. NR. And feh.
It's about a girl who gets her period for the first time and so enters a dreamlike state that features a vampire -- logically enough. The problem is, the dreamlike state of your average thirteen-year-old girl is boring nonsense. Or the problem could be that the director is an idiot. What were they thinking? Is it OK to have such a movie in Czechoslovakia? Those people are so messed up. Maybe now with the fall of Communism they will get straightened out. And get some tampons so they don't go around dripping blood on the daisies.
Answer: Trick question! There is no Czechoslovakia anymore.
Vampire Effect (2003 Hong Kong) 
Genres: Com Rom Hor F Act
This movie is stylish and cute. Everyone's outfits and hairstyles and homes and work spaces and fighting and flirting styles are stylish. The credits are stylish too, each item whooshing on and off with a stylish noise. At first it was kind of neat because credits don't normally do this, but it became annoying as it went on and on, and they were all for people with basically the same name, Chin or Chan or Cheng.
That the vampire prince moves into a church is understandable. There's vampire hunters operating in the city. (At first I was confused about why he moved into the church with his vampire retinue and then was running around killing vampires, but then I realized they were two different handsome young Chinese guys with gay hair.) My parents live down the street from a church. Lots of their Jewish friends live near churches too. It's an old instinct, for safety, since the pogrom will concentrate on the ghetto and probably won't bother with the block the church is on.
Perversely, the more I favorably compared the somewhat manlier but still effeminately coifed handsome vampire hunter to the girly boy vampire prince, in my mind and vocally, the more I wondered about the girly boy. Gosh what is that all about? I have never experienced the joy of either being friends with or dating a girly boy, and I suspect it's too late to start now. It never occurred to me to try it before but now that it has, I'm a bit depressed over having missed out. Yeah, I'm feeling a little wistful over the pretty silly giggly girly boy I never knew . . .
Hey there, girly boy,
Swinging down the street so fancily,
Nobody you meet could ever see
The manliness there inside you.
Hey there, girly boy,
Why do all the girls want you to call?
Could it be you like the mall,
Or is it your frosted hair?
Oh yes, that train has left the station, along with others that it wouldn't do to speculate on too much. Well, maybe I'll retire rich and then we'll see.
Vampire Hunters (2002 Hong Kong)
Genres: Hor F Act
The horror of being married into a strange family by unfeeling relatives out to enrich themselves is real enough, and a good plot basis to build on. China is so mysterious that when you marry into a strange family you may well get something really weird and dreadful. Luckily there's lots of civic-minded, highly skilled, and cute monks around to deal with this sort of thing. And wow, Chinese vampires are very dangerous.
Vampire's Kiss (1989)
Genres: Hor Com
A black comedy about the difficulties of metamorphosis, both for the one undergoing it and those around him.
Versus (2000 Japan) NR
Genres: Act F
Watched: 6.3 min
First there's an impressively badly shot fight which doesn't actually let you see the fighting and makes you queasy.
Then there's a sort of gangster fashion show, which is oddly enjoyable.
Videodrome (1983 Canada)
Genres: SF
I'm not clear on the particulars of what's going on and the end seems inconclusive. This is obviously done on purpose. Artsy movies have to be like this. Mainstream movies, like say Independence Day, have obvious plots and closure -- they can be really dumb and holey plots, but you know what they are, and the ends tend to be wrapped up. So if you want to differentiate your creation it has to make less sense. Unfortunately there are very many bad dimensions, and simply switching doesn't do much for me.
But, say you really are artistic, and fed up with Hollywood and want something imaginative, then where do you go? That's tough, but luckily in this case you are also much more likely to like getting high and having sex with men, and this combination clinches this as a great movie. Here's a sample:
"What do you want from me?"
"I want you to open up. Open up to me, Max."
Open up, so we can put various things into you. Like, you know, hands, and fists, and guns, and gun-fist amalgams -- nothing to violate the R rating. Cronenberg's movies are always like this, first there's hallucinations and then not-exactly-X-rated things get put into men.
Voices Of A Distant Star (2002 Japan)
Genres: Ani SF Rom Short
Told as a series of interplanetary phone messages between two pretty, inane teenagers, it's pretty but inane and boring. It's difficult to say why the battles go the way they do because the battles aren't the point -- they're just background for more teen prattle. Why do they go to Sirius? They got their butts kicked at Pluto. If they leave, won't the Tarsians go attack Earth? Apparently not but I don't know why. Then there is a big battle with the Tarsian fleet. I don't know what the battle plan is or what happens except insofar as it affects their relationship. Perhaps the whole thing is an ad for cell phones and text messaging.
Volere Volare (1991 Italy)
Genres: Com F
Like Italian movies often are, playful and both sweet and sad. The fantasy is well integrated and necessary in the plot in order to illustrate the relevant aspect of the human condition. Wilder Napalm is a US example of a movie that achieves this.
Volcano High (2001 South Korea)
Genres: F Act Com
A lovely presentation of Asian-style high-school angst. Of course it's mocked, but one gets to feel the hero's pain too. It helps that the angsty hero gets beat up a lot, with stylish martial arts.
Please note that all material on this page is Copyright © 2005 by D. Aline Lurie.
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