two shorts

oblivion [2013] 

is 50 the new 20?  i've heard something like that because tom cruise, at the age of 50, looks fantastic.  but the work he must endure everyday to maintain his musculature must be stupendous.  he is ripped without a grey hair in sight.  oh my.  and this movie is spectacularly beautiful.  fuck the plot.  i don't even know what this movie was about.  tom cruise lives in a house high in the sky with a comely red-head.  below them is the blasted ruins of earth.  tom repairs drones.  a ship crash lands on earth.  tom races to the crash site.  he finds a woman in a hibernation chamber.  mr cruise has had visions of this woman.  together cruise and this woman, also very comely, take down skynet.  yet there is a sleek beauty to the special fx.  it is wonderful to witness.  with so much eye candy on the screen the producers could afford to skimp on an adequate script.  there is a scene where cruise and his assistant have sex in a swimming pool with a glass bottom, at night, in the sky.  their bodies merge with the clouds.  gorgeous.

women behind bars [1975] 

fucking jess franco.  why do i like his movies?!  this is your standard WIP [women in prison] low budget film featuring franco's muse, the lovely lina romay.  romay wastes her gem thief boyfriend, gets thrown into the clink, while a couple of bozos chase her down for the jewels.  the lady ain't no dummy and plays a few cards her way.  this is your typical franco film.  too many zoom shots of faces and crotches.  franco frames many of his scenes with the cell bars in the foreground, emphasizing the prison part of the movie.  but the damn bars get in the way of seeing the action.  and the lighting is all for shit.  sometimes the screen is so muddy i couldn't tell what the hell was going on.  but as issa said, the world of franco is the world of franco. . .and yet. . .and yet.