Entry Fourteen

Fierce Creatures: A follow up to the hilarious A Fish Called Wanda, starring and made by the same cast and crew. A multi-national corporation takes over the running of the zoo, and instructs the existing managers and keepers that they must make a 20% profit or the zoo will be sold. While it's nowhere near as good as their previous effort, it does have some inspired moments, usually featuring the ever reliable John Cleese.

A Fistful of Dynamite: Slightly rambling, but thoroughly entertaining western about two men who are drawn into the mexican civil war. Directed by perfectionist Sergio Leone, it frequently looks spectacular with a couple of standout set-pieces, such as an assault on a bridge or the round-up of suspected insurrectionists. James Coburn and Rod Steiger are decent as the leads, though struggle a little with their accents, but it's a pleasing couple of hours.

How to Get the Man's Foot Outta Yer Ass: Also known as the slightly simpler 'Badasssss', this is Mario Van Peebles biopic of his own father's making of the seminal Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which opened the door to the blaxploitation sub-genre and the idea of black actors being film leads. It's an interesting dynamic, further enhanced by the scenes involving Melvin and his son, Mario. It seems fairly faithful, and with a good cast, it's a fascinating documentation of a important film.

The Green Slime: This Sci-Fi flick is very silly, practically incompetent, but it's fun nonetheless. A meteor that's on a collision course towards earth is blown up but a mysterious slime is transported onto a space station which grows into green monsters and attacks the inhabitants. Directed by Kinji Fukasaka of Battle Royale fame, it's a standard cheapie from Japan, only notable for its English speaking cast.

Green Light: 30s melodrama starring Errol Flynn as a doctor who covers for a friend when their patient dies, only to fall in love with the deceased woman's daughter, who harbours a hate against the man who supposedly killed her mother, who unknowingly falls in love with him. I hope that makes sense. It's not bad, as these things go, with a surprisingly good performance from Flynn.

The Search: Powerful drama about children returning from internment camps after the end of the second World War. One boy, after years of abuse and neglect, is mistrustful of the American authorities trying to relocate his parents and runs away, he eventually bonds with an American GI (Montgomery Clift in his first screen appearance) who teaches the boy English. Filmed in 1948 in Germany, it has the ring of authenticity that matches the naturalistic performances from the children.

Pigs: Also known as Daddy's Deadly Darling, this 70s horror movie is total crap. A woman arrives in a small town and is employed as a bartender. The owner of the bar is a crazy person, who keeps deadly pigs and is suspected of feeding them human corpses. The woman is hiding a secret, and improbably, the two bond, much to the mutual discomfort of the local townsfolk. The twists are obvious, most of the performances are appalling, and technically, it's cheap and amateurish.