Reviews

(1974) The Fish with the Eyes of Gold/ El pez de los ojos de oro (In Spanish with English subtitles) PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

It opens with a murder of a young bikini lady murdered on an isolated area of a beach from a man wearing scuba gear, while another man who happen to be boating witnessing the entire ordeal. And by the time he reach to the already dead lady, he was also chasing this culprit back into the ocean. The next scene has Derek (Wal Davis) hitchhiking who happen to witness a lady arguing with a guy we find out later his name is Marco (Rex Martín) while she was driving away. By the time she saw Derek, she then stops her car and decides to drive give him a ride. While both her and him are listening to the news on the car radio, we finally find out the name of the first victim, her name is Hildegard Aaron (Susana Taber). She then drives him to an lodge/ inn and rents one of the rooms with the intentions of sleeping with him. By the time Derek wakes up from boozing and sleeping it off, the lady who was nice enough to give him a lift is already been murdered, and while looking at her, he also notices she is missing a golden eye pendent around her neck before he packs up and escapes, presuming no one is going to believe him anyway by taking her vehicle. Meanwhile, we finally know a little more about the first witness who chased the killer back into the ocean after he witnessed a lady killed on front of him, we find out his name is Zachary Kendall (Ricardo Vázquez) an artist married to Virginia Kendall (Norma Kastell). At the same time, Zachery viewers also see traumatizing flashbacks of him as a little child as he stood their while his own father was stabbing his mother. Derek was planning to drive away, but until he saw authorities blocking the main road, he decided to ditch the vehicle and walk the rest of the way to his intended destination which is to meet Zachery who is also happens tied to the first murder as he is a witness. And by the time Derek explained to him about his complicated situation he then advised him it might be a good idea to go to the police and explain to the inspector what happened. During this was happening, viewers then see an unknown killer with a sniper rifle, and it looks as though he was ready to use it, until another art student walks in her name is Marina (Ada Tauler). And just when you think someone was going to be knocked off, Virginia closes the shades. Down the line we know more about the guy we saw at the opening, Marco (Rex Martín) who takes money from wealthy women, who Derek had saw was arguing with the second victim, Monica (Monserrat Proust), he was supposed to be most likely suspect to have killed those women.

As it turned out there are two murderers, one happens to be Marco to which he denied he ever killed and murdered anyone; and Zachery who murdered because he is unable to get over his dad stabbing his own mother on front of him. That Marco ignited the trauma as soon as he saw him murdered the first victim, viewers are never explained why he did in the first place. What is also dumb is the way the second or fourth victim are killed- it is like no one locks their doors anymore, even when couples are like making out and stuff. And if Zachery already knew who the first murder is, why didn't he tell that to authorities, Why wasn't Marco charged and arrested for the first murder! We never even find out the person who was hiding in the bushes and was pointing his sniper rifle on them when all Zachery' his wife Virginia, Derek and Marion were altogether. I also do not think Zachery could be two places at once if he had his hands burned.

At first I presumed it was Marion's father, since the movie was running out of suspects if it was not Marco, and made even less sense when it turned out to be Zachery.

(1975) Night Moves CRIME MYSTERY THRILLER

The set up has LA private eye, Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) hired by washed up starlet and actress, Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward) to find her runaway daughter, Delly Grastner (Melanie Griffith) and then bring her back to her. Harry's first lead is a Hollywood mechanic, Quentin (James Woods) that leads him to other former acquaintances. At the same time, Harry's own marriage is also in trouble as he catches his own wife, Ellen (Susan Clark) being intimate with someone else after leaving the theater. He then manages to find Delly in an isolated area on the waterfront located in Florida living with her stepfather, Tom Iverson (John Crawford) and his wife, Paula (Jennifer Warren). At first, Delly was not aware about the purpose of Harry's presence, and as soon he tells her he is paid to return her back to LA she becomes upset, and then tells him the reason she wants her mother to come back was for the money. At this point, viewers are not explained how Delly's mother able to benefit from her financially being there it just is. To calm things down, Harry decides to just hang around there without force. Tom suggests to Paula to take the boat and take Delly out swimming out in the ocean Harry comes with them. And while Delly swims in the ocean nude, other than the goggles for her eyes, she suddenly spots a plane wreckage and calls Paula over. When Delly investigates the wreckage further, she also finds a dead body in the wreckage as well, and she almost drowned herself had it not been for Harry jumping into the ocean himself and bring her back into the boat. Paula then leaves a beacon/ tracker on the area so that authorities are able to get involve and investigate it. By the time they go back ashore, Delly who is still traumatized, could not get over it, and during the night, she finally decides she wants to go back to LA.. As soon as Harry returns back to collect his paycheck, almost immediately Delly is already arguing with her mother, with mechanic, Quentin on the driveway. Before Harry drives away, he first observes the dysfunctional that was happening. Just when you think the case was closed- it's not. Harry finds out Delly has been killed accidentally killed in a stunt gone wrong with stunt driver, Joey Ziegler (Edward Binns) on the driver's side with Delly as the passenger. The first thing in Harry's mind was murder, to after watching the entire accident on some news reel, the first person that came into his mind was Quinton the mechanic, who may have rigged the car Joey was driving. After Harry confronts Quinton about it, he managed to beat a confession out of him with the fact the reason she was killed may be because of the plane wreckage before he manages to runaway himself. At first, Harry presumed Delly's mother may have something to do with it as she will somehow be enriched as a result of her death, but after he made a few inquiries about the wreckage itself as it turned out it was Tom Iverson and Paula had something to do with Delly's murder. Quinton is then killed by Tom this was because he told Harry too much. During a scrimmage with Tom, Harry manages to knock him unconscious with him and Paula searching the plane wreckage together for the head statue that was discovered illegally smuggled.

The confusion for me was when I first saw this, I thought it was Tom the one who was flying the sea plane at end that killed Paula, but as it turns out it was an already injured stunt coordinator, Joey Ziegler the one who was the culprit, something Harry may have missed after he got everything else right. This raises the question why didn't they try to kill Harry as well he too also knows all about the wreckage. He may have not know the person who died in their but he was also a witness. And throughout the entire time this had happened, why authorities were not involve with the accident that killed Delly!

The first time I saw this, as a matter of fact I tried watching it on TV and by renting it a few times and I did not like it on all of those times. On all of those occasions I tried watching it, they were without subtitles or the close captioning. As soon as it was shown on TCM with the close captioning I was able to grasp at the situation a little more. Although I gave it a pass, the ending was still a little convoluted. We do not know why one of the killers, Joey Ziegler was permitted to fly a plane after his serious injury who can clearly be seen wearing his arm cast as Harry was able to see him through the glass pane at the bottom of the boat.

(2001) Fat Girl (In French with English subtitles) DRAMA

Written and directed by Catherine Breillat that has "fat girl", Anaïs Pingot (Anaïs Reboux) walking with her older sister, Elena Pingot (Roxane Mesquida) and they decide to stop at an outside diner. And while many of the seats were filled, another older student, Fernando (Libero De Rienzo) invited both of them to sit next to him. Anais went to sit on the seat right next to his, but his older sister Elena then bullies her out of their and sits their instead. And when the waiter asks what each of them want, Anais then asks for a banana split while Elena asks for a glass of water as it was obvious from the get go she was trying to get Fernando to notice her by flirting with him. Elena then asks Anais to walk home by herself while she takes the other seat of his two seat convertible. Fernando then drives Elenia far enough to reach her sister, it is then both walk the rest of the way. At this point, we can presume, Elenia does not mind humiliating Anais about her weight and so forth on front of others and then by the time both have their alone time is when she tries to make up with her. And it is not just Elenia who does this, but their mom and dad as well. This happens throughout the rest of the movie except for the final five minutes.

The ending made no sense at all, as the mother played by Arsinée Khanjia did not want to deal with the humiliation anymore after finding out that the expensive ring Fernando gave to Elenia he had no permission to do in the first place, which forced them to cut their vacation short, upsetting both sisters. And after the mother is driving for very long hours, decides not to rent a motel for the night. The mother then decides to just park her car on the side of the road while Anais notices a crazy trucker slowly passing by them. And while both Elenia and the mother are sleeping on the front seat, the crazy trucker then uses a pry bar to first smash the front window, before he uses it on the sister Elenia. He then chokes the mother to death while Anais just continues to stand their shocked at what she just saw. He then drags Anais to the woods where he rapes her. The next scene is then show authorities already their seeing both Elenia and the mom killed. Slowly they then discover Anais being comforted by two officers where she denies he even assaulted her. That was supposed to show Anais kept her promise she made to herself that if she were to lose her virginity she would not have admitted to it. This leads to the first question, how a crazy man would be killing two women so that he can make out with someone who is clearly obese. That makes no sense. The other inconsistency is why would a mother with the money she has decide to put her and her daughters in a defenseless situation, and be confident to choose to sleep inside of a car on the side of the road as opposed to renting a motel for one night. A much more credible scenario is the mother would have rented a motel for the night both for her and her two daughters so that they can avoid obvious scenarios such as that one. That the reason it ended the way that it did was because the writer/ director may have ran out of funding or that producers refused anymore funding the reason she imposed the ending that made no sense to anyone who has seen it whatsoever. I was involved until the ending Catherine could not resist to sticking that dumb asinine ending.

(1978) The Grapes of Death/ Les raisins de la mort (In French with English subtitles) HORROR

Co-written and directed by Jean Rollin that showcases a small village aiding their farm by spreading pesticides, when one of them becomes nauseous. We are then taken aboard a train with only two friends on board, of Élizabeth and Brigitte become fast friends as one of one of them decide to use the washroom to freshen up. A man with some dissfiguration on his face enters into the train, and as soon as Élizabeth pops her head out to see whether her friend is coming back. She doesn't but what does show up is the infected man who walks straight directly to her compartment and begins to attack her forcing her to runaway. And she stumbles onto her friend, who is already dead. Élizabeth manages to run away and stumble onto an infected father and his daughter.

Who had thought one person can be responsible for so much misery and death. Who had thought one person in this example can call Élizabeth can be responsible even more misery and death. Élizabeth should have been the first person to be infected and face death. She was responsible for her friend, Brigette to get killed by not standing by the bathroom door just as she did for her; she was Mirella Rancelot responsible for the death of the blind girl, Lucie (Mirella Rancelot) by not telling her the truth about the infection of the village and letting the door open; Élizabeth shot and murdered the only two people who saved her life of Paul (Felix Marten) and Francois who brought her safely to the villa where she was supposed to have meet her fiance, Michel (Michel Herval). I as a viewer would prefer Élizabeth to be the first one to be killed or be infected as I became more less sympathetic with her since it was her fiance who created the entire mess in the first place. He owned the villa and created an already infected pesticide. Viewers are also kept in the dark why the blonde girl, (Brigitte Lahaye) did not like her and were conspiring with the infected. The two stars I give this movie is basically for the idea and not so much for the way the movie was handled.